Happy labor day! To celebrate the holiday, each of the OXM editors are sharing stories of the games they went to extraordinary measures to procure:

I didn't toil too hard for any of the games I bought back in the day because I was a big fan of renting games from videostores. I'd pore over the the stacks and shelves for whatever I wanted to play...except for anything RPG-related. Those I had to own. Case in point, Phantasy Star IV on Genesis. That thing was a monster and the packaging claimed it was "the biggest cartridge to date" with all of its hundreds of kilobytes of RAM or whatever. I had lived and loved through the other PS games (along with the rest of Genesis' paltry number of RPGs at the time) -- but the price tag on PSIV was ridonkulous. It was selling for $95, new. I was a broke student and that was just too much money to fork over. But there was no way I could rent it - it would end up costing exactly the same amount in rental fees. So, instead, I begged and pleaded with my two older sisters (who had, like y'know, jobs) to lend me the scratch to buy the game. It took a few months, but eventually they caved and gave it to me for my birthday. I couldn't be happier. So, when people complain that $50-60 is too much to pay for a game, I always remember PSIV's $90-plus price sticker and snicker. And all the whimpering and being annoying to my sisters? To this day, still totally worth it. -Francesca Reyes, Editor-in-Chief

Before my Magnavox Odysseyý, the first real system I had was my TRS-80. I made weekly visits to my local Radioshack store to drool over the latest selection of cassettes - that's right, the games came on cassette tapes. Having mastered Pyramid, I set my sights on the text adventure game, Raaka-tu. I didn't have much money and I was too young to do anything but mow lawns, so I never had enough cash to buy more than one game every few months. During the summer, a buddy of mine went on vacation, and I decided to take over his paper route. Just like the game Paperboy, the main object of my afternoon was to get papers to the right subscribers without breaking any windows. I had to dodge little old lady drivers and out ride barking dogs. After the route was done and I got home, I'd get a call from the paper and I would have to go back out and hit houses that I'd missed. It was a killer summer that left me with sore legs and sunburned skin, but I made enough for Raaka-tu AND Bedlam. -David Cordon, Art Director

Longtime OXMonline.com readers may remember this story, but as a kid, I wanted a Colecovision so badly, I was willing to do anything to raise the cash. I'd spent a couple of years of paper-route money filling comic boxes with bagged-and-boarded Marvel comics, but once I set my sights on dazzling wonders like Venture, all I cared about was getting my hands on those calculator-shaped controllers. After selling my comic collection (valued at at least $1,000, according to price guides) to my neighbor Ronald for a ridiculously low $36, I finally had enough money. I bought my Colecovision...and have felt like a dope ever since. At least Looping was awesome! -Corey Cohen, Exective Editor

I had most of the major videogame consoles up through the 16-bit era, but there was a catch: I never had more than one at a time. My parents never allowed me to have more than one in the house, so anytime I wanted a new system I had to save my money for months, sell or trade-in my current console and games, and hope I had a birthday or Christmas rolling around sometime soon so that they'd help me make up whatever cash was left. I had the Nintendo, TurboGrafx-16, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbo Duo, a second Super NES, a second Genesis (with Sega CD!), and finally an Atari Jaguar. It always pained me each time I had to give one up...except for the Jaguar. Aliens vs. Predator aside, that system was a dud. -Ryan McCaffrey, Senior Editor

Unfortunately, I don't have any hard luck stories on getting a game. The biggest hassle I think I've ever faced was when I was a kid and my town literally sold out of "Super Mario Bros. 3" on release day (before pre-orders, yo!), so my Mom drove me almost an hour into the "big city" (not a big city) to pick up a copy. I remember holding that yellow SNES case in my hands for the first time, seeing Mario with animal ears and a raccoon tail flying across the cover, and knowing my life was about to change. -Kevin Smith, Features Editor

After a shockingly easy time convincing our dad to get us an SNES while at Toys'R'Us (I provided the grown-up reasoning by noting the bundle now finally came with two controllers and two free videogames; my younger brother handled the enthusiastic, "Daddy, please??") - I decided to round out my 16-bit experience and save up for a Genesis.  I didn't have an allowance, would've been abandoned in the street if I'd requested a second system for a birthday or Christmas, and was still too young to get a job...so I did what all Chinese kids would do.  I hoarded the money from New Year's envelopes and random visits to my grandparents, adding crisp $1 and $5 bills to a ratty envelope over the course of a few years.  Finally, when I reached my goal, I ... didn't pull the trigger.  By that time, my brother'd received a Game Gear, and the experience of being tethered to a wall in order to play Sonic had so soured me on Sega, I gave up on the idea.  I still have that envelope, though. -Alaina Yee, Managing Editor

Across the board, my body, my wallet, and my PlayStation were taxed heavily to partake in my favorite fighting game ever, the Japan-only Tobal 2. In order to play the game, I had to subject my PlayStation to certain... changes, which were not cheap. There was only one video game store that would perform this dangerous operation and could procure the game for me, a smaller chain called Microplay that was roughly five miles from my home. Not wanting to make my parents aware of the triple-digit figure I was paying for a single game, I had to bike my way to the store. It wasn't too strenuous getting to the store, but when I left, I realized my uncoordinated body would not be able to ride a bike while holding a somewhat heavy bag featuring very valuable contents. So I made an hour-plus-trek home, my soon-to-be-obsession in one hand, my Huffy in the other, dreaming up the ways the game would improve upon the original. Thankfully, it did, and I'd gladly walk five miles in both directions if they ever released the game in the US. -Dave Rudden, Web Editor

Images courtesy Mobygames.