So, when I told Frank at 1Up that game sites had, in the past, donated a box of review games to Desert Bus for auction, I never expected something of this magnitude. If you–like me–grew up reading countless piles of EGM magazines, you probably wondered where all the pre-release copies of games went after they’d been reviewed. Well, if you’re lucky, now they can go to you!

The folks at 1Up have dug into their massive game library to produce this immense auction lot of games from the 1Up and EGM libraries. These are mostly review copies, played by 1Up staff, and are–in many cases–marked as such. Whether you’re an EGM fan looking for a piece of history or a collector looking to bolster your library, be sure to tune in at 4:30 for what should be a pretty insane live auction!

Also, be sure to drop the folks at 1Up a line for some of the best game editorial and podcasts out there!

Complete listing after the break.

PlayStation 2

Ace Combat 5
Capcom Fighting Evolution (new)
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
Commandos Strike Force (new)
From Russia With Love
Front Mission 4
Jak II
Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter
Midway Arcade Treasures 1
Namco Museum (Greatest Hits edition)
Phantasy Star Universe (new)
Red Faction II
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (Greatest Hits edition)
Secret Weapons Over Normandy
Sly 2 Band of Thieves
Spartan Total Warrior
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy
Star Trek Conquest
Star Trek Shattered Universe
Star Wars Bounty Hunter
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow (new)
Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition
Winning Eleven 9 (new)

Xbox

Advent Rising
Aliens vs. Predator Extinction
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (new)
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (new)
Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman: Contacts
Karaoke Revolution
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
Otogi: Myth of Demons
Project: Snowblind (new)
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow (used from gamestop)
Star Wars Jedi Starfighter
Star Wars Starfighter Special Edition (new)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Game Boy Advance

Duke Nukem Advance
F-14 Tomcat
FIFA Soccer 2004
Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (new)
Max Payne
Medal of Honor: Infiltrator
Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue Edition
Oddworld: Munch’s Odysee
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Road to WrestleMania X8
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (new)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
V-Rally 3 (new)
World Poker Tour

Nintendo DS

Front Mission

PSP

Alien Syndrome (new)
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (new)
Star Ocean: Second Evolution (new)
Traxxpad Portable Studio (new)
World Poker Tour

Windows

Marvel Heroes Comic Book Creator (new)
Wolfenstein (the 2009 game)

PlayStation 3

Dead to Rights: Retribution (new)
Full Auto 2
Mafia II Collector’s Edition (new)

Xbox 360

Singularity (new)
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (new)
Toy Story 3 (new)
Street Fighter IV Blanka GamePad

Wildstorm Videogame Comic Books

Assassin’s Creed: The Fall #1
Dante’s Inferno #1
Gears of War (graphic novel) (hardcover)
Gears of War #s 7-10
Modern Warfare 2 Ghost #s 1-2
Ratchet & Clank #1
Resistance (graphic novel)

Justin McElroy is a podcasting legend, famous for his hard work on the Joystiq podcast and his new project. My Brother, My Brother and Me. He is also the reviews editor for Joystiq.com, star of The Time Belt, and a generally fantastic human being.

Justin will be calling in to wish our drivers well at 3:30 PM PST, and we’re very much looking forward to hearing from him. You should too, so check in on the drivercam in half an hour!

Sideshow Collectables is a former film prop manufacturer that now produces high-quality and limited-edition merchandise. Their action figures are amazing, and we’re super happy to have them to auction off for the children. Graham, as a connoisseur of action figures, has plenty to drool about in their extensive catalogue, which we encourage you to visit at www.sideshowtoy.com.

The 1Up Network has long provided a fantastic meeting point between games editorial and social networking, and we’re super happy to have their support with this year’s Desert Bus. Huge thanks so the 1Up network for providing not only great moral support, but an amazing prize pack, to be auctioned off at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon! Because they’re so awesome, we think you should visit 1Up at 1Up.com … and make sure to sign up because as they put a game layer in their game site … so you can game while you game.

While the Escapist is largely a gaming site, Elizabeth Grunewald is tasked with filling out its content with insightful commentary on other forms of media. From film to television to books, she provides on-point informative, and often opinionated articles a vast number of subjects.

She’ll be calling in to extend some of her experience to the crew of Desert Bus, so tune in at 4pm to catch her call.

If you have any questions for Elizabeth, be sure to leave them in the comments of this post so we can address them on-air.

Chances are, if you own a modern video game system, you’ve played or at least been exposed to a game overseen by this man: if not, then certainly one made on his engine. Mike Capps is the president of Epic games, creators of the Unreal series, the Gears of War series, Shadow Complex, and the forthcoming Bulletstorm and Infinity Blade.

Mike will be joining us to wish us well on our live boradcast today at noon, so be sure to tune in! Also, if you have any questions you’d like us to ask Mike, send them along and we’ll try to include them in the call.

Sponsor Showcase : THQ Entertainment

Yet another new sponsor this year is THQ! They donated not one, but two super epic prize packs of Wii and DS games. We’re not talking about just a few games, but twelve (12!) Wii games in one package! We’d direct you our auctions page, but we were so excited about the prizes we already gave them away!

Thank you to THQ for their generous prize donations! Please visit them online at http://www.thq.com/us.

Catching up, yes: we beat 115k as well, thanks to the amazing power of Matt’s animal magnetism. Possibly the closest anyone’s come to literally prostituting themselves for the children, but still totally worth it!

Sorry that these are gettign less frequent, even as doantions continue to increase: we’ve been very busy on camera, hustling for donations! I’ll attempt to do these with greater promptness.

Last year, we were approached by a gentleman named Michael Lunsford, who offered to make a poster chronicling that year’s Desert Bus, to be put up for auction near the conclusion of the event. While we normally don’t accept late donations of art and such for the craft-a-long, we made an exception for Mike based on the incredible quality of the draft he submitted.

The final product was well worth a little rules bending.

This year, Mike’s been hard at work again, producing a poster based on this year’s events. You may have seen us ooing and ahing over the drafts as he’s emailed them to us, and he’s now produced a near-final version, which should very closely resemble the final product. We’ll be auctioning the finished poster near the end of the event, so stay tuned!

For more of Michael Lunsford’s work, also check out his webcomic, Supernormal Step.