Introduce yourself

[HdE]

Welcome HdE.

Hope you enjoy your stay.

Cheers! I'm just hoping you folsk will LET me stay.

I've no idea how active I'll manage to be on the forum, just because of how crazy busy my work keeps me. But I'll chime in when I can.

[KeithFE759]

Keith, 45, proud owner of an Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Colour, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and an Xbox One to name a few. Heard about the forums from a magazine and hoping enjoy my time on this forum! Come on England, it's coming home!

[Gamer Guy]

hi im nick and im an alcoholic....

um....

no wait...

hi im nick

[wiredworm]

Hi,

I'm Pete and i've been reading Retro Gamer magazine for more years than I care to remember now.

Been gaming since the early 80's. I think our first console was probably the Atari VCS and from there we jumped to the ZX Spectrum before acquiring a number of other computers, including the C64, Amstrad CPC6128, Commodore Amiga. From that point I went to he console era in the approximate order of Sega Megadrive, SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2 and then to the more recent platforms like PS3, Xbox 360 and now the PS4 and Xbox One.

Spent a lot of time back in the day loitering around the arcade of Cleethorpes. Still take the kids down there from time to time although it's largely 2p pushers and slot machines now. Thankfully there are a few newer games doing the rounds so I might occasionally have a few goes on one of those.

Interests? Well, video games obviously but also music, movies and anything technology related. I work in IT for a living so it's hard for me to escape technology at any point during the day.

Figured after all this time I should maybe consider joining another forum. Previously I could be found on YakYak or Rodent and I still post on the latter with fair regularity (not so much YY, but that's just because I don't have much to contribute there).

Cheers

Pete

Edit: I missed a few other consoles i've had over the years. N64, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, 3DS, Wii-U. Still have a Spectrum+ and N64 rigged up just so I can get my nostalgia fix.

[Dgamer]

I'm Dan, 32 years old and looking to start a retro collection. I have a few bits and bobs but always had a love for old school games.
Alex the Kidd, Sonic, Street Fighter...Zelda, all the usual classics. Sadly not many people I know share the same passion so would be nice to chat to people that do! Feel free to inbox me. I'm thinking about starting a retro website/shop too, with eventually opening a real shop. That would be a dream of mine. Feel free to get in touch.

[RetroBob]

Welcome Dan!

[oldtimer]

Ive been here years!
Was an oldtimer when I started so god knows what I am now!
Atari Atari Atari is my interest.

[AgeOfRetron]

Hi,

I'm new here. Despite my screen name, I'm actually more of a Retro-Bit guy; I just thought it sounded really cool. Anyway, I grew up on all the old 8-Bit and 16-Bit titles, and I've never really been able to totally part with the games of old. I'm not sure if it's just the amazing box art of Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell (featured on Golden Axe II & Eternal Champions), or if it's simply the fact that the old games actually feel like games instead of just fancy interactive movies? Now don't get me wrong, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid do occupy a soft spot in my heart, but not as much for their replay value so much as an art piece. The progression of your standard PSX titles felt really linear and closed ended; sometimes there would be different endings depending on player performance, but they still generally felt like the same game over and over again, it got repetitive very quickly. While the same could probably be said of old platform shooters like Contra/Probotector, there's just something about playing games with such hectic battles that just never gets old. Though the graphics on Road Rash look primitive and cartoony by today's standards, it still holds its own as one of the best racing games of all time; it feels fresh and new every single time that you play it, it's just too bad that the player's rivals never say anything original that wasn't pre-programmed into the game. Somebody will probably make a mod that does that eventually? Anyway, my favorite titles from the PS2 Era were Dynasty Warriors 3, Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2, Soul Calibur series, and Seek and Destroy. Favorite games from the PSX Era: Twisted Metal 1 & 2, Road Rash 3D, Dino Crisis 2, and the Tekken series. I never really could get into Tomb Raider because I always got lost navigating those dark maps where you can't see anything. It feels weird how the Post 16-Bit Era games are all considered classics now. It still feels like it was not that long ago to me.

[buddy1983]

Hi, I'm Buddy from the UK. I have a decent retro games and current gen collection, big fan of the N64 and Megadrive.

Started gaming with the Vic 20 and C64 back in the day and moved onto the MD. Been an avoid gamer for many years and dont see it slowing down anytime soon
looking forward to joining the discussions with you guys

[RetroBob]

Welcome Buddy, first new member of the year!

[buddy1983]

Cheers Bob, looking forward to jumping into the conversations.

Happy new year

[pratty]

Welcome bubdy and AOR, hope you stick around.

[srj672]

Hello all!

I'm Jonesy, from London originally but now living in Salford, and I've been reading Retro Gamer for a good few years now!

My first console was a NES, but the real platform for me growing up was DOS, as my brother insisted PC was best. I never lost my love for Nintendo, and I pined for a SNES like my mates and sort of had one through the power of emulation.

Fast forward a few years, and to celebrate my first flat in Birmingham, I treated myself to a Wii and haven''t looked back since. Thanks to the good graces of a workmate, my collection was given a shot in the arm and is taking shape! I've a lover of all things Nintendo, and especially Mario, and my ambition is to play through every main series Super Mario game, and write about my experiences on a blog.

Aside from old games, I love loud heavy metal, stoner and doom as well as all sorts of music. I play bass is an instrumental "heavy space rock" band, and love watching rugby. Looking forward to meeting you all, and reminicing on the good old days, and finding new old classics to play.

[bartread]

Hi everyone,


I'm Bart, and I'm a retro gamer... well, actually just a gamer, although I suck at modern online games so tend to avoid them... living in the Cambridge area. I've actually been lurking around RetroGamer for a while, reading articles and suchlike, but haven't got involved in the forum up until now.

I started out gaming on Defender in the local social club, and on my cousin's rubber-keyed Spectrum 48K. I then got my own Spectrum 48K+ (improved plastic keyboard by this time), started playing games and programming in BASIC. Shortly after this I also got an Atari 2600 Junior which, for a *very* long time was the only games console I'd ever owned. Then got a Commodore 64, which was great (although harder to program), but I only had it for about a year before I got my favourite computer of all time: an Amiga A500 with a 1MB RAM expansion. That thing was a revelation at the time, and I got a copy of AMOS with it, which was great (with hindsight I think Blitz might have been the better option but, oh well, AMOS was still awesome).

I fell out of gaming, except round at friends houses, in the early-mid 90s and only got back into it intermittently from the year 2000 onwards, before picking it up a bit more seriously again over the past 3 - 4 years. There were various reasons for this: our school went mixed when I went into the 6th form, and then the tech moved on and I couldn't afford a PC or one of the 32-bit consoles. Also I knew full well I'd fail my degree if I bought a PS1 or an N64 (not an idle concern: this pretty much happened to one of my friends, who managed to scrape a 3rd by the skin of his teeth because he spent all day every day playing Goldeneye, Turok, and various Mario games).

I did spend quite a bit of time playing games at friends' houses: DOOM, Quake (which I never enjoyed as much), Wipeout, the original GTA, Goldeneye, and lots of driving/racing games (particularly on the PS1), before moving on to PC games around the year 2000, particularly FPSs like UT, Q3A, and the Half-Life series, but also Need For Speed, and Fable. I kind of looked down on consoles at the time although, with hindsight, this was a mistake and I feel like I missed out on quite a lot as a result.

Not unlike srj672 I finally bought myself a Wii shortly after I moved into the first house I bought. Played it obsessively for the first year or two, and quite regularly after that. Fair to say it definitely helped bring me back into gaming: Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, House of the Dead: Overkill, and the 2010 Goldeneye remake are amongst many games I've enjoyed on that system. I eventually picked up a PS3 in 2013, and this was really the beginning of getting to the situation I now find myself in where I've picked up, as cheaply as possible, a bunch of other older consoles, and loads of games along the way. My collection isn't that big, but I still think I own more games than I can realistically play through within the remainder of my lifetime.

A few years ago I also started working on some remakes of classic arcade games. This was just a programming side project to help me get better with client-side web tech, and particularly JavaScript, and nowadays I work on it from time to time just to keep my hand in with programming because I don't get to do much of it at work any more. I've written a version of Asteroids, called Shoot the Rocks, which you can find at https://arcade.ly/games/asteroids/, and a version of Star Castle, called Star Citadel, which you can find at https://arcade.ly/games/starcastle/. Feel free to send me any feedback/suggestions if you decide to give the a go.

Will look forward to chatting with you on here. Nowadays I also go to three or four retro events every year, usually up north, so I might bump into some of you face to face as well!


Bart

[dste]

Welcome to the forum bartread.

I was similar to you in falling out of gaming but just slightly later in around 2000/2001. It was around 6/7 years later when I picked up a Wii that I got back in to it and have since made up for lost time.