zeropolis79

Ten years ago, I never thought I'd play games like The Sims or Animal Crossing. I was also not a big fan of Zelda or that but I am now. I find the time to play RPG style games, even if it's upto 2 hours or I do a bit and save at teh first avaliable save point, ready to continue another time. I recall doing the SeeD exam on Final Fantasy VIII over the course of two weeks.

Thanks for that! Just need to print it out.

My biggest regret: Selling all my retro computing collection in 1998 when I had a wedding coming up along with the birth of my first child. We needed the room and the money - the two of us were at college at the time. I had just about every machien you could get in the UK between 1984 - 1996 - some were brought second hand. They had boxes and all. I kept the N64 - I'd not long had it and was awaiting Ocarina of Time, my PC (of course) and a Gameboy Original (mainly because both me and the wife liked using it). In all, I got about £2,500 for the whole lot, sold to seperate people. Over the next few years, I brought replacements of 8 bit computers but sold them later on when I got offered good money. - I'm now getting the stuff back but it's not easy with the prices people charge. I now have a dedicated room (made easier with teh neighbours gone (we brought their house cheap - they won the lottery and moved into a bigger house and made some modifications.)) - Second regret - not paying £15 for a Jaguar over the car boot sale last year. Regret 3: Not paying £5 for a 2600 plus games three weeks ago at the same car boot sale

Along with retro computing, I collect stuff to do with the sci-fi series Doctor Who. i've seen people walking the local car boot sale about with (then very rare) videotapes. One very near miss involved magazines - I brought some from a person for 10p each and he promised to keep anymore by for me if he dug out more. He did and came to teh car boot sale the following week and promptly sold them to someone else. My near misses are mainly involved with the pricing of things, but these days, retro computing goodies are hard to come by over the boot sale. I did see an 2600 two weeks ago but had no money left..

Well, looking at it, it wouldn't seem to be too tricky, although why you would want to put turn a original GB into a GBA SP compatiable machine, unless you want to take advantage of the new screen. I'll have to see if I can get hold of a spare GB (they turn up cheap over the car boot sale enough. Doesn't matter if it doesn't work.. Will also have to find a SP to use (I don't really want to dismantle our only SP for research). If such a job seems feasable, I'll see if I can do it for you.

Will have to try this when I get the chance - give me an excuse to plug my mint in box Dreamcast keyboard in!

Well, I've made my contribution and posted it off to the powers that be..

This, actually is my very first blog! Not something I would have thought I'd start writing, but while sitting in my workshop, unable to get to sleep because of the blooming neighbors banging and slaming doors again, I thought I'd give it a try. I've mentioned my three children in posts on the board, but not really gone into details. But today, we did some major things involving one of them so here we go. Our youngest daughter Serenity, aged 16 months, was actually one of twin girls born in November 2007. Her sister was stillborn. We never found out why, but we later discovered that Ren (we call her that most of the time) was born deaf. Today, we took Ren to the local hospital where she recived her first hearing aid. Unlike ones used by older children or members of the elderly, this isn't a powerful one but it allows her to hear in a way. It's been recommended that we turn it off and remove it at bedtimes or nap times, and when she turns 4, she'll be elligable for a better one. Work has dried up a lot because of the recession. I work as a freelance video editor but now even my regular clients are now shopping around for people willing to do the same job but for a very cheap price. I'm lucky to be able to retain a few clients who won't go anywhere else, but they are having to cut down on the number of videos that are ordered. Some companies are setting up in-house video editing departments and so puts me out of a job. Luckly, I still have a regular job as the maintainer of the computer network at the wife's school. right, time for me to return to bed before the wife goes mad.

My rules for my collecting 1) Anything I get has to be at a resonable price. The most I've paid for a second hand system is £40 for an Amiga 600 but that came with a ton of games on top of everything else and it also included postage (I brought it from someone on LemonAmiga). The highest though, is £60 plus p&p for a Megadrive with MegaCD and Master System adaptor plus tons of games. 2) Games I buy for any of the systems I have have to be in reasonable condition and at a fair price. Over my local car boot sale last week, I picked up 6 games for hte Megadrive and Master System for £5. 3) For consoles, genuine games only. when it comes to the Amiga and ST, I don't mind pirate games because in some cases, that is the best way to get certain game. For instance, I've never seen a geuine copy of Escape from Colditz and that is one of my favourite games on the Amgia. 4) Packaging is not important, because most of the time, it'll just get filed away where it will gather dust. A few older games with good packaging will be dismantled and either thrown away or cut up to stick in scrapbooks or something like that.

Since my original posts, I have since expanded my obsesseions with the franchises listed. I now have the Japanese imports of the Final Fantasy VII and VIII soundtracks. The first one cost me £5 over the local car boot sale while VIII was a gift from a friend of mine. I also have the Final Fantasy VIII - X2 singles collection CD. For other franchises, I don't really have anything new except for special edition guide books for Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass. PS: On teh Doctor Who message board at Outpost Gallifrey, my username is phantom_hourglass, but I don't know if it counts or not.

I decided to play Star Wars: Rebel Assault on my Sega CD/Mega CD the other day and thought it OK compared to the PC version. For those who don't know, it removes the option to play as either male or female and the controls are a bit sticky. Sonic CD is my most played game on it though. Prince of Persia and Batman Returns are favourites too.

Looks good everyone. I think I'm going to give this a go.. Don't think I'll win, but nothing to lose by trying.

My wife threatened to do that to me during our last year of college! In that year, I ended up failing my A-Levels despite my immense intellegence with computers and got a D in my GCSE Media Studies! She was just showing off that she got over half-a-dozen A grades despite doing exams while heavily pregnant and very tired. (we were both 19 and 18 at the time and married two months before our first daughter was born - to my surprise, we're still married 11 years on.

Robocop 3 was one of my favourite games on the Amiga years ago and now I've got one again, I've managed to obtain a proper copy of the game but minus it's manual and the game is usless without it. I've got no-way of getting a pirate version onto floppy so people on here are my last hope. Please help! Many thanks in advance!

That's fucked up. What were you dying of and how were you cured. It started with a chest infection which went into full blown phenmonia, admitted to hospital on full life support. Doctors told my wife I had a 20% chance of pulling through because they had no idea what strain it was and so they put me in a drug induced coma while they pumped me full of drugs to try and deal with it. I spent two months in hospital and the worst thing about it was that I missed my middle daughter's 1st birthday (she's six now). My cousin and his friend stole over £500 worth of games plus my SNES, Dreamcast, Saturn, Gamecube and PS2. They also took my eldest daughter's GBA SP and ALL her games (all 30 of them, including many rarities and we've not been able to get them again). And all they got for it was a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

I'd be intrested in helping in anyway I can..

Yes. After a former best friend stole some of my old 8-bit games, I took to marking my future games with a letter of the Greek alphabet plus my initials in a uniqute way. After my cousin and his best friend stole a ton of games from me when I was dying in hospital, I later found the games in a second hand game shop in the area.

Very good wp. I wrote my first (still unpublished) book using Protext on the Amstrad CPC..

I agree with the one who nominated Melle Island from Monkey Island. I would also pick the world from Final Fantasy 8 and I would also like the Hryle from Zelda: Link to the Past, Orcarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

I have to agree with you on that - it's nice to see but there are times when you don't have the time to watch the scenes and plan the game..

I got that with my Wind Waker here in the UK..

That is a good game.. Most recommended.

and I thought I was disorganised at the best of times!

My daughter was FOUR when she started gaming and was better than me from teh start - she's 9 now..

And when you have three children to raise, money can be at a premium. However, my wife doesn't mind me collecting video game stuff as long as I don't pay over £20 for old games or £100 for old hardware.