I guess the most recent site outage ate my original introduction.

I'm Alan, age 30, from Cleveland. I'm a lawyer. I don't remember how I found the forum, but I'm glad I did. The forumers here are friendly and knowledgeable.

I like games in which you shoot things. Fortunately, several video games of this type have now been released.

I'm collecting for Atari 2600/7800, NES, Genesis, SNES, Saturn, PSX, Dreamcast, GBA, and PS2. I've got an N64, too, but I don't think having two games for it (Perfect Dark, Conker's BFD) counts as "collecting". I generally only collect games that I think I would like to get around to playing one day (e.g., retirement?). This means that I don't get sports games or RPGs, although I fully respect the rights of other *people* to enjoy such...*things*. (OK, I've got a soft spot for 2600 Realsports Football. Unalloyed nostalgia, I guess.) I don't think of myself as a "completist", but I do have most of the arcade game ports released for PSX. I'll know that I've crossed over to the dark side, though, the day I finish "NAMCO" and buy Namco Museum Vol. 5, which contains only games that I'd never played, seen, or heard of. At that point I'll know the disease is terminal, so I'll probably start importing Namco Anthology, too.

I grew up on the 2600, but I only started collecting this year. In fact, I didn't even play any console games (strictly arcade and computer) post-crash until I got a PSX as a wedding present (wedding present!) in 1997. It took me THAT LONG to get over my D-pad aversion. (Why didn't anybody TELL me that they made a joystick for the NES?)

Even so, the PSX just sat in a corner for a few months after I got it until finally Colony Wars (the first one) got its hooks into me. It was the beginning of the end once again, thank goodness. Once I finished school and got a job, I realized that even after the student loan payment I had a couple of dollars left over to pick up some used games (no, not enough to get new games). And that I could pick up a Genesis, a Saturn, and a Dreamcast for about $100 TOTAL. And I discovered that from 1983 to 1997 I had missed several good games, and I thought that maybe I should check them out...

Anyway, I've found that when you get more than a couple of games a month in the mail, it's better to have them delivered to work and then smuggle them into the house. The cats haven't ratted me out yet, and I keep buying the economy size tubs of catnip.