Messages

1

General / Re: Do you ever buy Non-Original accessories

« on: January 04, 2026, 11:26:01 am »

They have higher fail rates than originals, originals don't really fail while 3rd party ones have allot of reports.

That being said odds are stacked in your favor and in more cases than not they will work perfectly fine and they often have more storage than originals.

So far in 30 years i only had 2 memory cards fail on me, one was a Blaze 2x for the PS1, that had that little switch for the two memory banks, one of them died just 3 months in and the other was in fact a official Sony PS2 memory card that after some time had read and write errors.
The one that amazes me the most is the Gamester N64 Memory Pak with the 2 dip switches and 4 memory banks, altogether squeezed in the same size and nearly the same weight as a official pak. 25 years and running perfectly fine.

Now if we wanna talk about bad Third party products, i got the Mad Catz Dream Wheel... 
Seriously, i think steering wheels are the biggest example of "you get what you pay for", pay cheap and they suck, you have to spend hundreds of euro for a decent one. I got a Thrustmaster TMX Pro for my PC and while that is pretty low tier compared to the serious Sim Wheels from Fanatec (1000+ €) it's light years ahead of all the crappy third party wheels i got for my consoles.

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General / Re: January 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: January 03, 2026, 10:44:05 am »

Playstation 1: G-Police, Hidden & Dangerous, Thrasher presents Skate & Destroy, NHL Face Off
SNES: WWF Super Wrestlemania, World Cup Striker, FIFA 97, Super Hockey, Rise of the Robots, Unirally
Mega Drive: NBA Live 95, John Madden Football '92, Warlock
PS2: NHL 2004, PES4
Gameboy: NBA All-Star Challenge

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Hardware and Tech / Re: What Was Your Longest Lasting PC Computer

« on: December 31, 2025, 04:31:42 pm »

Oldest in permanent use was probably 5 years with a Phenom II Xsomething with a GTX 280 during the time i barely had interest in new games, lasted me until 2014 when i bought a new PC finally.
threw that out a long time ago.

I still have my old 486 DX4 100 MHz (AMD version) with a ATI Mach 64 GPU (4MB), 16 MB of Ram and a 130 MB HDD and a 1 GB HDD. It was upgraded from a 386, same case, same original HDD, it still contains a lot of my old save games, early attempts at programming in Qbasic (text adventures, simple graphics, nothing fancy) and all that. Of course i rarely used it over the last few...decades, but it still works, even the PSU is the same old one.

If the Ram and GPU Crisis continues, i guess my current PC will have to last for a decade, thankfully i did buy 64 gigs of ram and a 20 gig GPU, so it will work for a while 

(Of course looking back, the numbers are insane. in 1996 i thought the 1 gig HDD would last forever. In 2000 i thought the 20 gig maxtor in our Pentium 3 is overkill, when i had my first 1 TB Drive i thought "where does it stop?" and now i have 8 Terrabytes of NVME and go "I need more!" * same with ram, same with everything)

4

Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

« on: December 31, 2025, 09:38:51 am »

Christmas Season. Thus:
- Die Hard: Classic, don't need to say much
- Christmas Vacation: It's still a lot of fun to watch if you like low brow humour

And otherwise:
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone - The new cut of Godfather III. It still isn't a very good movie and now it feels a bit incoherent with a lame ending on top.
Sunset Boulevard: No idea if this is really a Film Noir, i wouldn't call that, but my god is that a masterpiece of a movie. Should be mandatory viewing for everybody who has even a small interest in film.

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Classic Video Games / Re: Memory Cards (Management & Labels)

« on: December 31, 2025, 09:21:59 am »

I simply write a number on the memory card's sticker label. Then i have some sheets of paper where i write down what games is on what memory card organized alphabetically and by number. Quick and Easy. Been doing it that way since the 90's.
My Memory Cards to indeed still have the original stickers on them

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Classic Video Games / Re: Do you put your game discs inside a disc wallet?

« on: December 31, 2025, 09:16:41 am »

I try to avoid just buying discs for my cd/dvd/bd based consoles, so all discs are in their original packaging (i know it's kinda weird, that i'm ok with just buying cartridges for 8- and 16-bit systems but don't  buy lose discs for Disc based systems but there's something about a CD alone feeling so...cheap and wrong, i don't know, maybe it's due to CD Burning being easier than Cartridge bootlegging)

For PC i do have wallets since even some games back in the day only utilized those horrendous paper or plastic sleeves, like Wing Commander IV and of course all compilations only used that.

7

General / Re: A Year in Review - 2025

« on: December 30, 2025, 04:49:29 pm »

Favorite 2025 Release: Clair Obscure Expedition 33 - amazing game all around

Least Favorite 2025 Release: inZOI - should've been so much more, all hype no substance

Favorite Game Played in 2025: Schedule I with friends was a blast and constant laughs

Least Favorite Game Played in 2025: inZOI or maybe Skate. though i expected a microtransaction cash grab there with little substance, at least it was free

Sleeper Hit of 2025: Tavern Keeper, still early access but already amazing

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2025: Experiencing QD-OLED and HDR for the first time. Ori and the Will of the Wisp and Deep Rock Galactic just blew me away

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2025: Finally finished all my long-term collection goals (Getting 1 wrestling game on every system, getting 1 hockey game on every system, getting all my Mega Drive and Master System games from my childhood back, the last missing were Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars and Ecco: Tides of Time)

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General / Re: December 2025 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: December 30, 2025, 10:37:58 am »

Only took me a couple decades, but i finally got Castle of Illusion (CIB) for the Mega Drive
Also bought Shellshock (Saturn), Super Tennis (SNES), NHL 95 (Mega Drive), NHL 96 (SNES), Slap Shot (Master System), Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (PS2) and Space Station Sillicon Valley (N64)

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General / Re: Do you ever buy Non-Original accessories

« on: December 30, 2025, 10:35:57 am »

For controllers, obviously. There are a lot of good brands and sometimes, it was basically mandatory. A good example being the Master System. The original controllers are awful in every way. I got a Competition Pro branded Honey Bee and it's just so much better and more comfortable to use. 
Same on the SNES, i got original controllers, but i prefer the Asciiware one (though that actually is officially licensed by Nintendo even)

Back in the day, i bought a whole stack of unbranded Playstation 1 Memory Cards, simply because they were 1/3 in price of what Sony charged and some games could fill up entire cards by itself (sports games especially), so i needed a ton of them. They surprisingly work to this day perfectly fine.
I don't see a problem with that.

10

Off Topic / Re: Did You? Or Do You Currently Smoke?

« on: November 15, 2025, 08:38:24 am »

I was surrounded by smokers my whole life and it just drove me away from it. I hated the smell. One of the best decisions my country ever made was banning cigarettes from restaurants. There never was any AC or anything, so most restaurants, you entered and you instantly got wrapped around by the bad smell and the smoke and it clung onto you, your clothes, even made the food taste worse.
My dad kicked the habit after 50 years a couple years ago. He just flat out stopped to smoke one day and never looked back. It made me so genuinely happy for him.

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General / Re: August 2025 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: August 19, 2025, 07:48:04 pm »

13 Sentinels: Aegis Run for PS4

And a Sega Mega Drive Arcade Power Stick II MK-1627-44 for 69€ on ebay. most other offers are 100+ for that one. Always wanted one of those Arcade Sticks ever since i saw the original one in Gamers (german sega magazine)

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Off Topic / Re: How do you deal with getting older?

« on: August 05, 2025, 05:12:09 pm »

You can’t pee as far.

I can still piss my name in the snow alright and i'm gaming since 1990  Actually we rarely have snow enough for that anymore.

Dress like a relevant person. (Don’t be a try-hard old guy, but buy you some new clothes)

Here in Germany we call them Beigelings, because old people wear beige/brown/grew/earthy colors in general

I think most important: just be true to yourself, don't think you have to change just because you are older. It's something i noticed with americans: "i can't wear sneakers anymore i'm 30" or "i can't wear colorful clothes, i'm an adult", they seem to completely change once they hit around 35 and stop having fun to fit in a weird, outdated, old mold. people here in germany did the same, i mean the 1968 generation that burned down houses and demonstrated for peace and stuff are now old people who dress...beige.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: August 05, 2025, 04:55:11 pm »

Stuck in Helldivers 2, i'm having too much fun with it.
I did fiddle around with eXoDOS and the German Language Pack, adding some classics i remember from my childhood, nostalgia overload basically (also first time i got to hear the music in Pizza Connection, since even back then in the 90's that PC i had didn't play the music, that was a problem for ages even with emulation)

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General / Re: August 2025 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: August 05, 2025, 04:47:40 pm »

Just ordered 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim for PS4, disc for 23,40€ plus postage (2,49€) while the Playstation Store sells it for 59,99€ digital 
On PS Store i bought the Castlevania Rondo of Blood/Symphony of the Night Bundle

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General / Re: June 2025 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: June 14, 2025, 09:24:24 am »

The Playstation 4 turned out to be perfectly fine, some games were even still wrapped and never opened (is Uncharted: New Legacy really that bad? I can understand not wanting to play CoD Vanguard  ) and it came with a few more games bought digitally as well, nice surprise. It's also super quiet except for the disc drive. And i bought a 20th Anniversary Controller for it since i found that for just 20€ in perfect condition except for a small scratch on the left handle.

Playstation 4:
- The Order 1886
- FIFA 14
- NHL 18
- NBA 2K14

Xbox 360:
- The Simpsons: The Game

Playstation 2:
- Fifa 2001
- Fifa 06