Goafer

Game That Takes You Back to Your Childhood Fantastic Dizzy A game I had on the Mega Drive and haven't seen or played any other Dizzy games since, making it a game I completely associate with my younger days.

Took my drone out with me on my bike ride and after a minute or so of flying, 2 Apache helicopters flew quite low nearby. Managed to get a photo of one of them, although the wide angle lens makes it look much further away than it actually was. Also got a nice photo of the sunset: We live quite close to an MOD base, so Apaches and Chinooks are a pretty common sight here. Here's a photo I took of them from my bedroom window. Not the best photo artistically, but I do love how clearly we get to see them from our house. Recently, I was leaving our village on my bike and one flew directly over my head at about the height of a 4 storey building. It was pretty ace, although I didn't get chance to take a photo.

Saddest Moment Leaving Japan - Shenmue There are probably more hard hitting sad moments, but Shenmue had such a real, believable world that leaving it behind felt like leaving home for good. It was a real, relatable sadness that didn't rely on character deaths or a huge shocking event.

Best Melee Combat Nier: Automata The game just feels so fluid and smooth. I've never really been one for this sort of game, but N:A just clicked for me.

Best Mini Game Geometry Wars (Project Gotham Racing 2) A mini game so addictive it became a full standalone series.

The newest car I've ever owned was my 2005 Fiesta ST, which was 7 years old when I bought it. If we go by manufacture date, my Passat is the newest (07 plate), but it was 13 years old when I got it. My super sensible approach to cars is to buy several shitters and hope one works. I am the master of wise financial decisions.

I won employee of the month, which came with some vouchers, so I finally got to buy something I've wanted for ages but couldn't justify the price: It's a hell of a set. The details and mechanisms are fantastic. I never thought I'd be building a working differential in Lego. I've also been setting up my car for camping so have bought various things for that. So far I've bought a bed/futon, a few storage boxes and a powered cooler box to use as a fridge: The aim is to make it so that it can all fit in the boot when not in use, so that I can park it up and not have things on display. Works pretty well: Just need to make some blinds for the windows and I'm pretty much good to go.

Ooh, nice. Of course, I require photos. Civics are life. If anything, the fact that I know you more as a real person than an internet name shows that I truly care. That's the angle I'm going with. Is it working?

Best Racing Game Sega Rally Not even a competition (apart from maybe Outrun 2). Even with only 3 cars and 4 tracks, it's a masterpiece. The handling still feels perfect to this day and it's the very definition of easy to pick up, difficult to master. I could play this all day and not get bored. I would do honourable mentions, but I bloody love racing games and I'll be here all day. Outrun 2 and its variants deserve a special mention though, as it's the only one that comes close to Sega Rally IMO.

If it helps, I did almost change it to Pokémon Go. Blue was the OG for me though, so I stuck with it. Go is fantastic though and deserves some recognition for the sheer madness at launch. I remember walking through town and just seeing hundreds of people playing it. Don't think I've ever seen such a culturally significant gaming event in my lifetime. If people weren't playing it, they were at least talking about it (for better or worse).

Best Collectibles Pokémon Blue Pokémon are collectible, right? It's literally the main selling point of the game. Super close second place is Shenmue's capsule toys.

And Civic. Get it right.

Oh, I can definitely remember both... Seriously though, I have been paying attention on Facebook (you do the family blogs right?), I just knew you were NE, but must have never actually associated you with your username.

Of course I know you guys. How could I forget my good friends Gary and Sarah. A pair of real cards if ever I saw one. Oh the fun times we've had together. *Shuffles awkwardly towards the door*

Hang on a minute. We're friends on Facebook and although I knew you were from NE, I had no idea you were @Mr_Odwin. Come to think of it, I never even questioned what your actual username was... Anyone else from Facebook want to highlight what a shitty Facebook friend I am?

Best Story Persona 4 Golden A great story filled with awesome characters, each with their own interesting stories. Finishing the game felt like saying goodbye to friends. If you're a fan of (or even just tolerant of) JRPGs, it's an absolute must play.

If games end up being £65, that's me pretty much out of day one purchases for all but the absolutely must have titles. To put that into perspective, there are currently only 4 PS4 games on my shelf that I would have even considered buying for £65 (FF7R, GTAV, Persona 5 and RDR2). Gaming is a luxury to me, so with a mortgage and countless other bills to pay, £65 is just too much for something that I might end up not liking or finish in 10 hours. Add into the mix that I'm generally getting more selective anyway, it just means I have very little incentive to spend that much at launch. I may even opt out of day one purchases completely and wait for reviews and public opinion. I've previously had franchises that are safe bets, but could you imagine if you'd payed £65 for Mass Effect Andromeda or Fallout 76 based on the strength of the franchise? I think I'll be much more wary from now on.

I'll admit, people are often threatened by my moral superiority. I just approach them like a wild horse; gently reassure them that although I'm intellectually and morally superior, I mean them no harm and pass no judgement. Eventually they come round and I chuck a saddle on them and throw them in a barn.

People who don't like cars will never be a true friend.

Yeah, that second one is a bit of a big deal. I'm not really into French cars in general, but I do like old interesting cars, so he seems like my sort of guy. But yeah, cars can be dull as fuck for those not interested in them.

2D Platformer Sonic 2 Had to be really. The first one was great, but they really nailed it with the second. Still plays great today and everything from the gameplay to the music is just perfection.

I had exactly the same thing with football at a previous job. It's draining when a whole office has one topic of conversation and you just find it boring. Your place does seem like my idea of heaven though. Although it depends very much on what cars they like. If they fall into the "anything older than 5 years old is shit and for poor people" then they can fuck entirely off.

I cut down my retro collecting and now only buy GameCube and Saturn. Love exploring the shops in Japan for anything new whenever I’m there. As the console was quite popular there the prices aren’t as ridiculous as they are in the west. Panzer Dragoon Saga usually 20 quid or so for example. Do you have a favorite thing in your collection? I didn't really plan to have 3 cars, but one was pretty much given to me by my dad. I have: Honda Civic Type R EP3. An absolute hooligan car, complete with obscenely loud exhaust. It's an absolute riot though. Bought it as a replacement when my 06 Fiesta ST died. VW Passat B6 Estate: my dad's old car. He bought a fancy new Peugeot SUV and told me I could have his Passat if I bought him a McDonald's. I ended up buying one for the whole family instead. Still the best £30 I've ever spent. VW Scirocco MK2. I've had this one for ages. Probably over 10 years now. It's off the road at the minute as it's got a weird fuelling issue. I think I've narrowed it down to stuff in the fuel tank clogging up the pickup filter and I've got a new fuel tank ready to go in. Plans just got delayed by having to replace the Fiesta and lockdown. As for gaming, the jewel of my collection is probably Panzer Dragoon Saga. I bought it back when it was "only" £170. Haven't checked eBay for a while, but it was approaching £300 last time I checked. I also picked up a Japanese copy fairly recently as it was cheap and looks nice next to the PAL copy. It's a game I played the first disc of over and over again, as it was given away with the official Saturn magazine, but I never got to play the full game until I finally bit the bullet and bought it about 6 years ago. It was weird to finally play it, but worth the £170 just to play such an infamous game.

Best Open World City Game Forza Horizon 4 Fast cars, British countryside and a fairly decent recreation of one of my favourite cities, Edinburgh. What's not to love? I almost put GTAV/Online, as I've probably spent over 1,000 hours on that game, but Rockstar are blatantly milking it now and they cancelled the planned single player expansions and released half arsed online expansions in order to concentrate on milking the online with "free" online DLC that are so expensive that they can only realistically be bought with real money.

I'm Luke. Just turned 35 years old. I live with my partner, with our pet dog and tortoise. I bought my house in Warwickshire about 5 years ago. I'm originally from Oxfordshire, so haven't moved far. I did well in school, but didn't know what I wanted to do when I left, so I basically bumbled my way around until I got into Photography and Graphic Design. I now work from home as a Graphic Designer for a fairly decent training company. I spend most of my spare time either gaming, doing something with cars, taking photos (using either a DSLR or drone) or playing Dungeons and Dragons. I love cars and currently have 3 (A fast one, a practical one and a retro one). It's very rare that all of them work at the same time. One car is an estate, which I'm currently kitting out to be a sort of camper van. Basically a rolling tent that I can take places and sleep comfortably in overnight. I want to use it to travel more on the cheap. I used to be quite good at long distance cycling, then I took a break for about 8 years and put on a bunch of weight. Now I'm rebuilding my fitness and hoping to lose some weight and get back to my former distances. With the combination of exercise and diet, I've lost 2 stone in about 3 months. Went vegetarian just under a year ago, mainly for ethical reasons (although I don't preach to others and I'm not a fan of those who do). I collect retro games, with a focus on Sega Saturn games in particular.