S.C.G

Phew! I hate bikes... 10char! I'll take a deep breath before picking the track this time...

@Hero-of-Time It would have to be Sega Megadrive for me as well, as while I'm partially ruled by nostalgia with it being my first main home console, it was much more than that... Sonic the Hedgehog was unlike anything I'd ever played before, I ended up getting Sonic and Sonic 2 with my original Megadrive one Christmas and it changed my life. I was obsessed with Sonic - still am - and would end up getting every main game in the series when it came out, as they seemed to get better each time with Sonic 3 & Knuckles legitimately blowing my mind at the time with that Lock On Technology... "Y-You mean I can even put Sonic 2 on top of Sonic and Knuckles and play as Knuckles in Sonic 2?!?" different times. The gaming rental market had a significant impact on what I played back then in the Nineties, as of course I couldn't just buy a new game every week or month, so when I would stay with my Grandparents at weekends we would go down to Cats Video (as it was known here in Cornwall) which I can't find any images of but it was definitely there as I remember renting a load of games from there; most of the Disney titles where Castle of Illusion followed by World of Illusion which quickly became favourites... right through to Streets of Rage 3 which I kept renting time after time and never actually owned in physical form until fairly recently. Oh man... simpler times, I could go on about all of the amazing Megadrive titles of that era but I must stop for fear of falling to deep down the nostalgic rabbit hole again. TL:DR - the Sega Megadrive had a profound impact on my life in gaming.

That sucks... by how much for each game did the prices go down? Die Hard Arcade for instance seems to be mirroring eBay prices currently. Looking at it from another angle, it might be a good time to pick up Saturn Bomberman on there.

Comm Error on Royal Raceway. (GP2 Race 2) I was in 2nd too... :/

@Shorty just to let you know that when I signed in just now, the Patreon text changed to... [redacted] (you'll have to pledge to find out) So I guess that means it's all definitely working now.

Burning Rangers is a spectacular game from Sonic Team. It features a story with an interesting narrative centred around futuristic fire-fighting, a set amount of stages with a realistic yet arcade style feel to them and some nice cutscenes. The character designs are cool, controls are both original and excellent considering this is an early 3D game plus there are proceedurally generated elements adding to replay value. Oh and the soundtrack... I would rate it as being one of my favourite games on the system.

What about Poi: Explorer Edition? https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Poi-Explorer-Edition-1308653.html That's supposed to be good, £29.99 though... best to get the boxed version if you can, especially for that price.

Interesting that you should mention the Atari Jaguar, I got mine boxed when Game secured a stock of them from a warehouse somewhere in 2003 I think? £20... plus games for probably cheaper than that, now though in 2018... I couldn't believe how much it has gone up to, if I'd known that back then I might have bought more but money was tighter back then, it still is really in relative terms but we're talking pre-employment. I must say that the Atari Jaguar is an excellent console for what it is and for the handful of really decent games on it... £150 worth of awesome though? I don't know but with things going the way they are, the value of them may go up and you could build up a nice library of games over time. Perhaps get a console and a copy of Doom and see how you go? Alternatively... you mentioned that you don't own an N64 or a Saturn? Definitely get on those I would say! I'd advise getting an N64 with an Expansion Pak, at least two controllers, or just buy some of those new pads by Retro Fighters (I got mine from the Kickstarter the other day, possibly going to try them out later) and those Wrestling games you mentioned. As for the Sega Saturn, I'd say look out for the 3D controller as that's worth having, pretty much all of those games you listed are worth picking up too and plenty more besides.

Snap! I traded in a load of stuff to CEX today as well, I had £150 to spend on their site... but I spent just over £50 of it in-store. Traded in... some cheap DVD's, two boxed Playstations oh and a boxed copy of Time Killers for the Megadrive. (that's where most of the value came from) I know it's a kind of rare game but, I didn't pay anything near that for it originally, I played it for a bit and I do still have a cart only copy at least but keeping that. As for what I bought... I got a Ghibli DVD (The Red Turtle), Metal Arms: Glitch in the System on the GameCube, Blazing Skies for the SNES and Poi Explorer Edition on the Switch. Still got just under £100 left, thinking I might keep it for Neo Geo Pocket Color Games... if they ever get any of the ones I want in to fill some gaps... ...though I was eyeing up the Mega-CD games. What games are you after Happenstance? I'm happy to shout out some random titles for N64, Saturn, GBA etc if you're looking for recommendations.

It most certainly is. It's also why you can see "N-E Supporter" underneath my name along with the 1-Up mushroom. (that's what you get if you become a $3 Patron) In addition to not seeing ads on the site as well of course, although that's a point... @Shorty I can still see the following on the main forum page... "Support N-Europe! Get rid of advertisements and help cover hosting costs on N-Europe" Although maybe that one is supposed to stay there even if you're a Patron but you won't see ads anywhere else on the forum? Not sure as I never really saw any ads to begin with. I'm happy to support N-Europe either way though and thanks for sorting out the "N-E Supporter" badge.

OK, well I just rinsed through the 10,000 points I put on there before leaving for work and I just put on another 10,000 assuming that those will be my last. The option to buy points is still on the shop though... past the deadline as well, just saying.

I'm back from work and making last minute purchases... Do I need to get the dlc from inside the game for Space Invaders? I can't see any dlc for it on the shop.

Remembering WiiWare #2 Written by Hero-of-Time Sorry to keep you waiting. I put warnings about the cut-off date and time being today on the front page and in the article.

*sigh* I knew I'd be back... I'll keep updating this post with all the titles I'm inevitably about to purchase. TG-16 Cho Aniki, Splatterhouse, Dragon's Curse SNES Super Adventure Island, Super Adventure Island II, Zombies N64 Cruis'n USA Megadrive Shining Force, Shining Force II, Shining in the Darkness, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Splatterhouse 2 Master System Sonic 2 Edit- OK that is definitely it now, I'm pretty pleased, all of those games I don't own in physical form... apart from maybe Sonic 2 on the Master System but it's easier to have it on the Wii and I'm less familiar with it than the Megadrive version. No more now, that's it... ... or is it? No... that's definitely it. Probably.

I actually bought that recently partly due to the Throwback Thursday you wrote about it, I haven't played it yet but I will soon as I have a new N64 controller to test it with. It's definitely still worth buying an N64, I know... wires but it's still worth it. - - - - - I'm hopefully going to go with RGB for most of my consoles soon, I've ordered an RGB modded N64 too so even though an N64 mini would be nice, especially for certain games, there will always be plenty of other N64 games (probably including Beetle Adventure Racing) that would probably never make it onto an N64 mini (even though they should by all rights be included) so there will always be a demand for original hardware still.

OK well, I knew the VC titles would take longer. I started going through the Wii Shop Channel just after 10PM and I've now finished choosing, I haven't even downloaded these yet but... 30,800 Wii Points should get me the following... Neo Geo Blue's Journey 900 Master System Sonic 2 (500) Arcade Golden Axe (900) Shinobi (800) NES Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (600) Faxanadu (500) Milon's Secret Castle (600) Ufouria: The Saga (500) SNES Chrono Trigger (900) DoReMi Fantasy Milon's DokiDoki Adventure (900) Gradius III (900) Super Adventure Island (800) * Super Adventure Island II (800) * Super Turrican (800) Zombies (800) N64 Bomberman Hero (1,000) Cruis'n USA (1,000) TG-16 Alien Crush (600) Castlevania Rondo of Blood (900) Devil's Crush (600) Dragon's Curse (600) Final Soldier (700) Gradius II Gofer No Yabou (900) Ninja Spirit (600) Soldier Blade (600) Star Parodier (900) Super Star Soldier (600) The Dynastic Hero (800) Ys Book I & II (800) Megadrive Gley Lancer (800) Landstalker: Treasures of King Nole (800) M.U.S.H.A (900) Mega Turrican (800) Pulseman (900) Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (800) Shining Force (800)* Shining Force 2 (800)* Shining in the Darkness (800)* Wonder Boy in Monster World (800) Even now I'm thinking of not downloading the titles with the asterrix's next to them so that I can at least save something, as I either don't want to play those titles that much or can get them easily elsewhere. We shall see anyway... I may well keep editing this post as I download games so I can keep track. Anyone want to gift me any games? I'd be interested to hear what VC titles everyone else has downloaded. Edit - annnnnnd several hours later, about 21,000 points lighter as well and that's my final purchases made. The above in Green are titles I purchased while the ones in Red I decided to leave. I managed to finish up with 0 points in my account so not a single point was wasted.

16,000 points later... WiiWare Purchased Gradius Rebirth Contra Rebirth Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth Tomena Sanner 530 Eco Shooter Excitebike World Challenge Actionloop Twist You, Me, amd the Cubes Mr. Driller W Muscle March Alien Crush Returns Bomberman Blast ONslaught Pop Them, Drop Them, SameGame Star Soldier R Cave Story NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits Blaster Master Overdrive I'll be back for the VC titles tomorrow...

Thanks for that, I will adjust my spending accordingly in that case. For anyone who might be thinking of upgrading their Wii cables... https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/NINTENDO-WII-PACKAPUNCH-PRO-RGB-SCART-CABLE Retro Gaming Cables - Packapunch cables for Wii and many other systems In Stock Now! @Hero-of-Time @Happenstance plus anyone else who might be interested. Thought I'd give a heads-up anyway.

Excellent, I'll be loading up my account with 25,000 Wii Points then over the weekend, after I've redeemed the codes I have. I reckon now, after reading your recommendations and the ones I already had in my head and on my list that I could easily spend that. I will try my best to get another of your articles up to day on the main site, and then every day up to the cut off day and beyond where possible. (I would have had one up yesterday but its been a mad rush trying to get loads of things sorted in the last few days before I go back to work, I'm glad I took holiday around this time, otherwise I might have missed the boat completely!)

I haven't even had a chance to fire up my Wii yet... When Nintendo stated the cut off date being 26/03/2018 did they actually mean as soon as it turns midnight going from Sunday into Monday is the cut off time or is it the case of, we have up to and including Monday 26th March 2018? I am hoping to have downloaded everything by the time the weekend is out but it would be nice to know just in case. Also, I've ordered some Wii Points from someone on eBay nearly a week ago who still hasn't sent them... I did politely message them asking if they could just scratch the code off, message me it and keep the box and the postage money (I've already paid for it all) because the cut-off date is pretty damn close. As of yet though, no reply or confirmation of postage... looks like I'll have to get PayPal involved with that one. At least I have two points cards to redeem and if it comes down to it, I take it that I can still just use my credit card?

Quote of the day. In all seriousness though, regarding how you're feeling about work or rather... how work is making you feel, that sounds like a terrible situation. At least your manager is aware of the situation and of course I can understand that everything has to be done "on the record" but I really hope that something changes soon for you. I mean, you're doing your job... by the sounds of it better than the person who's complaining about you as well, so things should start to improve soon I'd have hoped. It's not nice being targeted, I've had it happen to me before many years ago when I was doing my job perfectly fine, yet "fine" wasn't good enough apparently. TL:DR - Keep doing your job, it sounds like you do it well, your manager should sort the situation out soon with any luck, all the best. I'm coming up to the end of my nearly two-weeks holiday (I usually only take a week but I had some extra days to use up) but it has been good to have a break. I've had time to get a lot of stuff done, both at home and on the site, I've still got loads to do before I go back but at least I should go back feeling a bit rested. Going back will be tough for various reasons but I've got to do my bit for the place and my colleagues, plus start earning some cash again.

Well... that happened!

Last race is Special Cup Rainbow Road... ...it's more a reminder for myself more than anything.