Mike M.

FWIW, I've been seeding the Mininova Big Torrent Release since it came out last July. I've uploaded 183 GB so far... not bad for a gimped upload speed. Even when I can't spare the upload bandwidth, I usually leave the torrent seeding at 1 KB/s. I'm doing my part! But you are right, I have rarely seen anybody besides myself seeding.

Some of the games you've mentioned look interesting, and I haven't heard of them. Here are my picks. This year: (Xbox360) Silent Hill 5: Homecoming (Xbox360) Infinite Undiscovery (I've loved every Tri-Ace game so far...) (PS2) Persona 4 (Xbox360) Tomb Raider 8: Underworld Sometime in the future: (Xbox360) Beyond Good and Evil 2 (Xbox360) Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope (Another Tri-Ace game) (Xbox360) Final Fantasy XIII (DS) Valkyrie Profile: Toga wo Seou Mono (Tri-Ace) (PC) Diablo III (PC) StarCraft III I recently bought (Xbox360) Eternal Sonata (Tri-Crescendo = Tri-Ace's music division) and (PS2) Odin Sphere. Both are great "sleeper hits". Speaking of sleeper hits, I just looked up Tri-Crescendo in Wikipedia and found (GCube) Baten Kaitos, (GCube) Baten Kaitos Origins, and (Wii) Fragile: Sayonara Tsuki no Haikyo. Now I have to add those to my Want List. Would like to buy (Xbox360) Lost Odyssey and (maybe) (Xbox360) Blue Dragon (the mixed reviews kinda scare me, but Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time.) I would like to get (PS3) Metal Gear Solid 4 too, but I can't justify a PS3 just for that. Soooo many games I want to play, but I just don't have that kind of time any more. :(

My random video game memories: I was born in 1982. Older brother born in 1976. Younger brother born in 1988. My first exposure to video games was my babysitter in 1987. She(!) played Super Mario Bros. When she shut off the NES, I was bound and determined to find "the game channel" (I never did) My older brother got an NES for Christmas in 1987 from Grandma. My dad hooked it up, and my dad & old brother played 2-player SMB. My dad got to level 1-2 before getting a game over, which is better than my brother did. My brother got a 1-year subscription to Nintendo Power in 1988, starting with issue #1. I "read" Nintendo Power since before I knew how to read. Some of my (well, technically my brother's, but he didn't play them as much as I did) earliest games were SMB, SMB2, SMB3, Legend of Zelda, Golf, Commando, Metroid, RC Pro-Am, Ghosts & Goblins, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Pac-Man, TMNT2. Eventually I was the only one in the family who still played Nintendo. Although, sometimes my dad & I would play Golf together (the only game he liked). I learned how to read about the same time as I played Legend of Zelda. "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this." My favorite rentals of the era were Zelda 2, Mega Man 2, Double Dragon. Our local rental place offered free rentals for good report cards! Once I traded Commando to a girl at school in exchange for Double Dragon II. My brother wasn't amused when he found out. You know, she was cute... for a third grader. Where are these video-game-playing girls now? In 1993 my brother sold the NES & all the games for cigarette money. I think he got about $50 for the works (rip off!) I tried to prevent it by stealing the NES and games and storing them at my best friend's house. That didn't work so well. ... OK, I think that's enough for now. To Be Continued!...

If you see a slight (or not-so-slight) spike in visitors this weekend, it's because the topic of digitizing old video game magazines came up on Slashdot. A couple people (including myself) mentioned Retromags as a useful place to visit. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/05/2222241 Hopefully the influx of members will help the project!