Quote from: Tom Phobos on 05/09/2008, 08:45 AMHi,

some of you know me already from the shoutbox, so i thought it's time to introduce myself

My name is Thomas, i am 38 years old and from germany (so please apologize that my English isn't perfect ;) ).
My gaming-fever began when my family visited my uncle. OK, normally the visits were boring ;) . But this time he had a little nice machine under his TV. "That's tennis" he said. Oooookkkk, tennis ... before this time i thought tennis is a game for 2 people with rackets in their hands and balls in the air, but not a strange looking machine under a TV. "Here, i will show you how to play it". And so, with a paddle in my hand and a smile on my face my gaming fever began ;)

In the next years i also got a pong-clone, my friends got ataris, colecos and all the stuff that made the 80s a great age. Then the homecomputers came, the "old-next-gen"-Consoles, the "new-next-gen"-consoles up to the "newest-next-gen"-consoles like the PS3 and xbox360. Every time a new console came out soon or later i bought one and had fun with it. But i also hadn't the heart to sell other consoles. Also there were always people who gave away their old consoles, as a gift or for a small amount, and there were also the fleamarkets in the town. So i actually own about 75-80 consoles (depending on the term "what is a console" ... is a barcode-battler a console or a toy ?). So you can call me a collector, but not in the "usual term". I buy games and consoles to play with them, not to have it complete and sealed in a showcase. I like to invite people to play games with them, also to see that they also fascinated by old machines or don't even knew this consoles. So i am more a gamer than a collector

Maybe actually you think "You are in a Turbo/PCE-Forum, so what about this consoles ?" OK, you're right ;)

When people told me "oh, so much consoles" i always said "yes, but one line is missing ... the pc-engines". I was always fascinated by this machine, but never got one. Also it had no officially release in germany (even not the PAL-TurboGrafx), so also no one gave away this machine. So instead i bought a sega megadrive (or, in the u.s., a sega genesis) and had (and actually have) a lot of fun with it. But the pc-engine was always in my mind.

Then, at the 1st of march, my girlfriend and me visited a retro fair. And their i saw it ... the pc-engine, complete with IFU30 and CDROM2. I began to sweat, walked around, saw it again, walked around again, but finally the desire for this machine won ... and with a smile on my face and an empty wallet i left the retro fair. This was the beginning of a great love story in my console history ;)

Soon after i bought the pce i found this forum. Here i got many tips around the pce and the games. Also i read that one gear in the cdrom2 easily breaks and for gaming it's better to buy a duo. So i bought a duo-r. Also (thanks to ebay) i also got a second pce (with many scratches) and my "all-time-dream-handheld", the GT. Also i placed a "lucky bid" on a pc-fx and, hey, i won this auction So the only thing i actually miss is a machine that also plays the US-HU-cards. But hmmm, let's look, _{hmm, there is eBay ...hmmm ... ;)}

But why the PCE ? What is so special about this machine ?
For me, first it's the size and the design of the machines. They look so good and i also like the small size of the original pc-engine. And then the software. I like shooters and the pc-e is the ultimate machine for shooters. But most of them i like the style of the pc-e games. The colors, the look of them ... hard to describe, but i absolutely like how this games look.

OK, once again apologize my English ;) Anyway I hope you understand what i wanted to say ;)

Greetings from Germany
Tom