Better late than never. Hi from France!

[deubeul]

Hi there,

I suscribed to the forum a (little) while ago, but never presented myself properly. I don't post that 
much, but enjoy reading you guys, some threads are so entertaining, instructive or exciting.

I'm always amazed and exited  by the vitality of the PcE scene, and by the new projects and books popping  out. I mean, it's 2015,  back in the days I would never have thought I could have new books to read or new  games to play or could speak about PcE with anyone in the world, as I was the only one in my town to have  one, and had barely nobody to share the love I had for this console with.


DISCLAIMER: This introduction will be a PITA to read, because of my far from perfect english and because It  will surely be a long-ass post. I'm going to tell my life here. And I got so much to say when it comes to PcE that I don't know what to start  with.

So I'll go chronological.


1989: The " This console looks so cool" era

First time I heard about PcE, 1989, . Back then (I was 12), I used to play Arcade games in smoky bars and  small arcade centers. Shinobi (all-time arcade favorite), Double dragon, Bad dudes vs Dragon Ninja, Ninja  Warriors (Yeah, lot of ninjas  ), Heavy Unit, R-Type,  and all the games of that era...  My friends had NESs and Master Systems, but I  couldn't stand to play on these, graphics and sounds were so ugly, compared to the arcade, and come on,  Shinobi on SMS WTF?? even the gameplay is totally different...

So back then I used to read Amiga/Atari ST magazines, and Amiga was my dream machine.

And one day, one of that magazines spoke about a new console I've never heard about that started to be sold  in french shops: "La Nec", as we were going to call it later. Critics in that mag were dithyrambic: The PcE  conversions exploded the Amiga ones in every aspects. And Gunhed... what was written about Gunhed achieved  to convinced the kid I was: best Shmup ever, hyper fast smooth scrolling, arcade at home... don't throw  more. But there was a major issue: my parents would never let me have a Video game console at home... only Game Boy allowed.  That's why I had to wait till...

1993: The GT era

The GT, my graal, had a huge drop in price in France at the end of 92. I secretly saved up money during 6 months,  and finally one day my precious was mine, bundled with Cyber Core. On my way home I threw the boxes in a bin so that my parents couldn't find it in may room  ...  The only other guy with a PcE at school sold me  a bunch of loose games for a price that would be unbelievable by today's standards: Shinobi (Yeah! ), Jacky  Chan (What a game!), Override, Parodius, and other minor games: I was Happy. And later that year I could  put my hands on Street Fighter 2'... the faces of the other guys when I was playing it at school was  priceless


1995: The " Total NEC way of life" era

That summer, at 18, I left my parent's house for a litte flat in town. I became friend with the seller of 
the Video Game/Manga shop next to my flat and one day, searching for cool stuff in the shop's cave while  the owner was away, we found a boxed PcE DUO along a pile of a dozen loose NESs. I nearly had a heart  attack. We didn't give a fuck to the NESs and let them rot, but we of course took the Duo, assuming the  shop owner had forgotten it was there. We were assuming right. I was so juiced, at that time we were already  playing PS1 and Saturn in the shop so the PcE was alredy a old if not dead system, but a PcE Duo !!! I had only saw it in magazines, that console was a  dream I always believe I could never touch, and then it was there, in our hands, so unexpectingly ! Problem: my friend  wanted to keep it for him. Miracle: there was no PSU in the box. He then accepted to sell me the console  for 50 Francs!! 7.50 € !!! and he let me take Spriggan, Ninja Spirit and 4 other shitty games that were  lying in a cupboard of the shop for ages!! One modified Megadrive PSU later, the console powered on  : Familly events  aside, it was one of the greatest days of my life, and the start of a  three years period I spent playing  Pce, and wasting my studies.

I was not asocial, I had a lot of friends, occasional girlfriends, and as I was the only one with a flat my 
place was the meeting point. So we had countless epic gaming parties on Bomberman94, Final match Tennis,  Dekoboko... fucking good memories. When I was alone of course all my free time was spent playing PcE. No internet back then, to find games we had to call the very few shops in France that still had PcE games, or search for offers in magazines. We PcE owners who didn't live in Paris had to spend lot of time phoning each  others to buy, trade, sell games, sometimes buying or trad blindly! I could put my hands on and play  a lot of  games that way, I think 250-300, but I never had more than 40~ at the same time, sort of bankroll. I was hungry of  everything: Shooties, Vs Fighting, RPGs, Digicos, platfomers, weird things... I discovered so much games I  never heard of. Countless epic moments: the first time I saw the super fast scrolling of Spriggan's first  stage; First time I heard the Music Of Lords Of Thunder; First time I saw the destroyers's apparition in  Nexzr; First time I played GOT... GOT... Instant love... the game I played the most in my entire life, at  least 1 time by day during 3~ years, real addiction.

But sadly, this era had a bad end...


1998 : The " So long, Pc Engine Duo" era, aka the dark ages

I'm a kind guy, so when a new friend showed interest in the PcE, telling me he wanted to play it like 
forever, I brought my console to his flat with my best games (GOT,WOT, Nexzr, Spriggan 1 and 2, Dracula  X...), we spent several evenings playing, everything was fine, until the day he moved on, without warning  me. Didn't know where he left, the other guys I knew he knew told me they didn't know where he was... I was  young, dumb, I didn't go to the police, my console was lost. (Funny that lost is nearly an anagram of  stole)

Since then I continued to play on other systems, but it was not the same. My passion for video games  started to fade away, real life things caught me up, I was done with the PcE, trying to put it out of my  mind. Untill...


2006 : The " Nostalgia " era, aka the casual emulation era

I wasn't that much into techno things back then, so I got my first internet connexion in 2006. I already  had heard about emulation, so one of the first thing I did was to get Magic Engine, and find Isos of my  favs. After a long times of downloads and lots of struggle with ME I finally got the thing to work. And  then... the intro of GOT, the music of Nexzr, instant goose-flesh and burst into tears. I fucking so much  missed that shit.

From then I started to play games I always wanted to play, but something had changed in me, I wasn't PcE  hungry anymore. There was something missing, that I coudn't put my finger on, something obvious though,  that I'd figure out later. (cough*Real Hardware*cough)

So the next years I played occasionaly, maybe 4-5 times a year, and only my favs, in quick runs. That were  during quick rushes of nostalgia, often when I came back home after a drunken night. Untill...

 
2012 : The " That's not nostalgia, that's just Love " era, aka back in the game!

One day that year I saw a Duo in a VG shop. The same I had, the black one. I felt a little something in my  guts, but walked away, there was no way I paid to play old videogames. But time going on, the image of that  Duo stuck in my mind and my remaining PcE games keeping whispering "we want to live again, we want to live  again..." directly in my brain, my fate was sealed . One day I woke up, took my credit card and went back  to the store. That sucker wasn't there anymore, there was a big hole in the ground instead of all the  block. Fucking Tramway construction. So I spent liters of gas to drive to almost every Video Game store  200kms around my area, only to not find anything. So I put my finger into devil's ass hole, aka Ebay, to  buy a duo-R. And since then, the sucker has swallowed all my arm, shoulder included!

But no regrets. The feeling I had when I took the Ave6 in my shaking hands, put the GOT CD in the console,  pushed the run button, the "goose-flesh and burst into tears" thing was back. Since then I bought way to  much games, got infected by the collectard disease, bought consoles, bought my first soldering iron, learn  to mod them, to repair them, reached a soldering skill level I never thought I was capable of, completed  games I couldn't complete back in the days, and finally understood that this love story would never end. I  got the Pc Engine deeply carved in my skin, so be it.



Thanks and sorry to those who managed to read this without a brain indigestion. There's a lot of my life in there, usually I'm not a guy who exposes his feelings that easily, but it had to come out. 


Cheers guys!

[NecroPhile]

Belated Welcome Aboard!  I hope your d-bag 'friend' got hit by a bus for karmic retribution.

So I put my finger into devil's ass hole...

I'm..... uncomfortable. 

[johnnykonami]

So I put my finger into devil's ass hole...

This quote by NecroPhile above is what really got me wanting to go back and read your post!

In context...

So I put my finger into devil's ass hole, aka Ebay, to  buy a duo-R. And since then, the sucker has swallowed all my arm, shoulder included!

Ebay!  Is that what I've been doing???  How come nobody told me!?  BRB, gonna scrub my hands with some brillo pads!  BTW, I think you are referring to the real flesh n' blood devil's asshole here; I have no hands on (or fingers in) experience with the the robot devil's asshole (but maybe someone here can chime in!).

Anyhooo, welcome aboard and obéir à la nec!

[EvilEvoIX]

Wow a true fan, welcome aboard.  It hurst so much when you share a passion with someone and they rip you off so bad.  I hope you get it all back.

[Warbucks]

Wow....

Welcome Aboard!

[deubeul]

Belated Welcome Aboard!  I hope your d-bag 'friend' got hit by a bus for karmic retribution.

So I put my finger into devil's ass hole...

I'm..... uncomfortable. 

Considering you're made of metal, pleaz don't contract your sphincters.

It hurst so much when you share a passion with someone and they rip you off so bad.  I hope you get it all back.

17 years after, I doubt 

[EvilEvoIX]

I mean replace it, the same stuff.

[deubeul]

Ah, sorry. Yes it's been replaced, exept from Kaze Kiri, even if I'm not sure It was among the others I lent. First games I bought back were GOT, WOT, Nexzr, Spriggan and Star Parodier. Dracula X had to wait a little

[esteban]

Welcome, comrade

You had me at "the goose flesh and burst into tears"...

Goose bumps.

I enjoyed reading your saga.

For the record: I totally enjoy Shinobi on SMS! It's a decent game. And the NES! What a great console.

Don't worry, I still love you.

Now play some Baby Jo and Andre Panza Kickboxing.

QUESTION: Is Andre Panza a guest judge on a reality TV series about sous-chefs? Or am I mistaken?

[Bardoly]

Nice belated introduction!

Welcome to Pcenginefx!