My mate Tony called me an idiot last Tuesday. Not for anything particularly stupid—well, more stupid than usual—but because I'd just spent twenty-five quid on a pristine copy of Mortal Kombat II for the Mega Drive. "You know you can download it for free, right?" Yeah, Tony. I…

The smell hits you first. That mixture of pizza grease, carpet that's seen better decades, and something electrical—maybe ozone from all those CRT monitors running hot. I can close my eyes right now and I'm thirteen again, standing in front of Street Fighter II at Luigi's Pizza Palace,…

You know that sinking feeling when you're holding something brilliant but nobody else seems to get it? That's how I felt clutching my Game Gear in 1991, watching mates queue up for grey Game Boys like lemmings heading for a cliff. Sure, the Game Boy had Tetris—fair play,…

There's something beautifully ironic about finding a massive collection of Sega Genesis games sitting pretty on a PlayStation console. I mean, back in the day these were sworn enemies—you picked a side and stuck with it like supporting a football team. Yet here I was in 2006, sliding…