You know that feeling when you're digging through a charity shop's random box of N64 games and you spot something that makes you double-take? That's exactly what happened when I found Glover tucked between about fifteen copies of FIFA 98. The cover looked like a fever dream – this white glove character with cartoon eyes, holding what appeared to be a rubber ball. I'd heard whispers about this one on old gaming forums, usually accompanied…
There's something deeply surreal about a game where the King of Pop transforms into a spaceship to fight aliens, and somehow it all makes perfect sense. I was twelve when Moonwalker landed on my Mega Drive, and honestly? It might've been the first time a video game made me feel like I was inside someone else's fever dream—in the best possible way.My mate Danny had gotten it for his birthday, and I remember the exact…
You know what still makes my palms sweat a bit? Walking past an old arcade cabinet running Virtua Fighter. Not the sweaty-palms anxiety of teenage social awkwardness—though there's definitely some of that muscle memory lurking about—but the good kind. The kind that comes from remembering when Sega didn't just make fighting games, they made *statements*.I was probably fourteen when I first saw Virtua Fighter running in the wild, tucked into the corner of our local…
There's something beautifully ridiculous about a plug-and-play console that promises to deliver forty-two games in one tiny plastic brick. When I spotted the Sega Genesis Flashback on a shelf last month, sandwiched between knock-off fitness trackers and bluetooth speakers that probably fell off a lorry, I felt that familiar tingle. You know the one. Same feeling I had when I first clocked the original Mega Drive in Dixons, all black plastic and attitude.The box screams…
The other day I was digging through a box of old electronics in my garage—you know how it is, looking for one thing and finding three things you forgot you even owned—when my fingers hit the familiar bulk of a Sega Game Gear. That unmistakable weight, like holding a brick wrapped in plastic that somehow promised adventure. I pulled it out, blew the dust off the screen, and immediately remembered why my mum used to…
You know what's weird? I can still remember the exact moment I realized Dash Rendar wasn't just some random smuggler they threw into the Star Wars universe. It was probably the third or fourth time through Shadows of the Empire on my N64, and I'd just nailed that speeder bike chase on Ord Mantell without hitting a single tree. Something about the way his ship, the Outrider, felt different from the Millennium Falcon in other…
The other day I was rummaging through a cardboard box that's been following me through three house moves, and there it was—my original Earthworm Jim manual for the Mega Drive. Crisp pages, still smelling faintly of that new-manual scent mixed with thirty years of storage. You know that smell. It's like opening a time capsule, except instead of finding historical artifacts, you're rediscovering why we used to read these things cover to cover on the…
The other day I was digging through a box of old gaming magazines—you know the drill, sticky pages from ancient orange juice spills and that particular musty smell of paper that lived through the Clinton administration—when I found a torn-out preview of Virtua Fighter on the 32X. The screenshot looked incredible for 1994. Like, genuinely jaw-dropping in a way that made me remember exactly what it felt like to see polygons moving smoothly on a…
The smell of a friend's basement in winter 1999 is burned into my memory—that musty carpet odor mixed with the electric warmth of a CRT that had been on for three hours straight. We'd gathered for what felt like a historic moment: someone had actually managed to get Resident Evil 2 running on Nintendo 64. Not just running, mind you, but looking… well, shockingly decent.I mean, we all knew the story by then. PlayStation had…
Right, so there I was in Electronics Boutique circa 1992, clutching a twenty-pound note that had been burning a hole in my pocket for three weeks. Sonic 2 was calling my name from behind the glass counter, but this enormous black contraption next to it kept catching my eye. The Sega CD. Even the name sounded expensive.The bloke behind the counter—middle-aged, thick glasses, definitely knew his stuff—was practically bouncing on his heels talking about it.…