1. I am...

... a 23 year-old arcade game fanatic from Queensland, Australia. I've been playing arcade games since I was 5 and the appeal hasn't worn off yet. I currently work the graveyard shift at a 24-hour tech support call centre. Between calls I usually spend time playing MAME (don't tell the boss!)

2. I got into MAME...

.. back in 1997 when I first got internet access at home. I remember hearing about a C64 emulator from a friend and downloaded it.

The natural progression is to look for games, and one of my searches stumbled Dave's Classics.Back then it was mostly a C-64 games site but already beginning to burgeon into an all-out emulator site, and he had reported on an arcade emulator called MAME which emulated games like PacMan and Jumpbug. Thinking it was impossible to play actual arcade games on a PC, I still downloaded it - and after a bit of fiddling around with ROMs and suchlike (which is all second nature now) I was simply amazed at what I saw.

This was the real deal, no more dodgy arcade ports or simulations. This was the actual arcade game, being displayed right before my eyes.

3. I love playing...

.. a lot of games, but those by Yoshiki Okamato (of Konami, then Capcom) stand out the most. This bloke is a dead-set genius, the developer of three of my all-time favourite games:

Gyruss - "three warps to Neptune!" Everything about this game was spot on: the music, sound effects, addictive gameplay, learning curve... a true classic.

Time Pilot - one of the first arcade games I played, and still one of my most-played games in MAME.

Street Fighter 2 - hard to believe its been nine years since this stormed onto the scene. Purists may look upon it as the catalyst that led the way for a million clones, thus killing futher advances in originality in the arcade genre.. but there is no denying it is a masterpiece which is a lot of fun to play, especially in vs. mode. I spent endless 'twennies' on this back in the day, and its great being able to play it again in MAME.

4. I would like to say to Nicola and the MAME team...

.. a resounding THANK YOU for letting us relive these classic games.

Without your work, the majority of these games would've ended up on the scrap heap, never to be seen or played again.

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