First off, before some random Lone Ranger comes along and thinks something about this post, please read it in it's entirety.

Something interesting happened to me the other day. I was mulling over buying Hokuto No Ken on the PS2. My slimline is modified to play NTSC-J games, and I love Japanese 2D fighters. Hokuto No Ken is just awesome, but hard to find at a reasonable price. My friend at the shop offered it to me at a $20 discount, and when I hesitated (I'd just spent $80 on a 3DO the day before) he, as a friend, told me that my modified PS2 was capable of playing burnt discs. Just as a character profile of me, I had no idea. I only wanted to play imported titles.

He told me that he would AS A FRIEND burn me a copy of the game. I thought "hey cool" for a second. Then it dawned on me. In my lovely shelves of games, their bright labels shouting out to me what they are, there would be a blank case, with a "Magnavox CD-R" title, and in black sharpie would be "Hokuto No Ken". It would be a pariah. What is the point of Collecting if there was even ONE such blasphemy in my collection?

I told him no thanks and paid for the proper game. He wasn't necessarily 'stunned' per se, but he was impressed that I'd be that dedicated. Now I'm not going to say that I download music or movies, but I wouldn't want a federal agent looking through my hard drive. But when it comes to games, it's not about the number of titles. It's about the entire experience. Now, I do have some emulators and ROMs, but anymore they're for my GP2X and the games on there are games I own.

It's not just about playing Chronotrigger or Sonic the Hedgehog. It's about holding the SNES controller, yanking out an reinserting cartridges after blowing on them. Reaching aroud the back fo your TV to connect RF adaptors or raiding Radio Shack to get adaptors for 30 year old electronics. No emulator can emulate that™

So after a lot of discussion about the rather seedy nature of people who burn console games, I went home, booted up my import player and rocked out to one of the best handling 2D fighters out there, and can proudly put it in my shelf alongside the other gems.