Hi there!
This is a site I have for playing TCG's around the internet. Please feel free to check out my virtual card collections! ^^
Have fun playing! 
Random thoughts
October 29, 2009 : Trading Academy, Platinum and Synthesis are still on hiatus and I fear for the latter two... Let's hope they'll get revived!
In the meantime, I'm totally hooked on the new Pokémon themed MissingNO TCG. This TCG takes TCG tech to the next level. You and your pokémon's stats are updated automatically each time you finish a game, which makes possible a much deeper experience than in the typical TCG.
Playing MissingNO is a constant balancing effort, trying to pick the right pokémon for the right game. Do you choose that one pokémon which gives your more cards but is low on HP? Or do you choose the one with high HP to save the first pokémon for next week's biweekly game update? Or a third one, so you can train that and up it's power with a new attack? And who do you give that potion to you just won? It's totally like you and your pokémon are out on an adventure tackling those tricky TCG games together! XD
Great stuff and highly recommended! 
Who is this Barbar anyway?
Well, after several months of boring anonimity I thought I should write a bit about myself. That way you know who you're trading with! ^^
So... hi! I'm Rob, a 30-year old guy from the Netherlands. Personality-wise, I guess I'm a bit of a dreamer. A lot of my hobbies originate from that: I positively love videogaming (no better way to get caught up in a fantasy world), but I also like to read manga, watch the occasional movie and read the occasional book. Besides that I'm a huge optimist; hence I'm a big Star Trek fan. I also play board and card games with my friends. Videogames, Star Trek and board games; I'm like a geek, a nerd and a dork all rolled into one. 
Things I do besides the above, and besides work of course, are, in no particular order:
- help out at the local chess club (train kids, organize stuff, help out with tournaments and write for the club magazine)
- read about videogames (did I mention I love videogames?)
- write about videogames (check out our website: www.nintendo-gaming.nl, which is especially good if you know how to read Dutch )
- collect stuff, which explains why I have this website 
Moving from the mental to the physical stuff: I'm 1,80 m. long, have Asian origins and weigh about 75 kilograms. I don't do any physical sports, because after a day's work, most of the time I'm just so tired I don't seem to have the energy for that. (Meaning I'm lazy, I guess 
) I do bycicle/walk everywhere I want to go though and take the stairs instead of elevators, so that helps me keep in shape somewhat. Oh, and I play the Wii regularly. Wii Fit counts as exercize, doesn't it?
Well, I guess that's me in a nutshell. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Have fun playing the TCGs!
Games I like
Well, as a videogame-nut, I figured I should dedicate at least some space here to talk about videogames. So... here are some videogames I like. You might want to try them out!
- Guitar Hero World Tour & Greatest Hits (Wii)
I'm currently really addicted to these games. The ultimate music games, these games really let you think you're a rock star. The games have a guitar-like controller and a drums-like controller, which you use to play along with classic rock songs, as well as songs that show off really cool guitar and drums play. You can also sing your way through the songs, if you feel like it. As such, the co-op multiplayer is extremely good. Highly recommended for party play!
- Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Wow, I can't believe how much fun this title is. The first Mario game on Wii is stunning in all it's zany, crazy, nutty glory. Right from the start you'll get bombarded with all kinds of different new game ideas and the strangest levels ever to grace a videogame. I've never seen so many game ideas thrown into a game, and the best thing is, it all feels like it a real game instead of a collection of random stuff... Unbelievable game design! Even the 2-player mode, which seemed like a gimmick in the previews, actually is a lot of fun. It could have been a bit more challenging, but still... awesome! 
- Beyond Good and Evil (GameCube, PS2, Xbox)
This excellent game regrettably isn't known very much, probably due to lack of marketing. The game puts you in the shoes of Jade, a freelance news reporter. In the game you have to uncover and reveal the truth behind a war, by infiltrating military bases and getting photographic proof of nasty stuff that's happening there. The game has everything: it has a great story, gorgeous art direction, wonderful music and voice acting and of course great gameplay. It one of those rare games that somehow successfully melds several genres together: stealth, exploration, action/adventure, platforming, racing and even a bit of flight combat, and it's all balanced and a lot of fun. Highly recommended!
- Another Code: Two Memories (Nintendo DS)
This point&click adventure has one serious flaw: it's way too short. But besides that, this is one adventure that can really suck you in. I can honestly say it's the most immersive adventure I've ever played, and it's all due to clever use of Nintendo's wonderful DS handheld. The game design is decidedly different from classic point&click adventures, so that could put off some adventure fans, but all the odd design choices actually help the realism in the game, and I was duly impressed at how developer CING pulled that off.
- Mario&Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Extremely cool RPG with the Mario Bros. as main characters. This is a crazy game which purposefully doesn't take it's setting too serious. It's a game that decides to just have fun with Mario's world, and as such it's full of jokes about Mario and his friends. A real classic for Nintendo fans!
- Pikmin (GameCube)
One of the masterpieces of gaming godfather and eternal sensei Shigeru Miyamoto. This game is basically a weird kind of Puzzle/ Real Time Strategy game. The premise is that you crashed on a planet and have to find all of your spaceship parts that are scatterred around the world, before your life supports runs out. To do so, you call in the help from Pikmin, small walking plantlike creatures, with different abilities accoriding to their color. Using these different abilities you have to traverse the terrain, which is quite hazardous to you, since you're smaller than most bugs. The game is masterfully balanced, and it's somehow really fun to tackle giant ladybugs with an army of small plantlike creatures.
- Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (GameCube)
Excellent, though very short, platform game starring Donkey Kong. The game consists out of several short levels, which you'll have to play through with the Bongo controller. Hit the right bongo to go right, hit the left bongo to go left. Hit both to jump and clap your hands to grab bananas or trigger special stuff on-screen. It's pretty basic, but it makes for great gameplay when you frantically drum the bongo's to run, or try to time your jumps just right, so you can swing from vine to vine and jump off enemies and try to never touch the ground along the way (building up a score multiplyer). Oh, and the boss battles kick ass! 
- Ico (PS2)
Very underrated adventure. You're a small horned boy who get's left in a huge complex of old ruins as a sacrifice. Inside, you meet a blind girl. From that point on you'll have to find a way to escape the vast complex. The problem is, since your companion is blind, she's completely helpless. So you'll not only have to find a way out, you'll also have to make sure she can make it through safely, by creating passageways and fending of shadow monsters that try to capture her, by slashing them away with your wooden sword. Great atmosphere with huge buildings in which you can truly feel small. (Shadow of the Colossus, this game's spiritual successor, is pretty cool too)
- Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Great RPG with simple combat mechanics, but wonderful atmosphere. Travel through all the famous Disney worlds to save, well, the universe I guess. And to do so, you team up with knight Goofy and wizard Donald. A Square Enix masterpiece with Disney Magic!
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (PC)
I played the original Pirates! a lot, and I was really happy to see the latest remake has retained all the extreme playability of the original. The controls are intuďtive, superbly easy, and the game still has that extreme "pick up and play, and keep playing" feel. Anyway, in the game you play a pirate who sails the Caribbean. You can fight and capture ships, raid towns, for yourself, or for your country. You can go treasure hunting or accept and fulfill missions for governors. Or you can hunt down and capture the Treasure Fleet. Anything pirate-related you want to do, you can do. Superb game!
- Portal (PC)
This is a first-person puzzle game where you have to navigate through levels using portals that you can place anywhere you can see by shooting your portal gun. It sounds very straightforward, but it has some very clever level design and puzzles. Oh, and the character designs and voice-overs, for the robotic masters of the building you're trapped in, are extremely funny!
- Quest for Glory I and II (Atari ST, PC)
Well, these are really old, but I thought I'd mention them, since I still think they're some of the very few games that let you do some truly heroic stuff. Very cool old point and click RPG's, with text command input for ultimate flexibility (as well as headaches when you can't think of the right words to type).
- Loom (Atari ST, PC)
And another really old one. Loom is a wonderful point&click adventure, in which you perform all the significant actions by playing music with your magical staff. Wonderful story, great atmosphere.
- Captain Blood (Atari ST, PC)
And another old game. In this game, you travel through the galaxy in search of clones of yourself, which you need to find to extract biomatter from to stay alive. The cool thing is, that you can't speak all the different languages in the universe. Instead, you try to investigate and negotiate with a universal language composed out of thirty or so words. This will cause some unique conversations, like "Me take you Great Bananas", which stands for "I'll transport you to the planet known as Great Bananas". It's very much fun to try and think of ways to express yourself and negotiate and convince the several aliens to help you. Apart from that, there's a strict time limit. You get weaker all the time, which for example causes your hand to shake. As such it gets increasingly difficult to point out exact coordinates to travel to on your star map. This give you a very real sense of urgency to complete your negotiations as fast as possible. Oh, and the flight sequences you enter every time you land on a new planet are real fun too! Wonderfully balanced gameplay, although it's a very hard game.