Hello everyone!
I can only apologise for the delay in delivering this content. I haven't been able to make reliable time for the construction of this article. But it's here now.
I want to take a brief look at the world of videogame emulation and the impact it has had on my life...
I can only apologise for the delay in delivering this content. I haven't been able to make reliable time for the construction of this article. But it's here now.
I want to take a brief look at the world of videogame emulation and the impact it has had on my life...
So Many Choices, So Little Time
The first choice I realised that I was up against was deciding which systems I wanted to revisit. In the end, I settled mainly upon systems I wasn't fortunate enough to own. The Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the rest just came from there as I made the decision to find an emulator for other video game systems.
What I WON'T be doing in this article is providing you with links to these emulators, as that is not the purpose of it.
All I want to do is express my feelings and opinions about the different emulators that I tried and whether or not I thought they were easy to use and, more crucially, whether the ROM files were easy enough to track down.
ZNES
First off there's the ZSNES emulator which I found to be really easy to use, which, if I'm honest I was a little surprised at as I had always wanted to get into emulators but never really felt I had the experience. A few searches later and I had the emulator installed and was playing games. So, yes, it's easy to find, easy to download, easy to setup but where I think this emulator REALLY shines is in the plethora of options to explore.
Though there was a lack of explanation, or at least none that I found (for that read 'I didn't bother to read the detailed instructions'), as far as teaching you HOW to set everything up, from loading ROM files to changing display settings to match yours. Yet anyone with experience of DOS will have a field day as it operates in pretty much a similar way. You will be navigating through directories just like you did in the early days of DOS at its prime, but with the added benefit of mouse support making switching folders so much easier.
There are a bunch of controller support options but as I was more interested in playing the games than in playing them AUTHENTICALLY with appropriate compatible peripherals, I didn't really explore those options. What I DID explore was the ease of which you could find which keys were mapped to which controller buttons allowing you to change them if they were not suitable. Again, my only concern here was getting the emulator set up and getting it playing games, so if you want a more in depth review, go and find one.
Before I knew it, I was playing the likes of Super Mario Brothers and Kirby amongst others.
There are plenty of websites out there providing ROMs but I will say search with care because one or two I found and tried downloading from, came with some bloatware that my A/V detected right away as false.
Though there was a lack of explanation, or at least none that I found (for that read 'I didn't bother to read the detailed instructions'), as far as teaching you HOW to set everything up, from loading ROM files to changing display settings to match yours. Yet anyone with experience of DOS will have a field day as it operates in pretty much a similar way. You will be navigating through directories just like you did in the early days of DOS at its prime, but with the added benefit of mouse support making switching folders so much easier.
There are a bunch of controller support options but as I was more interested in playing the games than in playing them AUTHENTICALLY with appropriate compatible peripherals, I didn't really explore those options. What I DID explore was the ease of which you could find which keys were mapped to which controller buttons allowing you to change them if they were not suitable. Again, my only concern here was getting the emulator set up and getting it playing games, so if you want a more in depth review, go and find one.
Before I knew it, I was playing the likes of Super Mario Brothers and Kirby amongst others.
There are plenty of websites out there providing ROMs but I will say search with care because one or two I found and tried downloading from, came with some bloatware that my A/V detected right away as false.
GENS+
The next one was gens+ which claimed to focus upon playing the Sega Genesis (released as Sega Mega Drive in Europe), Sega Master System and even Sega Game Gear games. Again, like the zsnes emulator, it was easy enough to find, download and install, just requiring an extraction of the files from the directory rather than an .exe file to be run. Instantly this won points with me because I didn't have to concern myself with uninstalling the product should it not meet my specifications. I could just, like with znes, delete the directory once I was finished with it.
This time, the difference in performance was a stark contrast because, although the emulator simulated an untuned analogue TV screen upon loading, the interface was more akin to a Windows explorer-style interface. Bonus points, if you ask me, because no specialist knowledge is required to figure out how to find, download and install roms.
Getting all the practice in copy and pasting in the many years since I have been using computers has come in immense handy for the utilisation of these emulators and the focus here, was to be playing Sonic the Hedgehog. That's why I downloaded it; I wanted me some blue blur action!
There are a wide range of display options, just as there are controller options which this time I DID investigate because I needed to change the mapping of the buttons as I would be using a keyboard for my game playing with these emulators.
Once I'd played Sonic for a while, I started to reminisce about other games like James Pond, Mercs, Super Mario World (of which there was a very bizarre hack made for this system that was... quaint is the word I think I'll use) and Contra.
Hidden Gems
But my real satisfaction came when I discovered "Zombies Ate My Neighbours", a bizarre game that plays in a similar vein to the Stranger Things game that came out a few years back (or should that read the other way around due to the massive time difference between these two titles?) and this was when I knew that I was going to blast away countless hours on these systems.
In addition to these two, I also got an emulator for the NES, the Gameboy Colour and even the Philips 32x. I would say that, of all the emulators, the Nintendo ones were easiest to use.
In addition to these two, I also got an emulator for the NES, the Gameboy Colour and even the Philips 32x. I would say that, of all the emulators, the Nintendo ones were easiest to use.
Final Verdict
So out of all the emulators that I tried, do I have a favourite?
Well, it just depends on how you want to interact with these emulators as they feature a mixture of DOS-style interfaces and Windows-style interfaces. They're all incredibly easy to use if you're a regular computer user, but be ready if you're not, to call upon someone who is.
I suppose it's horses for courses as you might prefer interacting with your emulator in a DOS-style interface, or a Windows Explorer one. Either way, you have a choice of how you want your games to run and, as my machine was a notebook running Windows 7 Starter Edition, the performance never dipped once, meaning you don't have to worry about having the latest graphics card or anything like that as far as your gaming rig is concerned.
The key thing to remember here will be to get stuck into the options because there are far too many for me to write about here. You're better off tinkering yourself. You might do as I did and make a graphical change you don't like, but it's easy enough to put back.
I think, if I did have to pick one, it would be the NES emulator I picked up because I have a lot of nostalgia for this system. It was one my parents could never afford yet I did get to experience it at a friend's house before I set my eyes upon the Mega Drive and thus started my many year journey into videogames.
In the end, if I were to offer you some advice, I would say download these emulators, try them out and if you don't like them, search for some others because there are more than one options out there if, for whatever reason you don't like the way one plays or looks.
The key thing to remember here will be to get stuck into the options because there are far too many for me to write about here. You're better off tinkering yourself. You might do as I did and make a graphical change you don't like, but it's easy enough to put back.
I think, if I did have to pick one, it would be the NES emulator I picked up because I have a lot of nostalgia for this system. It was one my parents could never afford yet I did get to experience it at a friend's house before I set my eyes upon the Mega Drive and thus started my many year journey into videogames.
In the end, if I were to offer you some advice, I would say download these emulators, try them out and if you don't like them, search for some others because there are more than one options out there if, for whatever reason you don't like the way one plays or looks.
I would always be interested to read your feedback below should you have any on this, or any other article I've written.
Until next time...
Peace!
===TLP===
Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment