Old Skool

Yes, it’s meant to be spelled that way. (And I probably should’ve used two “k”s.)


Ah, nostalgia!

Who doesn’t long for days gone by? When the world was a simpler place – landscapes were tiled, and populated with a wide variety of enemies (if you consider being identical except for a palette swap “variety”) and one travelled more by sliding than walking. Back then everything was simpler. You could walk in any one of four whole directions, and if you were lucky you had more than one action to choose from. (If you were truly blessed, you could even jump!)

What the hell am I talking about?

Why, retro-gaming, of course!

Emulators (programs that allow you to play games from older systems on newer ones, or your computer) are nothing new. They’ve been around for quite some time, actually, and have always had people interested in them. Who doesn’t like firing up an old console and playing the favorite games of their youth?

I know I do!

For pure, simple fun, the games of consoles past are hard to beat. Everything nowadays seems to be focusing on graphics, graphics, graphics, with gameplay being given the cold shoulder. I mean, it’s not flashy on its own, and you can’t very well put a picture of it on the back of the box to sell the game, but it is what matters most.So why am I talking about this? Just what brought this idea bubbling to the forefront of my mind?

My Xbox, of course!

When Microsoft first announced the Xbox, a lot of people (myself included) tended to write it off as “just a PC in a box that hooks up to your TV.” Now that I own one, I see that as being a pretty cool thing to have. Once it’s been hacked, you can run all kinds of software on it – media players, region-free DVD, Linux….

Even emulators.

Once I got the hang of FTPing stuff to my Xbox I went looking for stuff to load up on it. I mean, what’s the point of having a 120 gigabyte drive installed if I’m not going to put anything on it, right?

^.^

I loaded up lots of movies and TV shows and stuff, and when I got it modded in Seoul they put a few emulators on it to start me off.

The first hit is always free.

I had a batch of Neo-Geo and Capcom arcade titles loaded on it (as well as other assorted ones running under MAME), plus a ton of Nintendo 64 games, and that was pretty sweet. But I wanted more home console emulation – Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Gameboy Advance – you name it! If I used to own it, I wanted to play it again. And now I can. I can play just about any system I want all from one little (okay, it’s not so little) box, and all with the same controller. No more digging around trying to find the cartridge I want or the controller I need. All the ROMs (game cartridge files) are there on the hard drive and the Xbox controller is the only one I need.I’d say I’ve got somewhere between 300 and 400 games on the system right now. “Wow,” you say. “Isn’t that expensive?” Nope.

All the other hits are free, too. They’re just not legal.

In and of itself, emulation isn’t illegal – as long as you’re not infringing upon somebody else’s intellectual property or copyright. Most emulators are reverse-engineered and coded from scratch, so that makes the emulator itself legal. But what about the games?

Totally ripped off.

There are tons of places on the net where you can download ROM files that have been ripped from the original carts. (Find ’em yourself. I won’t list any here.) P2P services are loaded with them too. And no, just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right. But it does make it worth doing. I suppose if I had to jump through more hoops to do this I wouldn’t bother – but I don’t have to so it’s no bother at all.

Do I feel bad about it?

Nope. Look, most of these games are at least a decade old and completely out of print/production. And even if the company that originally produced them were to release them again, I’m not going to pay $20 a pop for them.

*cough* Nintendo *cough*

I know that’s no defense of my actions, and I don’t offer it as one. I’m just saying that’s the way things are and though it doesn’t excuse what I do, it is one of the reasons for it.Not only will I continue to play emulated stuff, I encourage others to do so as well. For a lot of games out there, it’s the only way you’ll ever get to play them – barring an extensive (and probably very expensive) eBay, flea market, thrift store scavenger hunt. There are some great, older games out there, and if you haven’t played them, you oughta give ’em a shot.Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home. There’s an 8-bit princess in need of rescuing.

^.^