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Emulators Anonymous
Hello. My name (for the purpose of these forums) is SmokedKipper and I have a problem.
*applause from other sufferers in the room*
This is my story. Several years ago, at a time of my life when me and my friends were having fun with our N64’s and PlayStations I stumbled across a part of the Internet I hadn’t seen before. I don’t think it still exists but there are many more places just like it for other people to fall into the same trap that I did.
I found a place offering me the chance to play all of my old SNES and MegaDrive games on my PC for free. In fact I could play pretty much all of anyone’s old games for free. And it didn’t stop there. Game Gear, GameBoy, NES, Master System, even Commodore 64 and Spectrum games were being lined up for me to take. Sadly though, the smell had drawn me in to the first two. The two consoles I owned before I bought my N64.
At first I thought I would give it a little go to try it out. After all, I’d heard of other people doing it but had always decided it wasn’t for me. My first taste was a SNES emulator and a copy (in the true sense of the word) of Super Mario World. I was amazed. There on my PC was a fully working, perfect version of one of my favourite games of all time. I could play it full screen or in a window on my desktop as an instant break for a couple of minutes from university work and, even better, save at absolutely any point and come back to it from exactly where I left off.
Next I downloaded Zelda: A Link to the Past and was equally amazed. Remembering the extra chips in Mario Kart and, more specifically, Star Fox I got them as well only to be even more amazed. Star Fox was a little rough around the edges at first and didn’t seem to be quite at full speed but, unknown to me, my addiction was already in place and I was first in line when the next version of the emulator was up for downloading to correct any problems with the version I had.
At the moment I am the proud owner of a laptop PC and a GameCube. I have had 13 GameCube games in total (some sold after I had finished with them to pay for others). My PC is not for games. It has enough power behind it to be more than capable of doing what I need but it has little in the way of graphical capabilities. As a general rule, PC games are of little interest to me, but it is games on my PC that has brought me here today to share my problem.
Over the coming months I amassed a collection of around 200 games across the two system emulators I had. By the end I was downloading them just for the sake of having them. There are dozens of games I downloaded that I have never seen passed the title screen for and a good few that I haven’t even looked at. Such is the nature of my addiction. Sadly though, it doesn’t stop there, and this is where my real problem lies.
The games that I did play were often ones I previously owned which is how I justified my action to my conscience. Of the vast number of games I download that I didn’t own, very few of them received much attention, and of those that did it was usually because of using the built in Action Replay feature to cheat my way through the game to see it all as quickly and as easily as possible. The ability to save the games instantaneously from any point and recover from the exact same state at a later date allowed for ‘quickie’ goes on games this would not normally be possible with, such as your average RPG.
You would think this didn’t really matter because I hadn’t paid anything for them. Little did I know the price I would be paying was more costly than ordinary currency - it was the price of my future enjoyment in many games.
One of the games I bought for my GameCube was Eternal Darkness, on the recommendation of several people and reviews. I’m sure it’s a great game but I was recently killed by something rather large in it (fairly near the beginning, a couple of hours at most) and had to go back about 25 minutes of play and haven’t been on it since. It’s a similar case with Resident Evil (another great game) and pretty much any other game where you really have to play it for a reasonable length at a time to get a real sense of enjoyment and progression out of it.
Pausing in the middle of a boss fight at the end of a dungeon? Why bother? With an emulator you can instantly save the state anywhere and come back to it days later. If you die there’s no need to repeat the dungeon. Just instantly reload from where you saved mid-fight and try again.
Emulators have brought me a lot of enjoyment in the past but I admit I was drawn in as much by the convenience of play rather than just the cheapness of it. Recently, call it an act of God or my subconscious controlling my actions, I had a massive software problem on my PC and had to completely re-install everything. When backing up my files before doing this, I bravely decided to only save a small number of my downloaded games to try and, for want of a better expression, get them out of my system. What remained was a collection of less than 20.
Some of my GameCube games have been bought second hand. From the same shop I decided to have a look at the ‘Retro’ corner which never seemed to do much business. One of the first things that caught my eye was a fully boxed copy of Zelda on the SNES. I thought to myself ‘I used to have that’. Then I realised that I still did have it but for some reason it just didn’t seem the same. For a mere £2.50 I could buy a real copy from this shop so, for some unknown reason, I did. That night I sat with it on my desk but, instead of playing my downloaded version, I took a trip to ebay which could have put me on the road to recovery.
That night I spent a total of only around £60 in successful bids. For my money I received a SNES with 10 games and an N64 with 6. Not all of them were games I wanted to keep but many of them were ones I used to own and, more importantly, ones I could now happily delete from my computer. I now have 3 generations of Nintendo consoles next to my TV. Admittedly the game collection is not what it once was on my PC but they are games in their true form. If you die, you have to restart. There’s no tweaking the graphics, sound and control options to get things perfect. Just plug it in and play away. As it should be.
I know what I’ve said here today will be brushed aside by many people who feel they don’t have a problem or feel that are happy the way they are but I’m sure I’m not the only one with a story like this to tell.
I still use emulators occasionally. They aren’t out of my system altogether, but they are rarely used for much more than trial purposes as I’m sure many of you here do as well. When used correctly, however morally and legally wrong they are, there is enjoyment to be had, but be warned of the dangers of getting in to deep - things might not be as cheap as you first thought.
*sits down, waits for more applause and realises that everyone has left the room long ago*
Oh well. I’m off to into town now to see what’s on offer. Apparently my new friend working at the retro games corner has a copy of Secret of Mana waiting for me.
Hello. My name (for the purpose of these forums) is SmokedKipper and I have a problem.
*applause from other sufferers in the room*
This is my story. Several years ago, at a time of my life when me and my friends were having fun with our N64’s and PlayStations I stumbled across a part of the Internet I hadn’t seen before. I don’t think it still exists but there are many more places just like it for other people to fall into the same trap that I did.
I found a place offering me the chance to play all of my old SNES and MegaDrive games on my PC for free. In fact I could play pretty much all of anyone’s old games for free. And it didn’t stop there. Game Gear, GameBoy, NES, Master System, even Commodore 64 and Spectrum games were being lined up for me to take. Sadly though, the smell had drawn me in to the first two. The two consoles I owned before I bought my N64.
At first I thought I would give it a little go to try it out. After all, I’d heard of other people doing it but had always decided it wasn’t for me. My first taste was a SNES emulator and a copy (in the true sense of the word) of Super Mario World. I was amazed. There on my PC was a fully working, perfect version of one of my favourite games of all time. I could play it full screen or in a window on my desktop as an instant break for a couple of minutes from university work and, even better, save at absolutely any point and come back to it from exactly where I left off.
Next I downloaded Zelda: A Link to the Past and was equally amazed. Remembering the extra chips in Mario Kart and, more specifically, Star Fox I got them as well only to be even more amazed. Star Fox was a little rough around the edges at first and didn’t seem to be quite at full speed but, unknown to me, my addiction was already in place and I was first in line when the next version of the emulator was up for downloading to correct any problems with the version I had.
At the moment I am the proud owner of a laptop PC and a GameCube. I have had 13 GameCube games in total (some sold after I had finished with them to pay for others). My PC is not for games. It has enough power behind it to be more than capable of doing what I need but it has little in the way of graphical capabilities. As a general rule, PC games are of little interest to me, but it is games on my PC that has brought me here today to share my problem.
Over the coming months I amassed a collection of around 200 games across the two system emulators I had. By the end I was downloading them just for the sake of having them. There are dozens of games I downloaded that I have never seen passed the title screen for and a good few that I haven’t even looked at. Such is the nature of my addiction. Sadly though, it doesn’t stop there, and this is where my real problem lies.
The games that I did play were often ones I previously owned which is how I justified my action to my conscience. Of the vast number of games I download that I didn’t own, very few of them received much attention, and of those that did it was usually because of using the built in Action Replay feature to cheat my way through the game to see it all as quickly and as easily as possible. The ability to save the games instantaneously from any point and recover from the exact same state at a later date allowed for ‘quickie’ goes on games this would not normally be possible with, such as your average RPG.
You would think this didn’t really matter because I hadn’t paid anything for them. Little did I know the price I would be paying was more costly than ordinary currency - it was the price of my future enjoyment in many games.
One of the games I bought for my GameCube was Eternal Darkness, on the recommendation of several people and reviews. I’m sure it’s a great game but I was recently killed by something rather large in it (fairly near the beginning, a couple of hours at most) and had to go back about 25 minutes of play and haven’t been on it since. It’s a similar case with Resident Evil (another great game) and pretty much any other game where you really have to play it for a reasonable length at a time to get a real sense of enjoyment and progression out of it.
Pausing in the middle of a boss fight at the end of a dungeon? Why bother? With an emulator you can instantly save the state anywhere and come back to it days later. If you die there’s no need to repeat the dungeon. Just instantly reload from where you saved mid-fight and try again.
Emulators have brought me a lot of enjoyment in the past but I admit I was drawn in as much by the convenience of play rather than just the cheapness of it. Recently, call it an act of God or my subconscious controlling my actions, I had a massive software problem on my PC and had to completely re-install everything. When backing up my files before doing this, I bravely decided to only save a small number of my downloaded games to try and, for want of a better expression, get them out of my system. What remained was a collection of less than 20.
Some of my GameCube games have been bought second hand. From the same shop I decided to have a look at the ‘Retro’ corner which never seemed to do much business. One of the first things that caught my eye was a fully boxed copy of Zelda on the SNES. I thought to myself ‘I used to have that’. Then I realised that I still did have it but for some reason it just didn’t seem the same. For a mere £2.50 I could buy a real copy from this shop so, for some unknown reason, I did. That night I sat with it on my desk but, instead of playing my downloaded version, I took a trip to ebay which could have put me on the road to recovery.
That night I spent a total of only around £60 in successful bids. For my money I received a SNES with 10 games and an N64 with 6. Not all of them were games I wanted to keep but many of them were ones I used to own and, more importantly, ones I could now happily delete from my computer. I now have 3 generations of Nintendo consoles next to my TV. Admittedly the game collection is not what it once was on my PC but they are games in their true form. If you die, you have to restart. There’s no tweaking the graphics, sound and control options to get things perfect. Just plug it in and play away. As it should be.
I know what I’ve said here today will be brushed aside by many people who feel they don’t have a problem or feel that are happy the way they are but I’m sure I’m not the only one with a story like this to tell.
I still use emulators occasionally. They aren’t out of my system altogether, but they are rarely used for much more than trial purposes as I’m sure many of you here do as well. When used correctly, however morally and legally wrong they are, there is enjoyment to be had, but be warned of the dangers of getting in to deep - things might not be as cheap as you first thought.
*sits down, waits for more applause and realises that everyone has left the room long ago*
Oh well. I’m off to into town now to see what’s on offer. Apparently my new friend working at the retro games corner has a copy of Secret of Mana waiting for me.
No, not addiction... although I did play Advance Wars through to Mission 14 until I got stuck... which, coincidentally, is the same place where I gave up a few months back using the proper cartridge.
DeltaJava wrote:
> You read some of the topics over in the Nintendo forum, then? We did
> mention quite a bit on emulators... oh, did I say we? Well, there's no
> proof that I have ROMs on my PC, so there!
After you saying that I've just skimmed over the one MWA wrote about a GBA emulator restoring his interest in the system but I think I'm at the opposite end of the scale. I tend to stay clear of topics on emulation in case I say something incriminating!
Maybe I should have posted this in the Nintendo forum if that is the unofficial Emulators Anonymous Club which I guess you're a member of - stand up and admit you have a problem with addiction, denial will get you no where!
> You read some of the topics over in the Nintendo forum, then? We did
> mention quite a bit on emulators... oh, did I say we? Well, there's no
> proof that I have ROMs on my PC, so there!
After you saying that I've just skimmed over the one MWA wrote about a GBA emulator restoring his interest in the system but I think I'm at the opposite end of the scale. I tend to stay clear of topics on emulation in case I say something incriminating!
Maybe I should have posted this in the Nintendo forum if that is the unofficial Emulators Anonymous Club which I guess you're a member of - stand up and admit you have a problem with addiction, denial will get you no where!
You read some of the topics over in the Nintendo forum, then? We did mention quite a bit on emulators... oh, did I say we? Well, there's no proof that I have ROMs on my PC, so there!
Heh. Sneaky. But I'm not addicted. Honest. Now where was that Spectrum emulator...
I do know what you mean, I have both ED and RE and don't play them much at all. All because I wanted to play A Link to the Past.
Great post.
Great post.
Emulators Anonymous
Hello. My name (for the purpose of these forums) is SmokedKipper and I have a problem.
*applause from other sufferers in the room*
This is my story. Several years ago, at a time of my life when me and my friends were having fun with our N64’s and PlayStations I stumbled across a part of the Internet I hadn’t seen before. I don’t think it still exists but there are many more places just like it for other people to fall into the same trap that I did.
I found a place offering me the chance to play all of my old SNES and MegaDrive games on my PC for free. In fact I could play pretty much all of anyone’s old games for free. And it didn’t stop there. Game Gear, GameBoy, NES, Master System, even Commodore 64 and Spectrum games were being lined up for me to take. Sadly though, the smell had drawn me in to the first two. The two consoles I owned before I bought my N64.
At first I thought I would give it a little go to try it out. After all, I’d heard of other people doing it but had always decided it wasn’t for me. My first taste was a SNES emulator and a copy (in the true sense of the word) of Super Mario World. I was amazed. There on my PC was a fully working, perfect version of one of my favourite games of all time. I could play it full screen or in a window on my desktop as an instant break for a couple of minutes from university work and, even better, save at absolutely any point and come back to it from exactly where I left off.
Next I downloaded Zelda: A Link to the Past and was equally amazed. Remembering the extra chips in Mario Kart and, more specifically, Star Fox I got them as well only to be even more amazed. Star Fox was a little rough around the edges at first and didn’t seem to be quite at full speed but, unknown to me, my addiction was already in place and I was first in line when the next version of the emulator was up for downloading to correct any problems with the version I had.
At the moment I am the proud owner of a laptop PC and a GameCube. I have had 13 GameCube games in total (some sold after I had finished with them to pay for others). My PC is not for games. It has enough power behind it to be more than capable of doing what I need but it has little in the way of graphical capabilities. As a general rule, PC games are of little interest to me, but it is games on my PC that has brought me here today to share my problem.
Over the coming months I amassed a collection of around 200 games across the two system emulators I had. By the end I was downloading them just for the sake of having them. There are dozens of games I downloaded that I have never seen passed the title screen for and a good few that I haven’t even looked at. Such is the nature of my addiction. Sadly though, it doesn’t stop there, and this is where my real problem lies.
The games that I did play were often ones I previously owned which is how I justified my action to my conscience. Of the vast number of games I download that I didn’t own, very few of them received much attention, and of those that did it was usually because of using the built in Action Replay feature to cheat my way through the game to see it all as quickly and as easily as possible. The ability to save the games instantaneously from any point and recover from the exact same state at a later date allowed for ‘quickie’ goes on games this would not normally be possible with, such as your average RPG.
You would think this didn’t really matter because I hadn’t paid anything for them. Little did I know the price I would be paying was more costly than ordinary currency - it was the price of my future enjoyment in many games.
One of the games I bought for my GameCube was Eternal Darkness, on the recommendation of several people and reviews. I’m sure it’s a great game but I was recently killed by something rather large in it (fairly near the beginning, a couple of hours at most) and had to go back about 25 minutes of play and haven’t been on it since. It’s a similar case with Resident Evil (another great game) and pretty much any other game where you really have to play it for a reasonable length at a time to get a real sense of enjoyment and progression out of it.
Pausing in the middle of a boss fight at the end of a dungeon? Why bother? With an emulator you can instantly save the state anywhere and come back to it days later. If you die there’s no need to repeat the dungeon. Just instantly reload from where you saved mid-fight and try again.
Emulators have brought me a lot of enjoyment in the past but I admit I was drawn in as much by the convenience of play rather than just the cheapness of it. Recently, call it an act of God or my subconscious controlling my actions, I had a massive software problem on my PC and had to completely re-install everything. When backing up my files before doing this, I bravely decided to only save a small number of my downloaded games to try and, for want of a better expression, get them out of my system. What remained was a collection of less than 20.
Some of my GameCube games have been bought second hand. From the same shop I decided to have a look at the ‘Retro’ corner which never seemed to do much business. One of the first things that caught my eye was a fully boxed copy of Zelda on the SNES. I thought to myself ‘I used to have that’. Then I realised that I still did have it but for some reason it just didn’t seem the same. For a mere £2.50 I could buy a real copy from this shop so, for some unknown reason, I did. That night I sat with it on my desk but, instead of playing my downloaded version, I took a trip to ebay which could have put me on the road to recovery.
That night I spent a total of only around £60 in successful bids. For my money I received a SNES with 10 games and an N64 with 6. Not all of them were games I wanted to keep but many of them were ones I used to own and, more importantly, ones I could now happily delete from my computer. I now have 3 generations of Nintendo consoles next to my TV. Admittedly the game collection is not what it once was on my PC but they are games in their true form. If you die, you have to restart. There’s no tweaking the graphics, sound and control options to get things perfect. Just plug it in and play away. As it should be.
I know what I’ve said here today will be brushed aside by many people who feel they don’t have a problem or feel that are happy the way they are but I’m sure I’m not the only one with a story like this to tell.
I still use emulators occasionally. They aren’t out of my system altogether, but they are rarely used for much more than trial purposes as I’m sure many of you here do as well. When used correctly, however morally and legally wrong they are, there is enjoyment to be had, but be warned of the dangers of getting in to deep - things might not be as cheap as you first thought.
*sits down, waits for more applause and realises that everyone has left the room long ago*
Oh well. I’m off to into town now to see what’s on offer. Apparently my new friend working at the retro games corner has a copy of Secret of Mana waiting for me.
Hello. My name (for the purpose of these forums) is SmokedKipper and I have a problem.
*applause from other sufferers in the room*
This is my story. Several years ago, at a time of my life when me and my friends were having fun with our N64’s and PlayStations I stumbled across a part of the Internet I hadn’t seen before. I don’t think it still exists but there are many more places just like it for other people to fall into the same trap that I did.
I found a place offering me the chance to play all of my old SNES and MegaDrive games on my PC for free. In fact I could play pretty much all of anyone’s old games for free. And it didn’t stop there. Game Gear, GameBoy, NES, Master System, even Commodore 64 and Spectrum games were being lined up for me to take. Sadly though, the smell had drawn me in to the first two. The two consoles I owned before I bought my N64.
At first I thought I would give it a little go to try it out. After all, I’d heard of other people doing it but had always decided it wasn’t for me. My first taste was a SNES emulator and a copy (in the true sense of the word) of Super Mario World. I was amazed. There on my PC was a fully working, perfect version of one of my favourite games of all time. I could play it full screen or in a window on my desktop as an instant break for a couple of minutes from university work and, even better, save at absolutely any point and come back to it from exactly where I left off.
Next I downloaded Zelda: A Link to the Past and was equally amazed. Remembering the extra chips in Mario Kart and, more specifically, Star Fox I got them as well only to be even more amazed. Star Fox was a little rough around the edges at first and didn’t seem to be quite at full speed but, unknown to me, my addiction was already in place and I was first in line when the next version of the emulator was up for downloading to correct any problems with the version I had.
At the moment I am the proud owner of a laptop PC and a GameCube. I have had 13 GameCube games in total (some sold after I had finished with them to pay for others). My PC is not for games. It has enough power behind it to be more than capable of doing what I need but it has little in the way of graphical capabilities. As a general rule, PC games are of little interest to me, but it is games on my PC that has brought me here today to share my problem.
Over the coming months I amassed a collection of around 200 games across the two system emulators I had. By the end I was downloading them just for the sake of having them. There are dozens of games I downloaded that I have never seen passed the title screen for and a good few that I haven’t even looked at. Such is the nature of my addiction. Sadly though, it doesn’t stop there, and this is where my real problem lies.
The games that I did play were often ones I previously owned which is how I justified my action to my conscience. Of the vast number of games I download that I didn’t own, very few of them received much attention, and of those that did it was usually because of using the built in Action Replay feature to cheat my way through the game to see it all as quickly and as easily as possible. The ability to save the games instantaneously from any point and recover from the exact same state at a later date allowed for ‘quickie’ goes on games this would not normally be possible with, such as your average RPG.
You would think this didn’t really matter because I hadn’t paid anything for them. Little did I know the price I would be paying was more costly than ordinary currency - it was the price of my future enjoyment in many games.
One of the games I bought for my GameCube was Eternal Darkness, on the recommendation of several people and reviews. I’m sure it’s a great game but I was recently killed by something rather large in it (fairly near the beginning, a couple of hours at most) and had to go back about 25 minutes of play and haven’t been on it since. It’s a similar case with Resident Evil (another great game) and pretty much any other game where you really have to play it for a reasonable length at a time to get a real sense of enjoyment and progression out of it.
Pausing in the middle of a boss fight at the end of a dungeon? Why bother? With an emulator you can instantly save the state anywhere and come back to it days later. If you die there’s no need to repeat the dungeon. Just instantly reload from where you saved mid-fight and try again.
Emulators have brought me a lot of enjoyment in the past but I admit I was drawn in as much by the convenience of play rather than just the cheapness of it. Recently, call it an act of God or my subconscious controlling my actions, I had a massive software problem on my PC and had to completely re-install everything. When backing up my files before doing this, I bravely decided to only save a small number of my downloaded games to try and, for want of a better expression, get them out of my system. What remained was a collection of less than 20.
Some of my GameCube games have been bought second hand. From the same shop I decided to have a look at the ‘Retro’ corner which never seemed to do much business. One of the first things that caught my eye was a fully boxed copy of Zelda on the SNES. I thought to myself ‘I used to have that’. Then I realised that I still did have it but for some reason it just didn’t seem the same. For a mere £2.50 I could buy a real copy from this shop so, for some unknown reason, I did. That night I sat with it on my desk but, instead of playing my downloaded version, I took a trip to ebay which could have put me on the road to recovery.
That night I spent a total of only around £60 in successful bids. For my money I received a SNES with 10 games and an N64 with 6. Not all of them were games I wanted to keep but many of them were ones I used to own and, more importantly, ones I could now happily delete from my computer. I now have 3 generations of Nintendo consoles next to my TV. Admittedly the game collection is not what it once was on my PC but they are games in their true form. If you die, you have to restart. There’s no tweaking the graphics, sound and control options to get things perfect. Just plug it in and play away. As it should be.
I know what I’ve said here today will be brushed aside by many people who feel they don’t have a problem or feel that are happy the way they are but I’m sure I’m not the only one with a story like this to tell.
I still use emulators occasionally. They aren’t out of my system altogether, but they are rarely used for much more than trial purposes as I’m sure many of you here do as well. When used correctly, however morally and legally wrong they are, there is enjoyment to be had, but be warned of the dangers of getting in to deep - things might not be as cheap as you first thought.
*sits down, waits for more applause and realises that everyone has left the room long ago*
Oh well. I’m off to into town now to see what’s on offer. Apparently my new friend working at the retro games corner has a copy of Secret of Mana waiting for me.