Playing Retro Games On A Pc

[nesguy]

Not to be confused with a discussion on the morality of ROM's, but does anyone here play games on their PC? Personally, I just don't feel like it's quite the same as playing it on the original system. Sometimes it's just too easy with a ROM; I'm thinking of how much easier it was to beat the dam in TMNT when I could use save states, lol. The only time I've found it useful is for games unreleased here in the US, with maybe a fan translation involved. Are there any games you think are better played on a PC?

[white-zombie]

Hmm, good question!

I don't think that many games are made that much worse, and to be honest, for games I've played in the past and loved, I don't feel like it's cheating too much, by using saves.

Overall, i think it's just more convenient.

I do however think that it is a shame to play a classic game for the first time via an emulator.

Take for example Super Metroid. I never owned it, but downloaded it and played it on the PC, and whilst I enjoyed it, I wonder how much more of an achievement it would have been to play it on the SNES, without the luxury of save states, and complete the game.

There are however some right bastards of games that are made "completable" via Emulators.

I played Actraiser for the first time on the PC, and whilst most of the bosses were fair to middling, the last one was a right 2@, and I would never have beaten him but for using saves.

Same goes for pretty much all of Castlevania on the NES.

On the flipside, I don't think my PC is up to emulating PSOne games very well, and so I've buying them on e-bay.

In the last 2-3 years I played and completed the following games on the PSOne, albeit with the help of guides in some cases, though I can't really decide whether playing them in their native state brought anything more to the experience:

Resident Evil 2

Silent Hill

Metal Gear Solid

I also played a lot of Gran Turismo 1 & 2.

God, I talk lots!

EDIT: Tell me, has anyone figured out how to perform a Dragon Punch with the arrow keys ona keyboard?

Edited July 15, 2009 by white-zombie

[Areala]

  white-zombie said:

Hmm, good question!

I don't think that many games are made that much worse, and to be honest, for games I've played in the past and loved, I don't feel like it's cheating too much, by using saves.

Overall, i think it's just more convenient.

I do however think that it is a shame to play a classic game for the first time via an emulator.

Take for example Super Metroid. I never owned it, but downloaded it and played it on the PC, and whilst I enjoyed it, I wonder how much more of an achievement it would have been to play it on the SNES, without the luxury of save states, and complete the game.

There are however some right bastards of games that are made "completable" via Emulators.

I played Actraiser for the first time on the PC, and whilst most of the bosses were fair to middling, the last one was a right 2@, and I would never have beaten him but for using saves.

Same goes for pretty much all of Castlevania on the NES.

On the flipside, I don't think my PC is up to emulating PSOne games very well, and so I've buying them on e-bay.

In the last 2-3 years I played and completed the following games on the PSOne, albeit with the help of guides in some cases, though I can't really decide whether playing them in their native state brought anything more to the experience:

Resident Evil 2

Silent Hill

Metal Gear Solid

I also played a lot of Gran Turismo 1 & 2.

God, I talk lots!

EDIT: Tell me, has anyone figured out how to perform a Dragon Punch with the arrow keys ona keyboard?

You certainly lose something from not being able to experience them in their natural state, in my opinion. It's sorta like going to the zoo: you can see a panda there, and it's really neat to see it, but since it isn't in the wild you aren't getting the FULL experience of watching a panda.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for using emulation to pass areas that were always too difficult or time-consuming for you to pass, since part of the joy of owning the game presumably is being able to experience the whole thing, and nothing sucks worse than getting to a certain point in a game, getting killed, and having to start all the way back at the beginning. Me, I'll take the original experience over a PC processed remix any day, but your mileage may vary as the saying goes.

Also: to perform a dragon punch successfully with the keyboard, I believe one can press forward, down, down + punch and it will actually work. In a similar vein, I seem to recall being able to press down, down, forward+punch to hurl a fireball as well.

*huggles*

Areala

[Mister Zero]

I was actually thinking about this today watching a video of an Atari 2600 game on YouTube. It wouldn't be the same.

I would want the Atari controller in my hand, looking at the screen, because it looks a bit different through the TV. Plus I like switching the cartridges in the console and the little knobs and buttons.

I don't know.. it's just about the whole experience to me. Definitely not the same on the computer, though emulation is convenient for a quick fix.

[DPsx7]

I bought an adapter to use actual NES and SNES controllers on my PC. I'm not opposed to playing them through emulators. I mean you still need to beat the levels, the only thing save states do (provided you don't abuse them by saving every minute) is let you save and come back, a luxury we have now for most games. Plus if our consoles aren't in the best shape and there's potential for the game to mess up at any time, emulation prevents that too. Thanks to this I was able to complete several games including Blaster Master, Metal Gear 2, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Double Dragon, Kid Icarus, Lolo, and a few more. I intend to finish Battletoads one of these days too.

I do have all these games and more, reaching various stages back when I played them on the NES. Now they're safely packed away and I can finish these games on my own time.