In between reading crazy news sites yesterday, I was looking for video games to play. I’m a big fan of retro gaming, mainly because I think most of the current games just suck. Too hard to play. Too much time. Too violent. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I really don’t want to spend hours and hours learning how to play one game. That’s probably why I’m a big fan of games like Tetris and Warioware.

So I went on a search for emulators. For those of you new to this, an emulator is a program that runs on your PC. It emulates (simulates) another computer and/or game system. For example, you can download one that runs old Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games (that’s what I was doing last night). There’s nothing quite like re-living 1989! Anyhow, they are a great way to play games that you haven’t been able to in ages (or play games you were never able to afford/get in the first place). Right now I’m gonna take a look at a Nintendo 64 emulator that’s supposed to be pretty cool.

From a legal standpoint: Many of the older games are in the public domain, but a lot aren’t. It’s a sometimes gray area. The usual rule of thumb is that you should own the game to play it. For example, I own a Nintendo 64 and a bunch of games. I’d be playing it now, but it’s in storage in Chicago.

Because of the legal gray (or not so gray) area, a lot of the “ROM” sites are illegal. That means you have to be careful if you are looking for stuff. A lot of sites pop to porn, browser hijacks, etc. Be careful out there! One of the more reliable sites I’ve found is Emulator Zone. They have links (and reviews) to tons of emulators. (Note that they do NOT have the game ROMs. You have to find those elsewhere.)

Also, don’t bother messing with any of the current hardware (ex. a PSP or an XBOX). Most PCs aren’t powerful enough to emulate those machines. Plus, they are currently available, so play the real thing, okay? Save the emulators for the stuff that you just can’t get your hands on anymore (ex. my favorite: an Atari 800XL emulator).

My love of these older games is one of the big reasons I’m excited about the upcoming Nintendo Revolution game system. It’s the only “next generation” system that I want. I could care less about the XBOX360 or the PS3–just what we need–more kicking/skateboarding/shooting/sports/racing games. Ho-Hum. The Revolution is cool because it will have a bunch of emulators built in, so you can download and play a bunch of old games (the entire Nintendo collection). Here’s hoping that this comes true–and that the old games are cheap/free. We’ll see.

There are a lot of gamers out there who think Nintendo is dead (a la Sega). I sure hope not. Why? Because they make games that I actually want to play! Frankly, if you’ve seen one first person shooter you’ve seen them all (yea, better graphics, yadda-yadda-yadda). My beautiful Sony PSP is gathering dust while the clunky Nintendo DS is played every day. Why? Because there are fun games on the DS! Hopefully Nintendo will continue to release innovative stuff like Nintendogs, Electroplankton, Brain Age, etc.