Emulators, Roms, NHL94, ATAT's and your imagination | andrew-blog - Nerdballoon.com - Lunchpail Platoon Podcast, Game Reviews and Oldschool Gaming

this is nerdballoon, home of the lp2

Emulators, Roms, NHL94, ATAT's and your imagination

· Written by Andrew · Thursday, 23 July 2009 04:00 ·

Emulators and ROMS are a funny thing. They are a sort of legal grey area when it comes to copyright protection, the law depending more on where you live than on the media you are copying. I don't think the thought of prosecution has ever stopped anyone from booting up MAME and playing a few classics though, and maybe that's just the point. Copying and distribution of ROMS to play through emulation is more about connecting with old games then it is about piracy. Titles long gone from the crowded shelves at your local game store, ROMS are about being able to hold on to a type of gaming that technology has left behind, a time when imagination was used in place of frame rates, and the experience was more about the journey than the destination (see Jaime's article on achievements). Read on while these ROMS take you back to a simpler time.

Emulation is nothing new, and its not contained to the gaming industry, its simply using one piece of hardware or software to duplicate the function of another. For gaming, this usually comes in the form of a program running on a PC or new(er) console mimicking the older architecture of a gaming console already put out to pasture. MAME

ROMS, or more technically ROM images, are just copies of a Read Only Memory device, usually a game cartridge. So if emulation is always used to play older games, why is this a grey area at all? The industry, its developers and publishers, can't make any more money of something they are no longer selling, so why do they care? Of course there is the potential for piracy of "current" games, and the morally dark area of making backups of your games, but then sharing. There have been court cases over backing up ROMS, in fact its been illegal in the U.S. for 25 years to do so. You can argue over consumer rights and copyright and I'm sure you can squeeze DRM in there too, but we're not interested in making a backup of Halo 3 just in case some lunatic midget with inch long fingernails scratches the crap out of our original, no, we're interested in playing our old favourites.

So what do you do if you want to play Empire Strikes Back. No, not the one for the SNES. No, not the one for the GameBoy. Nope, not even the one for the NES. What if you want to play the 1982 Atari classic? You probably have a SNES sitting around that still works, but only a slim chance you've got a working NES, and you might have a Gameboy that still can accommodate the older style cartridges, but few of you still have a working Atari 2600 kicking around. Starwars_Empire_Strikes_Back_Atari

So how do you play these games legally, and with a clean conscience? Do you even feel a hint of pause or regret when you download a giant pack of Atari Roms and an emulator for them? Maybe you owned the original version, so you have, or believe you have, full rights to play it forever, in any form it takes. But what if you didn't own that particular game? Or what if you were born in the 90's and your older siblings are mocking you relentlessly for having not played these gems? Well I bet you download them all and dont even think about it, you don't really have any other choice. Frankly its awesome that you can still sit down and play pretty much any classic game whenever you want, and if publishers aren't going to make these classics available for purchase then you shouldn't feel bad about playing them because many of them them are works of art, and deserved to be played.

Now some publishers are waking up to this, and more and more frequently we are seeing old libraries of games pop up for digital distribtion through services like Steam. Just two weeks ago LucasArts annouced it was going to put a large amount of its library up for sale through Steam, and for a reasonable price as well. Will you buy it for cheap legitimately over playing a ROM? Maybe, maybe not, but the option is now there and thats a good start.

One thing a legitimate download is not going to get you that emulated ROMS will is the plethora of hacked and modded versions of games. Some of these range from simply changing a few sprites to entirely new level design and gameplay. ROMS created a whole new outlet for the hardcore gamers who were die-hards for a particular game. They could dive into the code and keep the game evolving long after its sales had died and the mainstream user base had moved on. NHL94 is a perfect example. Updated rosters are just the tip, but what a great idea for such a great game. Download what they've got, play it again for the first time.

But just be careful how greedy you get, because just because a taste of something is great it doesn't mean that three dump-truck fulls is also cool. N64_Cartriges

Chances are you never owned 500+ N64 games so is it really necessary for you to download them all? If you never pay for anything, are you concerned the industry will at some point fold? As awesome as Surreal 64 is, is it too new a console to be "backing up". Sure, used copies are out there, but the developers and publishers arent going to see a dime of that anyway, GameStop and EBGames will just bleed the market dry and never pass any of the coin up the ladder. surreal_64

But he N64 isn't that old and the cartridges still work, so maybe dust off the old console before booting up the emulator, cause there is nothing like the real thing.

Well, until the real thing is actually gone, then play the shit out of it on an emulator and yell at your mom for some more cheesy poofs.

tags: Emulators · Roms · Star Wars · NHL94

Bookmark it, blog it, Digg it, tag it and share this story