For some reason, my most vivid childhood memories are of myself, my older brother, and my cousin playing old school Nintendo in our then unfinished basement on a 70s-vintage orange, floral couch and eating Tombstone pizzas off of the cement floor. Life was good, and I was pretty good at moving Mario from one side of the screen to the other.
And then, we got older: life got more complicated, and video games became far too in-depth for me to be interested in. When games started requiring me to "talk" to the goofy wizard in the forest and actually READ what he had to say in order to understand was I was supposed to do next, I lost interest.
And so here I sit, 21 years old, in 2012, with that same NES console and giant box of game cartridges next to my TV. With the proper amount of blowing and wiggling and cursing, I can usually get most of the games to still function for awhile, but I know that this will not be forever and that this precious family heirloom (I think it was a hand-me-down from someone to begin with) will become a non-functioning, decorative item on my shelf at some point.
So now that we're all clear on my emotional motivations for this week's Saturday activity, I can begin. Fortunately, this activity was made possible by a sub-culture of nerdier nerds who can't let go of their pasts either. They develop the glorious Android apps that made this possible:
Legal importances: some of this is kind of stealing, but not in my case. From what I understand, I can download the games without doing anything wrong as long as I posses a physical copy of the game cartridge. Or something. Feel free to make your own judgements about whether or not you give a shit about stealing.
If you care to do this, here's what you'll need to have/figure out:
Android phone + game console emulator from the app market + individual game ROMS
Wii controller app + Wii remote (or another wireless kind)
TV with HDMI in + HDMI cable + HDMI adapter for your phone
...that's about as much detail as I care to delve into because I suspect no one cares.
Oh, and if you've never heard of this whole emulator/ROM process, you can do it on a computer as well. All of your childhood memories at your fingertips to entertain you in class. For free. Maybe illegal.
PS, for BUSMM kids: see that blue/orange thing on the far right?... one of six sleeves of DVDs from the Friends box set. Be jealous.
K bye, have a date with Sonic the Hedgehog.
I was so excited when I found the old Sonic games available on the iPhone. Except now I realize how big of a deal it was that it lacked the ability to save. I tire of playing it because I don't want to start at the beginning every time I turn it on. There are so many more old Sega games I wish were available, but for some reason I keep going back to Angry Birds. I usually only play games for a few minutes and Angry Birds is more suited to that type of game play, although being able to play Lion King might cause me to spend more time on my iPhone.
ReplyDeleteThat looks so high-tech! haha I'm not sure i could have rigged all that together, but I definitely remember playing the original NES system with my brother as well. good times! I was a pretty mean donkey kong player, if i do say so myself. We still have the system so maybe ill play a little when i graduate and go home, for old time's sake :)
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