Do you spend more time playing video games than you do socializing with your friends and family? If so, you are what people might describe as a gaming enthusiast. You are part of a hardcore elite group of people that devote their spare time to solving problems in a virtual world.
You care not for the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Your escape from reality is through your TV or computer screen. It’s likely that you will have an impressive array of current-generation games consoles. For example, you might have the Sony PlayStation 4. Or the Microsoft Xbox One.
Are you old enough to remember playing on retro consoles like the NES and MegaDrive? If so, it’s likely you might want to relive those days once again. The good news is that you can. And, the even better news is that you don’t need to spend money buying a plethora of vintage games consoles to do so!
Intrigued? Keep reading to find out what you need to do to start playing those retro video games once again!
Buy or build a computer
As you’re a gaming enthusiast, it’s likely you will already have one or more computers in your possession. If that’s the case, you can skip this part. But if you only use a computer for work, it’s time to buy or build one for home use.
It’s no secret that you can play retro computer games on your PC or Mac. Some people even play them through their web browsers, at sites like http://playberry.com/. But, if you want to play games offline, you’ll need to have a capable system of doing the job.
To be honest, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on a system to play retro video games. Anything that got built in the last ten years will do. Unlike modern computer games, you don’t need to have a system with a quad-core CPU or a dedicated video card.
All you need is a simple system that runs your favorite operating system. The cheapest ones will be those that have Microsoft Windows installed. Check out sites like eBay to find a PC bargain.
Install some emulators
The way to play retro console games on your computer is by installing an emulator. In a nutshell, an emulator is some software that gets used to run games “files” that you download from the Internet.
Examples of emulators include:
- RetroArch;
- OpenEmu;
- Dolphin;
- PCSX2; and
- PPSSPP.
The above list is by no means a definitive one. Head over to Google and do a search for “console games emulators.” You’ll see an exhaustive list of software that you can download and install.
Get some games
The final step is to go ahead and download some games for your retro console games emulator! Some software offers you the ability to download them within the application. While others might need game data files that you download from online archive sites.
Now that you know what to do, it’s time to get retro!
