Play Classic Video Games In NY, At Home

Iphtashu Fitz writes "If you'd like to play classic arcade games from the 1980s, then it might be time for you to take a trip to New York, according to Wired News, since the American Museum of the Moving Image is holding an exhibition called Blip! where you can play a selection of the classics, including some of those referenced in an earlier exhibition. Also mentioned on their site is the X-Arcade cabinet for playing arcade-style classics at home through emulation." Much easier than building your own cabinet.

Comments

I HATE emulators

[stratjakt]

They are NOT the same. There are subtle differences in every game I've played. Noone notices since they dont have the original to compare too.

If you really love arcade games, collect and restore the machines. I only have room for 3 or 4 upright cabinets, but I pick up old ones, restore them, play them till I'm bored of it, then sell them and start over.

I usually turn enough profit to buy everyone I know a gummi bear.

But, there are tons of subtle differences. Midi tempos are usually off, colors are off. The games dont look the same emulated, even through a real arcade monitor..

Emulation is really neat, technically.. But if you truly love the old classics, keep the old classics around. Rescue that beat up SFII cabinet from the pizza shop, clean it up, repair/replace the controls.. Give it a little elbow grease..

MAME cabinets are just so... ghetto.. Especially when people try and cram every possible control into them.. Two sticks, 12 buttons each, trackballs, spinners, meh.. They look retarded. Many real cabinets were works of functional art.. Look at an old defender control panel.. Designed to function for only one game..

Or vindicators, a cabinet shaped like a giant tank with two crazy throttle levers for control.

Re:I HATE emulators

[PhoenixFlare]

Slight inaccuracies the emulator(s) may have, but they're still worlds better than most of the collections/re-releases out for consoles these days.

The Gamecube version of Namco Museum comes to mind - for some reason, even at the largest display mode, all the games (except Pole Position and the original Galaga) are at about 80-90% of original size on the screen, not to mention being rather fuzzy. In contrast, I can fire up MAME and play all of them on my monitor with the correct sizes and resolution.

It's nice that you can restore and sell cabinets, but not everyone has the extra cash to spend on buying them in the first place, not to mention the skill to restore them.

Emulators are really the closest the majority of gamers can get to the originals, and I would hazard a guess that it's close enough for many.

Re:Ouch

[krog]

Those sales do nothing to compensate the owners of the rights of those ROMs.

If the ROMs were available from the companies who own the rights to production, then downloading the ROMs could be considered piracy. This is not the case, though, and from the copyright owner's perspective, eBaying the ROMs and downloading them are the same.

Ouch

[netfool]

You know your old when people start putting your old toys in a museum.

Re:Ouch

[smothra]

That's some nifty logic there. Because the copyright holder doesn't make the material available to you through other means, it's ok to steal it.

Hey officer, my neighbor wasn't releasing his invention to the public, so I stole it! I mean, how else was I supposed to get it?

NOTE: I too believe that out-of-circulation ROMS *should* be made available to the public for free. But it is a false rationalize to say that trading copyrighted ROMS without permission isn't theft.

Re:Try Ground Kontrol

[Anonymous Coward]

Ground Kontrol rules. They have a ton of great 'classics' plus a huge selection of atari/nintendo roms.