BombermanBoard

DragonBomber · #14 Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:39 am

I still need to pick this one up eventually.

As far as emus go, there are some great benefits as mentioned above. 10 is never enough! I would also add:

13. Speed. You can load one game, decide it's boring you, and load another is a few seconds. No needing to blow out an NES cart, track down a disc someone left out of the case, or hook up a system you have in the closet for a few minutes of bliss.
14. Replacement cost. If you lose your only copy of a rare game when your dog gets the munchies, you're SOL. With roms you can load anything over and over, and redownload whatever you have lost. You can set up games for a batch of hyper children and the worst they will do is maybe destroy your PC, which may cost less than what the console, controllers, and games cost.
15. Versatility. Emulators for SNES/SFC for example run on a ton of systems, from a PC/Mac, to the PSP, DS, Xbox, PS2, and more. That is countless ways to play games that you love but depending on the situation you might not want to go through the trouble of.
16. Screenshots. When I am working on reviews or website content, I appreciate being able to quickly snap away some stills, video, or sound from an emulator. This is especially true for titles I do not yet own but very much want to. Without emus I would not be able to learn more about many games and decide if it's worth it to find online.
17. Translation. Maybe this counts as a cheat, but finding subtitle patches and various graphic edits of games is pretty useful, especially when there was only a Japanese version of a game and you lack the language skills to comprehend while playing it.

Using standard keyboard controls for emus is a moot point since you are able to map any number of good controllers in its place, such as JoytoKey and others. Some controllers are even better than the originals in accurately and comfortably playing the games. I agree that playing the game on the original hardware with the original games is best, but sometimes best isn't what you want or need. With my PS2, depending how the four player support is in the emus, I will have all the SFC and Megadrive goodness I need most days, and have the more modern game support.

I keep all of my Bomberman games for the packaging and manuals as much as for the playable game. That's me though. Some people hate that junk. To me it's artwork. But, whatever the reason, emus serve a purpose. If it's not your cup of tea, you can always grab a coke.