Long time no see!

Hello to you all. As you can probably notice, there has been a major overhaul of the site since my last posting. This is a change that will hopefully open a doorway to more new posts in the near future.

The best thing I could think of to come back to posting with is a celebration of nostalgia. What better way to celebrate nostalgia than by playing our oldest and most favorite games on consoles so old that your mom remembers you playing them in elementary school. Wait a second?! Where is my Super Nintendo!?! You say you can't find yours either?!?! Well I guess we can't play our oldest games anymore...or can we?

Enter the emulator. These programs that function on your computer and even some smart phones and most tablets are a wonderful invention.  They aim to function like a virtual console on your hi-tech device. To work, they require a ROM, or an ISO file.  The distribution of these files and the legality of such things is not the focus of this posting. A ROM file is simply the same information that is contained within the game's chip, extracted and put into a file that is stored on your computer. An ISO is more complicated and used to emulate disc drive consoles. An ISO is a digital image of the information stored on the CD (Compact Disc) game. Then you must mount this image artificially onto a disc drive in your computer.

By now you are throwing your hands up in the air in frustration at all this technical crap. I am here to tell you that it is no more complicated than placing a file in the right place on your computer to deal with ROM files. Emulation of disc drive systems is much more complicated and I recommend you simply keep your PS2 around for that.

Now you must be wondering how you hook up your old school controller up to your computer. That's where things get tricky, however I have an easier solution to your PC emulation needs. Get yourself a wired Xbox 360 controller equivalent. Download the relevant software for this so that your computer will recognize the controller as a controller (Link to be at the base of this post). Now simply go into the config/key mapping of your emulator and start applying the relevant keys to where you would like them to go.

For tablets, this is much different. Since there are no files for the Xbox 360 controller to be recognized on the tablet or even smart phone, there is another option.  Hear me out on this one, as it sounds outlandish. A Wii remote can be hooked into just about any tablet or smart phone that has Bluetooth communication. It does require a fair few applications and can get tricky to pull off but once it's done, your Wii Mote can be used as a controller for your emulator, if it supports the communication.

I can tell you the applications I use. Wiicontroller with Droid EMU lite. You will also need a Bluetooth mac address finder to find the address of your Wii mote. These are all free applications. Once you have your applications, make sure your Bluetooth is on for your device, and then access the mac address finder.

Once inside the address finder pres the "1" and "2" buttons on the Wii mote simultaneously, and then tap the address that appears on the screen right after that. Copy the address to the clipboard and then go into the Wii mote controller app. Click the menu and find the connection setting. Go inside to manual discovery and paste the copied mac address to the 1st controller address.

Once this is complete, go to the main menu, press the "1" and "2" buttons simultaneously once more, and then the "Init and connect" button on the tablet screen.  Press the "Yes" button on the prompt and your controller should appear on the screen as connected.

Once the controller is connected press the "Select Wiicontroller IME" button and select Wiicontroller IME as the input method.  Note! You will not be able to type while this input method is selected, so remember to switch back to your preferred keyboard after you disconnect the controller.

Now that your Wii mote is connected to your tablet, you can go into Droid EMU lite and begin to set key bindings for the different systems it supports.

Have fun playing your old games anywhere you can bring your tablet/smartphone/laptop!

Links for the Controller software:
Xbox 360

Edit: I was browsing different game site today (4/18) and I came across this - An awesome browser-based Gameboy Color emulator! You don't have to download anything. Just pick the game you want to play from a fair-sized selection and play!