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I hate emulators. Now, mull that over for a second. I don't hate emulators BECAUSE they're emulators, not because they allow the downloading of games that have been off the market for almost two decades in some cases. No, the more sinister, underhanded purpose of emulators is a bit harder to discern. Like a chick offering you a pot roast, it seems like a blessing at first. But soon the chick's leaving messages on your answering machine that start with "I hate answering machines..." and go on for twenty more minutes! Is this fair? Obviously not, but you decided that you'd go for the easy chick who made you lots of food, and when you didn't want to hang around anymore you realized you were totally boned. The damage was done as soon as you started. |
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And that's the problem with emulators, as far as I can figure it. When I was a kid, I remember playing my ass off in Ninja Gaiden, keeping it even longer than the than the video store's rental length. Why? Because I really wanted to beat the game! Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you died in that shit, there were no continues (There probably were, so just replace it with something equally difficult and also continue-free, like Kid Icarus). And when you died, and you were eight years old, what did you do? You played again! Maybe you used the 30 lives in Contra, but damn! That game was hard anyway, and I don't have the machine-like qualities of a Filipino raised on a strict diet of side scrolling warriors and boiled dog stuffed with rice, so I'm sorry if I abused the Konami Code once or twice during my more impressionable years.
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The Konami Code's got nothing on this new menace that emulators present. What happens when you're having trouble beating the last boss in Dragon Warrior and you don't want to play the whole dungeon again? No problem, just hit F5 before you fight him and you're made in the shade! Only now you're knee deep in that deadly pot roast that the computer gaming world calls the "save state". 'Save state?' I hear you ask, a tremor of confusion in your voice. We've all done it, before fighting Mother Brain in Metroid or the bridge in Double Dragon. Those are things we've all been conditioned to fear as a matter of principle, so it's only natural that we try to cover our asses. I mean, nowadays, we're not ten years old anymore...we have other responsibilities to attend to! People, I picked up a copy of Super Ghouls and Ghosts not too long agoand it took me a WEEK to get past the first level and all I could think was "If I had a save state, my life would've been so much simpler". |
Is this what we really want to be doing to ourselves? Taking all the difficulty out of games? Maybe sometimes. Games like Destiny of an Emperor and Wrath of Black Manta. I mean, whatever...sometimes you play a game just because you want to beat it. Does that make you a bad person, no...not really, but you're forgoing what's become our god-given imperative as console users. We only save when the developers want us to save! Otherwise we'd all be playing on computers, with their fancy graphics and their six thousand dollar motherboards, and that's personally not the situation I was born to be in...can you say the same? I mean, if I wanted to spend a good amount of my time sitting in front of my computer monitor in an office chair, frankly...fuck that. I'd just get a job as an investment banker, at least I'd be getting paid for it instead of wasting my life away AND being uncomfortable.
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Which begs the question, why would -I- use an emulator at all? Well that's a story for another day I'd imagine. What I want is a world where I can't be tempted to beat Bubble Bobble with the fiendish promise that it'll be easy, I want to do it the hard way! Or, I at least want to convince myself that I want to do it the hard way. When Bubble Bobble's concerned, the "hard way" involves the girl I'm dating letting me take all the power ups because I suck so god-awful much at Bubble Bobble. That's okay though, because I at least I wasn't using a freaking save state to do it! These old games don't have a lot. Old games don't have good graphics, and it's rare to find one that even has a coherent plot (The president has been kidnapped...BY NINJAS! Are you a bad enough dude to save him?) but what they did have was the brain crushingly difficultly levels that only the Nintendo Entertainment/Sega Master System and their ilk could provide. I've been playing Final Fantasy Tactics for the Gameboy Advance recently, and for all its story and francy sprites, it can't seem to manage one iota of challenge. Emulators, and their save states, take anyway the only thing that some of those old games had. Suddenly games like Xenophobe and Shinobi lose a lot of what they have going for them, and you're turning into a pussy while you strip them of their inherent charm. Way to go dude! So do yourself a favor, and everyone else you know too. Don't use emulators. Play through all fifty thousand levels of 1942, no matter how many times you might die. Remember what it's like to hit continue, and when that beautiful "Congraturation Player 1 : Game Over" screen comes up, wear it with a badge of pride. You may've wasted your Saturday night beating Castlevania when you could've done it in forty five minutes with an emulator, you might've cursed the Grim Reaper to holy hell after seventy fruitless attempts at beating him, but at least you did it fairly. That's what matters. |
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