10/10/05

Okay, if you've been importing copies of Winning Eleven to play on your modded PS2 it's likely that you'll know all about emulators and this will all be (mostly) old hat. For those of you who haven't, hopefully some of the links and info here will be useful in helping you to enjoy some classic soccer (and non-soccer) titles.

1) SNES

    - Ah, the good old Super Nintendo! The Big N's 16-bit wonder machine brought us numerous classic football games such as ISS Deluxe, Super Goal and Super Soccer. Of course, the SNES also featured dozens of classic non-soccer titles that are well worth playing. The best PC-based emulator for the SNES is ZSNES which supports many SNES features that other emulators don't like DSP1 emulation (for Mario Kart) and SuperFX (for Starfox).

   - ZSNES' homepage can be found here; http://www.zsnes.com/

   - ZSNES is freeware and works with most Windows-based PCs running Direct X 8.0 or higher. You can also get a Linux version as well.

2) Sega Genesis/MegaDrive

   - I never owned a MegaDrive when I was a kid (spent my hard earned pennies on a SNES) but boy did I want one (and not just for the real blood in Mortal Kombat)! Not a great deal of soccer titles (except for the Krysalis Manchester United in Europe ones not released in North America) but a ton of fantastic other sports titles. My preferred Genesis/MegaDrive emulator is Gens32 which is very simple and easy to use.

   - The Gens32 homepage can be found here; http://gens32.emubase.de/

   - Gens32's system requirements are largely the same as ZSNES and if you have a PC built in the past 4 or 5 years you should have few problems getting it up and running.

3) NES

     - The home of Ice-Hockey and hundreds of other memorable titles. It wasn't exactly the system of choice for soccer gamers but there are plenty of other sports titles still worth playing (not to mention non-sports Nintendo classics).

     - The granddaddy of NES emulators is Nesticle which plays NES titles flawlessly on even the slowest of computers and like all the emulators featured here is freeware.

     - As far as I can tell development of Nesticle has been halted but you can download last windows version from Emulator-Zone here.

4) Sega Master System

     - The Master System's One shining moment of soccer gaming glory comes in the form of it's fantastic port of Kick Off which absolutely wipes the floor with the shithouse SNES version and is every bit as playable as the Atari ST version. Of course, you can also enjoy a number of great non-sports titles such as Wonderboy and Fantasy Star.

     - One of the better Master System emulators available is Meka which has very simple system requirements and also emulates some other systems.

     - Meka can be downloaded from its homepage here; http://www.smspower.org/meka/

5) Arcade

     - When it comes to arcade emulators you only need to know one name (well, it's an acronym but you know what I mean); MAME which stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. If you're going to take a trip down memory lane you owe it to yourself to check out classic arcade titles like Tecmo World Cup and Hat Trick Hero. MAME supports approximately SIX THOUSAND (!!!) arcade titles and as an open-source program is always improving with newer builds coming out every few weeks.

     - You can download the newest version of MAME from the homepage; http://www.mame.net/

     - I recommend downloading the newest version of MAME32 which has an integrated interface/front-end, but if you're tech savvy feel free to go wild.

6) Commodore Amiga

   - Now when it comes to covering the history of soccer gaming (especially in the late 80s/early 90s) you simply must have an Amiga and Atari ST emulator up and running. As well as soccer gaming classics like Kick Off 2 and Sensible World of Soccer there are also other phenomenal sports titles including the Bitmap Bros' Speedball I and II!

     - The only Amiga emulator I've used is WinUAE which works great and can be downloaded from the WinUAE homepage here; http://www.winuae.net/

    - Like the NES and Master System emulators, the system requirements for WinUAE are miniscule.

7) Atari ST

    - It might not have been as powerful as the Amiga, but the Atari ST was the first place that Kick Off and Player Manager appeared which surely has to count in its favor! But in all seriousness, with the exception of a few ST exclusives you're better off sticking with an Amiga emulator and playing the Amiga version of Kick Off et. al.

    - If you do want to try out an ST emulator (for old time's sake) then you can't go wrong with PaCifiST even if it is fairly old compared to some of the newer emus like Steem or WinSTon. You can get PaCifiST from the homepage; http://www.atari.st/pacifist/

     Well those are some links to start off with. Look for a second part to this guide with Neo-Geo, MSX, Amstrad emulators covered as well as PS2 and X-Box based emulators (that's old system emulators you play on your PS2 or X-Box!). I'll also be looking into Pocket PC or Palm based emulators - ISS Deluxe on a pocket PC would be pretty damn sweet! If you want more thorough info on these emulators as well as information on the machines they're emulating be sure to check out www.emulator-zone.com which is a kick-ass emu site.

Cheers,                                                                                                                                                                   Lavan