GameCrap ONLINE

There was a person I knew whilst in the service in Germany who was not of a decent moral fiber, but loved to play video games. Unfortunately, this person had trouble thinking on his own and followed around his best "friend" once they got out of the service; one for being fat and generally a scumbag and the other because of a heart murmur. Their relationship was comical really. It consisted of one dragging down an otherwise smart kid. With all of the dope and booze these idiots consumed, their service to the nation left quite a bit to be desired.

At any rate, one of them is more than likely giving people mic-checks in prison for dope and the other is working for a well-known online gaming provider...but only if you have a broadband connection. At one time I considered looking into the service because of all of the classic games that I used to play. I contacted my old, worthless acquaintance for information but returning emails for the better of his newfound employer proved too difficult. There are many platforms represented including Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, Sega, Windows and even some arcade exclusive games. Due to the above lack of communication I am relegated to giving the reader more information should they so choose to participate and spark an age-old passion of playing classic games.

First and foremost the GameCrap online scenario is ultimately provided funding by a profiteering glutton who was once married to Fonda, Jane one each. That alone qualifies you for degradation of moral character, so maybe there is a connection there somewhere! On to the goods: GameCrap online requires you to have a broadband connection. This means you have to be connected to the internet to play in their scenario. GameCrap online requires a credit card number for a "free" trial. GameCrap online isn't even supported in Windows 98. They claim that PC's older than 4-years old may experience difficulties. Apple/Macintosh users can also forget it: not supported. Windows 2000/XP seems to be the weapon of choice; more than likely so they can work their PKI into the equation. Furthermore, if you don't have at least 800MHz behind you forget it. Doesn't seem like a very good service to me. GameCrap touts that the original games may be played online, but I say to be able to play the original games you will need to get yourself the original cartridges and consoles.

You may ask yourself: "But Minus, I loves to play me some classics, but I can't afford and or pony up the required machine to play them; what can I do?" Well, reader chances are you can take your chubby digits and type in "http://www.ebay.com" and find the console you are looking for. For example, if your pleasure is a Commodore 64, you can find one here. What about an Atari 2600? Right here. Next you may want to find a Sega Genesis, Saturn or Game Gear. Try here, or here, or here. Well, you may also be looking for an Intellivision. What about the Sega 32x system? Yeah, you can find those also. Oh, wait, what about the Sega Dreamcast? All available, be it on eBay or a garage sale. People don't appreciate the older systems much anymore. As you can see some are trying to profit off of your youth...real classy.

The point of all this is simply to illustrate that you don't have to pay someone else who doesn't even really support all the users that may be out there, to play what amounts to conceptually original games on the internet. Every system listed above has games offered by GameCrap, but in a modified form. You want the originals, get the consoles. I have all of the above listed consoles and they don't take up much room at all. Matter of fact, I have probably spent about $200.00 USD obtaining them all with games. That amounts to about a year of using GameCrap.

There are further alternatives! You don't have to get on eBay to get all of the consoles either! There are programs out there on the internet called emulators. What this does is emulate the game console that you want to play the games of. Sounds kind of like what GameCrap is doing right? Well, emulators are free. You want to play Mega Man all day long without having to pay for it and without having to be connected to the internet? Download the emulators and the games. You will be surprised at how many emulators are out there. This is a favorite place of mine to get emulators and the associated ROMs: CoolROM. You will find Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Neo Geo, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance and Namco System 22. You can go here to get a FREE Colecovision emulator with 18 games. You can go here for PSOne, PS2 and Dreamcast emulators and ROMs. One of my other favorites that virtually has every emulator ever (up to and including XBox, Game Cube, Macintosh, Amiga, PDA apps and arcade titles) is The Emulator Zone. All in all, go out and research your options that are much less costly and far more gratifying than giving Ted Turner part of your paycheck. In keeping with the DIY mentality, I say go with emulators and get yourself an impressive library of ROMs to go with it. Steer clear of others!

Minus