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Hello everyone!

With all of this talk lately of classical games from equally classic consoles, I'm sure some of you are wanting to get back into it, but may not have the means.  Maybe you're wanting to play this month's classic game(s) choices but are unable, or simply wish to get your nostalgia glasses on.

Well, there is a site out there that is catered to what you want, known as Emuparadise.  They have all types of consoles/handhelds and roms for you to choose from, ranging from the Atari 2600 all the way up to Android games.

I will say that you download at your own risk, since downloading games is somewhat frowned upon.  But this goes more for recent consoles/handhelds such as the DS.  Classic games are much less looked upon since they're no longer sold in stores (and only a small fraction are sold digitally).

Here is where you can find what you need for your gaming needs, console and handheld wise:

Roms/Games

Emulators/Systems

A quick note about Emuparadise:  It's my most recommended site, but it's also riddled with ads.  I'd highly recommend downloading Adblock Plus through Firefox or Chrome, and it'll cut out any and all ads (and it'll also cut out ads that videos do!).

Wait...what's that?  What about old PC games dating back to the DOS days, you ask?  Well, I have a site for those as well!

This site is known as My Abandonware. 

Unlike roms/emulators, software classified as abandonware is, for all intensive purposes, legal:

Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no product support is available. Although such software is usually still under copyright, the owner may not be tracking or enforcing copyright violations.

So the risk level is severely minimal for diving into abandonware.  For PC games that aren't classified as abandonware, you'd have to resort to a different method to which I won't recommend, since it opens the door for people to download much more recent stuff, which I don't agree with.

For playing these games, you'll need DOSBox, which, as the name states, emulates an old Dos console.  If you need help working DOSbox, give me a shout and I'll help you out.

Happy gaming!

Hey Pengu you are forgetting one of the best Abandonware sites(At least in my opinion) Abandonia! Serriously it's awesome, and has an awesome community!

Also for Dos Games I recommend DOSBOX(Which Abandonia also has a nice guide on).

For Arcade Games MAME is the way to go(with Shmup Mame for Shoot Em' Ups).

Also if like Using Linux I would suggest looking at the Puppy Linux based AngelLinux and Puppy Arcade. Both are designed with Emulation of Games in mind

Ah! I'm actually really glad you brought up Abandonia.  It's definitely one of my other favorites to use, and they keep it completely legal.  If they know that a game is still high in popularity and is still selling and making money, they'll have it on their list, but they'll keep it off limits for downloading so that you'll support the companies.

And they actually have a slightly bigger list than My Abandonware (though M.A.W tends to have some of the more known ones that Abandonia may not have, so they equal out), so they're definitely an excellent choice for the older games.

I also did forget to mention for Linux users (since I myself do use Linux...Xubuntu to be precise):

I don't recall if it's the same with other Linux Operating systems, but with Ubuntu/Xubuntu, you'll be able to find an emulator for pretty much every classic gaming console and handheld through the Ubuntu Software Center, or through Synaptic (whichever you tend to use).  The ones they have aren't that bad either (an example being ZSNES, one of the best SNES emulators out there).  So definitely keep that in mind as well if you're having trouble with emulators.

Chanku also mentioned this, which I forgot as well:

For some games (most noteably King's Quest, Day of the Tentacle, and a few others), you'll be more likely using an application called ScummVM rather than DOSBox.  They operate the same (though ScummVM is less complicated), but ScummVM will handle the much more...complicated games (ones that have voice, things like that) much better than DOSBox.

It's also worth noting that if you want to play the Dos version of Frontier: Elite then Dosbox runs it the best IIRC.

For PC games that aren't classified as abandonware

It's okay I have something for that too!

I'm sure everybody knows GoodOldGames at www.gog.com

You have to pay $5.99 for really old games and $9.99 for more recent ones, it's a steal IMO. Stand-outs include Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire (5 bucks!), Arcanum (5 bucks!!) and DAIKATANA (5 FUCKING BUCKS!!! THIS IS A RIPOFF!)

Also some old games are also on Steam, which has sales regularly. ALthough gog does make sure they work well steam, it's up to the publisher

Not directly gaming, but closely related: I have been hanging around in WinWorld lately. They focus more on operating systems and software, but what's better than playing old games exactly how they were meant to: in old system.

Old hardware is of course the best way to run old operating systems, but they can also be virtualized fairly easily with for example VirtualBox.

While I love Emuparadise, for some console games, such as Playstation, it isn't th best choice because most of the time you have to convert the file to something the emulator can open. For PS1 games I use coolroms.com or doperoms.com.

They give you the game as an .iso or .cue file so it's ready to use upon download.

Emuparadise is really decent for GCN ISOs.

I completed Paper Mario for like the 5th time recently.

GREPOLIS! Not to do with Greece at all :p

While I love Emuparadise, for some console games, such as Playstation, it isn't th best choice because most of the time you have to convert the file to something the emulator can open. For PS1 games I use coolroms.com or doperoms.com.

They give you the game as an .iso or .cue file so it's ready to use upon download.

Yes and no.

There's only a select list of PS1 games that require unECM (which is essentially dragging the ECM game file onto the unECM exe and watching it unpack right in the game folder), and that's because of how the PS1 section started.

When Emuparadise was first around, they had a very select few PS1 games of I believe 20-30 available for download.  The bigger files such as each disk of Final Fantasy 9 were packed into ECM format to make the downloads go quicker (and it put less stress on their servers), while smaller ones didn't require it.

After the complete revamp to the PS1 section (to where it's more detailed and you can download practically any game), they stopped uploading games in ECM format.  However, those 20-30 games that have been there since the first stage do still require it, but as far as I'm aware they're the only ones that do.  But I think that's mainly because it would have been pointless for them to take off and then reupload a game for download just so that it wouldn't be in ECM format.

GREPOLIS! Not to do with Greece at all :p

-points to the title -
Ahem classic gaming needs...grepolis isn't a classic gaming site, it's a modern browser game...