We
all love to think back on the good ole days of gaming. Not to
date myself, but I am sure most of us remember Pong on that old
Atari. My next home gaming system, like so many others, was the
ColecoVision and many Donkey Kong addicts where born (not to mention
the ability to play Atari 2600 games with an adapter).
There
were also the arcades, and as the 70s went by, the arcade games
got better and better. Only god knows how many quarters Williams
got of mine, the maker of my addiction, Defender. There was also
Asteroids, Pac-Man, Tron, Dig Dug and Centipede to name just a
few. I am sure there are many of us that bought quarters by the
roll to feed our addiction.
Eventually,
the 25-cent games went away and out came the $0.50, $1.00 and
even $2.00 arcade machines. Many of us have wondered where those
old games of the 70s and early 80s went to?
I
present to you MAME
(Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). MAME
is an arcade emulator that gives you that feel as though you are
back at your favorite arcade playing your nemesis once again (those
damn mutants). So I went searching around to find out what this
MAME was about, and to get a feel for the emulation capability.
During my search I found there is a MAME32 for windows NT based
machines (MAME is a DOS program at heart). I promptly installed
it and went to work looking for the Defender ROM.
You
might be asking yourself "What is the ROM for?"
The
ROM is an actual downloaded image of the program that was used
to power your favorite arcade game. You will need to be careful
of the size of these, as most of them are in the sub 256k range
:p. Finding the ROMs, legally, is a little harder than expected.
You would think that these companies would like nothing more than
to make money from an otherwise nonprofit making entity in their
portfolio. There are a few sites that do sell them; I am listing
the sites exactly as they appear in the FAQ for MAME:
You
have five legal options:
(1)
Search for auctions (on eBay for example) of the actual arcade
circuit boards, and buy a ROM reader device to copy the ROM chips'
contents into files.
(2) Buy the HotRod Joystick control panel. It is bundled with
a CD that includes MAME and a few 100% legal Capcom ROMs. Hanaho
also sells the ArcadePC cabinet with a different selection of
legal Capcom ROMs.
(3) Buy legal Atari arcade game ROMs from StarROMs for prices
varying between $2.00 and $6.00. You can even get one free game
for signing up!
(4) There are also three free ROM sets available right on the
official MAME site, in the miscellaneous downloads page.
(5) The X-Arcade site has links where you can access ROMs.
The
illegal options are to search the net with Google, Altavista,
Yahoo, Webcrawler or other search engine, for the ROM files. You
can also try other methods such as IRC, newsgroups, P2P software
etc. Be aware that this is breaking the laws of almost every country.
Before you consider doing this, see if the particular arcade games'
copyright-owner has the ROMs available (as with Capcom and Atari).
That way you will support the companies that support emulation.
Now
that you have MAME installed and you have managed to retrieve
a few ROMs, you might wonder how you get that true arcade feel
with a mouse and keyboard? Even the standard joysticks offered
in the PC industry won't allow you to play Joust or Defender as
it looked and felt at the old arcade. There are just to many buttons
needed and the mouse is not supported in all but a few of the
ROMs that I have seen to date.
X-Arcade
Dual Controller
Along
comes X-Arcade.
They built a controller (and dual controller) that duplicates
most of the old arcade control panels (or joysticks). Today
I am blessed with the opportunity to test one such unit, the
X-Arcade
Dual Controller although they did not send the cabinet to
mount it in. :)
Upon
unpacking, the first thing you will notice is that this is one
heavy controller. They even reference it (the weight) in their
manual; nice to see they have a sense of humor over at X-Arcade.
My
review controller included the USB
adapter; it comes standard with the PS/2 connector that
your keyboard would plug into (pass-through). Notice the USB
cable is a little short from the connection end to the X-Arcade
junction box? This was not an issue in my connection scenario,
but I could see how it might be in some situations.
Connecting
the USB version to my machine made Windows XP pop up saying
it found a new device, then correctly identified it with "X-Arcade
Controller" and then telling me all was ready to go. You
can also select, when ordering, if you want it to connect to
your X-Box, PS-1/2, Dreamcast, Gamecube and the USB for PC or
MAC. This can be in addition to the PC connection or standalone,
depending on your needs. X-Arcade also gives you the option
to purchase a controller with a trackball instead of the joystick,
you will notice there are not as many buttons in this version
and it is a smaller profile. This would be a good fit if you
are in need of retaining space.
Setting
it up
Once
the controller was installed I launched MAME32 and went to the
Options menu, selected Default Game Options and
then Controllers. Once there I chose X-Arcade from the
drop-down list, I was now ready to play some classics. I attempted
to play some of the ROMs using just a keyboard (KB) and mouse,
but this was not an easy task.
Using
the X-Arcade made playing the old arcade games a trip down memory
lane. Not that the X-Arcade can emulate every controller or button
arrangement that we were used to in the old days, but they do
a better than average job at emulating them as closely as possible,
considering there are over 4000 ROMs out there. Qix was especially
hard with just the KB and mouse. X-Arcade handled Qix nicely,
as the joystick operated smoothly and the game cursor followed
appropriately. I could not find any dead zones in the joystick
and was not able to catch the X-Arcade miss a button push. Now
if I could only stand up while playing, I would be back at my
old Arcade where I grew up.
2-Player
goodness
The
wife and I sat down to play a little 2-Player Joust, and just
like the arcades of old, we got to rub elbows as we fought for
position. Once again, standing up would have been nice so I could
have given her a little hip check to win a couple more games :p.
You can accomplish the stand up part by purchasing the X-Arcade
Cabinet, maybe when I finish that house addition, I can include
that in the costs. :)
The
button layout on the X-Arcade is programmable. There is a 4
position switch on the back of the unit that allows you to program
3 different button layouts; position 1 is hard coded specifically
for MAME. The X-Arcade plays more than just MAME mind you, I
can see many advantages to this type of controller for several
game types on your console machines as well. The X-Arcade does
work well in several PC games including Tiger Woods PGA Golf
and NHL 2004, to name a few. With the inability to turn, however,
the X-Arcade is not meant to be a first person shooter (FPS)
controller. I tried a little Quake 3 and Painkiller with it,
and it is clearly evident these are best done with the KB and
mouse combination.
Final
Words
As
I stated, the X-Arcade is heavy, the material used is a throwback
to the same look and feel as the standup Arcade machines had.
The buttons and joysticks are of very high quality, you get
the feeling that you can pound on this thing as you did when
you visited the arcade (c'mon, you know you did it too).
The
added extra here is the X-Arcade expects you to do just that,
and they still include a lifetime warranty with their controllers.
This helped to alleviate most of my fears about failure of a
button or joystick, as I am sure you recall that happened from
time to time on those old arcade machines. If the X-Arcade is
too heavy for your lap, it can be placed on top of your desk,
they have included rubber feet to protect said desk. The size
and spacing of the Dual player is, in my opinion, just right
for 2-player action. You are close enough to the other player
so that you can affect them outside of the game, but far enough
apart where you have easy access to your joystick and buttons.
X-Arcade
has done a great job at delivering a high quality controller that
performs well. It is not a controller that can play every game
you have on your PC or gaming console, but it does a superb job
at what X-Arcade has intended it to do. The arcade style joysticks
and buttons make the experience that much more satisfying, the
lifetime warranty, makes it that much more of a must have.
Pros:
Quality build, good response on joystick / buttons, no dead zones,
lifetime warranty.
Cons:
A little cumbersome to move around, USB extension cable is a little
short (not an issue in my instance but could see it being an issue
for some), not meant for FPS / Racing games.
Bottom
Line: To put it bluntly, I am now an X-Arcade bigot,
I am in heaven playing some of my old arcade games as they were
presented to me when I was a mere teenager. The X-Arcade greatly
enhances my ability to enjoy the experience.
If
you have any Comments and Questions, feel free to discuss them
in our Forums.
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