retro gaming
Want to enjoy classic games on your modern PC? Nate Drake can help get you playing
EVERY MODERN GAMER knows that it’s hard to replicate the excitement we all felt as kids when we started playing videogames. True, many of these had rudimentary graphics and may have even had no network play, but who can forget the peculiar feeling of satisfaction that came with facing down the alien menace in Half-Life, armed only with a crowbar? What modern game can even come close to the joy of ‘insult sword fighting’ in The Secret of Monkey Island?
As modern hardware evolves and 64- bit systems become more commonplace, it’s actually getting harder to run titles like these out of the box. Modern hardware often lacks optical disk drives, and original game cartridges for older consoles like the NES and SNES are selling for ridiculous amounts.
In this guide, we’ll explore some of the ways in which having a modern PC is no bar to playing your favorite retro games. We’ll explore simple ways to feel nostalgic by playing titles online via the Internet Archive or dedicated platforms like GOG and Steam. We’ll also explore emulators like DOSBox and RetroArch to allow direct play on your device.
ONE FROM THE VAULTS
One of the simplest ways to relive the glory days of retro gaming is to open your browser and head over to the Internet Archive (https://archive.org). Simply clicking on the ‘Software’ category will automatically show links to the Archive’s own ‘Internet Arcade’, as well as ‘Classic PC Games’ and MS-DOS games.
If you do select any of these, make sure you mark the checkbox ‘Software’ in the ‘Media Type’ section to display only videogames and not related media like screenshots.
Once you’ve selected your chosen title [Image A], click anywhere on the screen area to fire up the Internet Archive’s browser implementation of DOSBox (see below), and play the game via the website.
From our research, the games seem to play faithfully, though it’s always advisable to scroll down to the comments section to see if someone has listed which particular keys are used for gameplay. If this isn’t present, then run a search in the field at the top right for the game manual, eg. ‘Wolfenstein Manual’, to see if the documentation has been uploaded.
Using the Internet Archive to play retro games is generally the quickest and safest way, particularly given that it was officially registered as a library in the state of California in 2007. This has led some retro gaming redditors to conclude that playing copyrighted games on the main website is legal, as it amounts to the same thing legally as borrowing a book. Take your own legal advice before deciding to play.
The Archive also plays host to a ‘Vintage Software’ collection (https://archive.org/details/vintagesoftware), which is chie
