Though you may think that playing retro console games is just like studying dinosaur bones, there are still lots of connoisseurs that consider it cool to play classics. NES games can be called classics, as well. Unfortunately, very few gamers managed to preserve their Nintendo consoles until nowadays. There are also those who try to buy them via eBay or other online selling platforms or try to convince their pals to trade the precious relic for something else. But you don’t need to do that to start playing retro NES games! All you need to do is to download an emulator, a special program that emulate the gameplay of a certain system and makes it possible for you to play those games on your comp or some other device. More and more players opt for using emulators, which (let me emphasize it) are not illegal!
Nevertheless, it is not enough to download an emulator only. Emulator can be compared to a physical console, since it performs its functions, whereas there must be something that would perform the functions of cartridges. And there is! Those things are called ROMs, in other words, images of the games that can be played using reliable NES emulators. But there is one more thing you should know prior to getting ROMs for any system… Though nobody will call you a criminal, if you get couple of ROMs to run your favorite games on the emulator, your actions may be considered as legally ambiguous. Still, if you decide to download NES ROMs, make sure to use reliable websites, such as Romsmode, Coolrom, or EmuParadise not to get into “malware” trouble, which is probably familiar to every computer user.
Getting and Installing a NES Emulator
Once you have decided what site to use, visit it and follow the “NES Emulators” link. Click on the link next to the program you would like to run your games on. When the download is complete,
you will get a .zip file on your comp. Make sure to unpack it prior to installation. Then, click on your emulator Icon to launch the program.
Getting NES ROMs
The next step will be downloading Nintendo games (ROMs) from the website of your choice.
- Very often the websites that offer emulators have vast collections of ROMs to be played on their emulators. Therefore, you can try looking for desired NES games on the same site you used for downloading the emulator.
Go to the “ROMs” section and select those for Nintendo games. Feel free to navigate through the games until you find what you are looking for. Press the “Download” or “Download Now” button to start downloading the chosen ROMs. (You may also want to avail yourself of the “Quick Download” option presented on some websites). Wait for the process to complete.
Running NES Games on an Emulator
After downloading ROMs, you will need to start you emulator. Then, select the game you want to play from the emulator.
If you did everything right and there were no errors in the process of installing the NES emulator and ROMs, the chosen game should start immediately, which means that you can start playing cool Nintendo games right now.