Those of us who lived our childhood through the '90s remember the rapid advancement of console gaming. From the Nintendo to Game Boy to Dreamcast to PlayStation, we were consistently greeted with newer and better technology on a year to year basis. With new PlayStation and Xb ...more
Feeling nostalgic for Super Mario Kart, but don't want to fire up the old Super Nintendo? Never fear, with a free Flash-based emulator called SNESbox, you can relive the 90s and play all your favorite games right from your browser, without having to install anything. With 1,86 ...more
Nintendo may be developing cases that'll turn your iPhone into a gaming device like the Game Boy, but until something materializes there, you're stuck with cheap knockoffs on Amazon or a real Game Boy or Game Boy Color. But there's something else you can do to play eight-bit N ...more
If you have a Barnes & Noble Nook, you may be surprised to find that your eReader can do a lot more than just display ebooks, which makes it a great alternative to those more expensive all-in-one tablets that do everything (seriously, everything). If you want to get more bang ...more
The first film I saw without any parental supervision was Pokémon: The First Movie. At the time, there wasn't a 5th grader around who didn't know who Pikachu was or what Pokémon was all about. The franchise was one of the most popular video games of all time, right after Mario ...more
After upgrading to a new system, video games for old consoles are usually forgotten about, wasting away in the back of a closet somewhere. Just recently, I found an old stash of PlayStation 1 games boxed up and hidden beneath a pile of clothes. I thought it was about time to ...more
Nothing else quite sums up my childhood like Super Mario, the Italian plumber who constantly had to defeat Bowser to save Princess Peach (aka Princess Toadstool) from danger. While it's easy to relive the classic gameplay on your Android with Nintendo emulators, not everyone h ...more
Normally, you'd have to jailbreak your iPad or iPhone to play any games that aren't available in the iOS App Store, like the now-extinct Flappy Bird game. But this isn't the case if you want to play some of your favorite old school Nintendo classics. There's a web app called ...more
If you've spent enough time in an arcade like me, you're probably well acquainted with the dreaded "ran out of quarters syndrome." Just when you're about to beat the last boss in Marvel vs. Capcom, or make it to the next level in Donkey Kong, you're all out of quarters to cont ...more
The only bad thing about Portal is that you can't play it everywhere. You can't play it while camping, you can't play it in the car, and you can't play it in the waiting room at the dentists office (unless you lug around your laptop to all of these places. Weirdo). You defini ...more
Apple hates game emulators. Go ahead, look around in the iOS App Store, you won't find any. But who needs 'em anyway? Anyone with a jailbroken iPad or iPhone can install emulators for practically any classic gaming console they want. Hell, you can even do it without jailbreak ...more
One of the best features on the new Moto X is Touchless Control, which lets you verbally ask the device questions or perform tasks without ever touching or turning on the display, a feature that would do quite nicely on the Nexus 7, if it could handle it. Video: . Touchless Co ...more
If hearing the names of classic PC games like Commander Keen, Fallout, Master of Orion, and Wolfenstein 3D send you into a fit of nostalgia, then DosBox Turbo is the perfect app for your Android device. DosBox Turbo is a highly optimized and feature-enhanced Android port of D ...more
Tired of playing old-school Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Nintendo, and Nintendo DS games on your iPhone? We've got another retro video game system for you to add to your arsenal of emulators—Super Nintendo. Yep, that's right. Thanks to Lucas Menge, you can now play Super ...more
A blue hedgehog runs at high-speed through fantasy environments collecting rings. Sounds a bit loony, but I’m of course taking about the Sonic adventure series that was made popular on the Sega Genesis. The days of cartridge 16-bit gaming has long been eclipsed, but nostalgia ...more
The '90s were a great decade to be alive. Before the internet became a high-availability service, we were untethered from the bombardment of media present in today's culture. Children ran through the streets with levels of physical exertion beyond what's required to capture fi ...more
Atari was one of the very first video game consoles, bringing the joy of arcades right into the living room. Now gaming consoles are a dime a dozen, but there's still something about those old retro systems that makes me want to travel back in time. Thankfully, I don't even h ...more
If any gamer knows their gaming history, one name is synonymous with starting the gaming revolution—Atari. Founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell, Bushnell helped kickstart the home video game market with their line of Video Computer Systems, or what we would call video game consol ...more
Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones ...more
Video game emulation has saved arcade and console classics from obsolescence, and that wonderful hobby has found its way onto the Microsoft HoloLens—with some three dimensional upgrades, of course. If you own a Windows PC, you may have heard about 3DNes, a Nintendo Entertainm ...more
Have a load of games you want to play, but don't want to be seen in public playing on your old school Nintendo DS system? Play them on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2! Now, I've already covered how to play N64, GBA, and SNES games on your Galaxy Note 2, so it only makes sense to c ...more
This past year was a big one for WonderHowTo. Our biggest yet. In 2014 our writers, curators, and community members helped over 100 million people learn over 270 million new things. That's 40% more people than the total number of students enrolled in every single school from e ...more
My first encounter with a phablet was late last year with the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, having never touched or even seen its highly-acclaimed and pioneering predecessor. Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed by the enormous screen and taken aback by the dated st ...more
In this tutorial, learn how to install and set up emulators on your HTC EVO 4G so that you can play cool, old-school games on your phone. With these emuators you will be able to play your all-time favorites like Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games on your mobile phone. So, c ...more
Well, no one ever thinks of the BlackBerry as a gaming platform, but with this cool little java based app, called MeBoy, you can run Gameboy Advanced ROMS on your BlackBerry smartphone. Try it now and see all that glorious duotone color right in the palm of your hands! So give ...more
Xeni checks in with the authors of the forthcoming O'Reilly HOWTO book "iPhone Hacks" (David Jurick, Adam and Damien Stolarz) for a demonstration of how to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch. The authors promise to teach you how to coax more out of these devices: l ...more
One of the biggest advantages iOS has over Android as a mobile platform is how readily and fully it has embraced mobile gaming. There are over 200,000 games available in the Apple store, compared to approximately 100,000 in the Android Marketplace. As an Android-using gamer, t ...more
I have to say, the Xbox 360 controller is the best controller ever created. When I first held it back in 2005, I swore that the dudes working at Microsoft came over and took a molding of my hands because of how great it felt. The thing felt like it was born there. What's even ...more
Get more out of your Motorola Xoom Android tablet. Hook up a PS3 controller and enjoy all the games you can play with emulators on your tablet. Follow these instructions to make your Motorola Xoom Android a superior gaming machine by hooking up a PS3 controller.
Yes, they are May numbers, NPD is late by a month due to "IT" problems. They might have well blamed it only oil spill crisis. System Sales: PlayStation 3 154.5K PSP 59.4K Xbox 360 194.6K Wii 334.8K Nintendo DS 383.7K Last May for comparison: Wii - 289,500 Xbox 360 - 175,00 ...more
By using the mirror glitch, it's possible for Link to enter the Dark World earlier than the game intended. Take a look at this instructional video and learn where and how to perform the mirror glitch to travel to the Dark World early on in Zelda: A Link to the Past. Note that ...more
In Zelda: A Link to the Past, the Cane of Somaria (a recurring item in the Zelda series) could not traditionally be obtained until later in the game in the Misery Maze dungeon. Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to get the Cane Somaria early on with the mirr ...more
It's hard to believe that gaming consoles have been around for almost forty years. It seems like only yesterday that we all needed a tempermental joy stick to play Atari Space Invaders or were dying to get our hands on a Game Genie so we could beat Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. ...more
One of the great features of the Zelda games is the number of magical items at Link's disposal. In Zelda: A Link to the Past, the magical mirror item was used to switch between the dark and light worlds. In this instructional video, learn how to get the cape item early before ...more
Update: Based on comments from Adam Novak, this article has been updated to better reflect how the video memory range works. You can check out his working emulator (written in c) here. The latest screenshot of the (super early) build of 0x10c, still apparently under the name ...more
In its heyday the Atari gaming console was the Playstation of the 80s. Sure, you could download some wannabe emulator, but why not go a step further and purchase an actual Atari. They're still floating around and just think how cool it'll be to play pong in hi-definition. Cla ...more
This how-to video is about how to make PS3 controller work on the computer that have either Windows XP, or Vista or 7 as their operating system. Installation of PS3 controller is very for playing emulators with it, or online games like "duty four" or any PC games using PS3 co ...more
Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to cause Link to seemingly float around the map in Zelda: A Link to the Past. This effect also allows Link to interact with the environment while he's floating around (slashing monsters, etc. ) The easier way to keep yourse ...more
Learn how to hack save states on the PCSX2 Playstation 2 emulator for the PC. By editing the save states you can change the save points in a game and give yourself more items. This tutorial requires the use of a hex editor.
Want to play Super Mario Bros. your Nokia N900 mobile phone? With an SNES emulator, it's easy! So easy, in fact, that this N900 owner's guide can present a complete overview of the complete process in just over three minutes. For all of the details, including step-by-step inst ...more
TheCondowit shows you how to put a Gameboy and Gameboy Color emulator on your R4/M3. First go and download the lameboy software. Open the lameboy.mds file and make a new folder for it. Go to the bottom of the descriptions and you will go to a site that will give you ROMs. Afte ...more
The debate over whether video games can be considered art or not has intensified in recent years as games like Braid and Flow have taken the digital aesthetic experience to new heights. These new games are great examples, but there are much older ones that present compelling a ...more
The developer community has already made some incredibly quick progress on implementing assemblers, interpreters, and emulators for the proposed virtual computer in 0x10c, Notch's latest game. But the truth is that the majority of programmers out there couldn't be bothered wit ...more
When you first become interested in learning how to program, it can be difficult to find a place to start. A lot of questions come up, especially if you're new to the idea of programming entirely. After you pick which language you want to learn, you have to worry about how you ...more
Watch this video to learn how to use Nintendo Wii TCP Loader. This hack is an important tool for playing homebrew games and emulators.
Watch this video to learn how to install Wad on the Nintendo Wii. Wad is a program that allows you to run Wii hacks, homebrew games and emulators.
How do you begin to explain the nostalgia that's felt when you play a game from your childhood? You can't. The only thing that will alleviate this feeling is experiencing it again. We've already shown you how to play PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64 games on your Nexus 7, but th ...more
My favorite type of video game is first-person shooters, and the one that started it all for me was GoldenEye 007. There was just something about the controls, fast-paced action, and free-roaming environment that got me hooked. Unfortunately, I'd have to dust off my old Ninte ...more
There was a time in my life when I could think of nothing but getting home and playing Super Smash Brothers on my Nintendo 64. It was just something about tossing Mario across the map with Donkey Kong that seriously made me feel like an OG, not to mention that it was the first ...more
Google Play has no shortage of Nintendo emulators: SuperGNES (Super Nintendo) Gameboy Color A.D. (Game Boy Color) My Boy! (Game Boy Advance) nds4droid (Nintendo DS) DroidEmu (SNES, NES, GBA, GBC, etc.) Those are just a few of what's available out there. The only problem with ...more
Counter-Strike is one of the most popular first-person shooters of all time, and deservedly so. What originally started out as a third-party Half-Life mod garnered such a cult following that Valve had to hire the developers and purchase the intellectual property to make it an ...more
I am often asked about getting started with HoloLens development and most of the time my answer, in short, is: Install Unity, install Visual Studio, install the HoloLens emulator, and make something. I suspect most of the time this advice is ignored, since the idea of develop ...more
Mobile gaming, in case you haven't noticed, is huge. From the astronomical popularity of Candy Crush Saga, to the ease of using old school emulators, we love gaming on our mobile devices. The future is also bright, just take a look at the Oculus Rift, an immersive virtual worl ...more
In the wake of its 20th anniversary, the folks over at Eltechs have released Original DOOM, a full shareware version of the revolutionary first-person shooter DOOM for Android, available for free on the Google Play Store. It's unmodded and unaltered from the original FPS class ...more
I grew up on SNES. Super Mario, Final Fight, and Contra were just a few of my favorites, and most of my collection is still intact—all I have to do is reach under my bed and pull out all my old games. As proof, I present my original Donkey Kong Country cartridge: Now that I'm ...more
One of the most annoying things about the PlayStation 3 is its lack of backward compatibility on some models. There are several hacks out there to do this, but most of them involve extra hardware, like the Cobra-USB Dongle, or downgrading, which can cause all sorts of problems ...more
Atari—it's the home gaming console officially responsible for starting the trend of sleepless nights and malnutrition amongst kids and adults alike. If you think Call of Duty is addicting, try playing Space Invaders in the '80s on the old Atari 2600 (voted the second greatest ...more
About a year ago, a certain watershed mobile augmented reality game based on a familiar video game franchise was released into the wild. Today, a number of imitators and emulators have introduced their own location-based games with hopes of similar success. The process of rep ...more
Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How lo ...more
If you're playing the Android version of Game of War, or pretty much any other game (including emulators), it's much easier to play using a controller. While most Android games have gamepad support built-in, others do not and require a root app like Tincore to map touches into ...more