By: Nick Gambino
If you’re a fan of old-school gaming consoles or want to see how us 80s and 90s kids whiled away our days, you don’t have to go through the trouble of purchasing a retro system. All you need is an emulator.
Video game console emulators are a nerd’s gift to retro gamers. Essentially, they reverse-engineer the code to build the console’s operating system so that you can play it right on your computer, phone or tablet. When done right, they can even elevate the gameplay beyond what the original system was capable of.
As time goes on, more and more sophisticated emulators are being built and not just for PCs. And with Apple relaxing their rules against emulators being allowed in the App Store, get ready for an explosion of mobile options.
This week, a PlayStation 1 emulator hit the App Store, allowing users to play old PS1 games directly on their iPhone or iPad. A few days in and the free Gamma app is already in the top 10 for the Entertainment category.
Now, the original PlayStation wasn’t as sophisticated as modern consoles, especially when it comes to saving your game progress. The Gamma app solves this by allowing players to sync their progress directly to Google Drive or Dropbox. This is where you’ll back up your game files and your save states which are the captures you’ll need to pick up from where you left off.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to go and purchase your own games and import them into the Gamma app. This is due in large part to Apple’s rule that developers can’t provide games that they do not own. This means pretty much any emulator that pops up in the App Store won’t have its own games.
The developer behind Gamma is the veteran ZodTTD who has been making emulators for a long time, including a pretty solid N64 reproduction. You can download Gamma in the App Store now.
