Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Internet Arcade from archive.org

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 11-04-2014, 02:46 PM:

New thing from The Internet Archive.

quote:
The Internet Arcade is a web-based library of arcade (coin-operated) video games from the 1970s through to the 1990s, emulated in JSMAME, part of the JSMESS software package. Containing hundreds of games ranging through many different genres and styles, the Arcade provides research, comparison, and entertainment in the realm of the Video Game Arcade

The Internet Arcade

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-04-2014, 03:46 PM:

I tried a few old faves. Some didn't work at all, and the ones that did work were clunky or slow compared to the "original" arcade versions. Galaga being a good example.

My favorite game of all time was Defender, but the version on this site doesn't seem to work for me...it gets to an options screen and hangs. But it's just as well, because I've never seen any version of that game that was as fun to play as the real arcade version. The controls are too complicated for a computer keyboard -- the original game had five control buttons plus a joystick. And you really need that joystick... using the up/down buttons on the keyboard is too cumbersome.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 11-04-2014, 06:34 PM:

You'll need a good old, robust digital joystick too, not such an analog beast that's good for nothing but maybe some flight simulator. But often a good gamepad with good digital controls will also work.

I've checked the archive.org page and I'm quite impressed with what they're doing here. They're using an emulator that literally executes the age-old ROMs. So, they're not ported to the browser, but running inside a VM built in Javascript.

This is also the reason why a game like Defender (indeed, great game, and check the story of one of the original Mac developers about an interesting end-game strategy) starts with the initial configuration. It's like an arcade console which was just delivered to you, you need to tell it stuff like how many coins a game costs, etc.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-04-2014, 10:17 PM:

Some of those old games have been ported over (very accurately in most cases) to more PC-oriented or game console oriented platforms. I have a PS3 game which contains many of those classics. Unfortunately the standard PS3 Dualshock controller doesn't work very well for playing coin-op games like Robotron: 2084 (one of my favorite coin-op games).

An after market joystick like the X-Arcade TankStick (feature real dual joysticks, a trackball and lots of real coin-op game style buttons) is obviously what's needed to get the most out of those classic games. But it's kind of pricey.