In recent times, I have taken an interest in video game emulation and emulators, chief among them is the PS2 emulator PCSX2. This program operates the same as a PS2 with a few different bells and whistles for your computer.

The PS2 was my first console. My uncle got it for me as a gift when I was about four and my library of games didn’t start collecting dust until I picked up my first Xbox 360 about a decade later. At the same time though, there was a large amount of dust building up around our old 1980s wooden paneled TV and the ports around the PS2’s cords and both had to go.

I discovered the emulator years after that when the nostalgia wave hit me once when I was watching old footage of the 3D era Mortal Kombat games. In my naiveté, I assumed the best way to play this again meant tracking down an old, but refurbished console since I had both the games and some old memory cards. Searching on websites offering them for perhaps a fraction of what they cost in October of 2000 when the console launched in North America proved fruitless.

I don’t know when I first started googling PCSX2, but I know that it was sometime in August or September of 2020 that I had downloaded it to my old computer. My old gaming computer couldn’t handle rendering The Sims 4 in HD and if I dared play a pirated PS2 game on that machine, it needed a new CPU which I could not install. The design of the computer makes it impossible to mod, so I was stuck with the PS2 startup screen and display.

But that much meant that it was in my grasp. I could play the old games I used to have and then some until it was time. For now, it was time for me to find a new computer. And while I have the opportunity to go into a slight tangent right now, I just want to say that modern computers have been extremely nerfed in the years. My grandmother’s old desktop computer, though prone to slow down, lasted upwards of at least six or seven years. My last gaming laptop lasted from August 5, 2017 until May 22, 2021. Less than four years. But hey, the machine I use as of now is much faster and the problems on the other computer are either nonexistent or greatly diminished.

Back to the topic of emulation, I finally after a year and change got the PCSX2 program to work and it’s just like I’m back in elementary or middle school again and this is my prize for knocking out some homework. As of writing this, the games I have active on the computer are as follows:

1. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002)
2. Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004)
3. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (2005)*
4. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 (2004 JP/2007 NA)
5. Tekken 5 (2004)
6. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006)
7. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix (2005)*

The asterisks on Shaolin Monks and Midnight Club are to signify games that I’ve either 100% completed or got as close to getting to 100%. Further sidenote on Midnight Club, the save file still exists, but to make room for other stuff, including legally bought and owned games and their corresponding updates, I had to ditch it from my list of ROMs.

You’d best believe that if I had a YouTube gaming channel, a larger capacity hard drive (ideally 4-5TB), and perhaps a gaming desktop whilst leaving the one I’m writing on for simulation-type games like The Sims or Civilization, I would either record playthroughs and upload or cut out the middle man and try to stream on Twitch. I challenged myself in this game to use only cars that I had won in tournaments and along with the car you buy before the first qualifying race, there’s enough of prizes to fill the garage to near-capacity in the three cities of San Diego, Detroit, and Atlanta. With the addition of Tokyo, my garage was at capacity. I noticed when the last thing I tried was attempting to test drive a car.

Now, this isn’t exactly my first time playing emulated games or even a program to do so. On browsers alone, old GBA and Nintendo DS titles are available to run through and I had blazed through nearly that entire era of Kirby games, sans the original Super Star game and Canvas Curse. Super Star original wouldn’t cost me anything monetary or temporal to play, but memories of the original Canvas Curse on my DS reminded me of how ass my reflexes used to be. Though I still managed to beat Planet Robobot and Triple Deluxe on the Citra Nightly emulator.

As for the games that let me play by going straight to the files, well, there’s an extra step to that. Downloading and extracting files to a 7-Zip location through the WinRAR application makes things all too easy. Even when the app threatens to charge you for using it, it’s not all that much trouble. Just X out of the paywall window and the download will still be there ready for extraction. Easy.

There’s an old debate on the pros, cons, dangers, etc. of video game piracy that has had people talking for years, decades at this point. Before the internet age, backyard engineers have made homebrew consoles before. The Angry Video Game Nerd has a few in his position specially made for select episodes like his Nintoaster and the 4-in-1 console.

But this is different. This isn’t modifying a console; this is grabbing an illegal version of the game made available online. What makes it illegal? Without the recorded sale of a good from a producer to a customer, this is what makes it illegal. But calling back to old Blockbuster video warnings, FBI warnings on nearly every DVD and VHS tape, and movie previews about the consequences of theft, emulating isn’t as easily policed or punished. Hackers can and at times do face the consequences for hacks and viruses, same as a thief who robbed an old lady or the mastermind behind a car theft racket.

Emulation though remains largely unpoliced and unpunished and a lot of the time, it’s rare for their to be a court debate over the issue since a publisher can shut a site down if they catch wind of their old products being made available on the web.

In particular, Nintendo shut down the website Emuparadise, which on the surface sounds like a forum for enthusiasts of birds of large stature and little intellect, but it was more of a storehouse for just about every game available. According to the website owner, he grew up in rural India and had zero access to any of the games growing up. I don’t remember if he explained it on the site, but to my knowledge, the purpose of Emuparadise was to give similar folks the world over a chance to either play these games for the first time, or veterans of old games a nostalgia trip.

While I fall into the latter category, the guy in charge of the site isn’t really all that special regarding his background, but what he made available for the wider public was. People who got into gaming late in life had something to entertain them in the short-term, and veterans like myself have a repertoire at our fingertips. The nostalgia wave hits more like a tsunami, and while I acknowledge most of my old games weren’t as good as I remember, there were things about old gaming that I think a lot of us really took for granted.

One of the biggest of them was DRMs and internet connections to play games. I don’t mind online or offline play when engaging in a legacy run of The Sims 4, but there’s a lot of practices within this 2014 game that probably should’ve served as a sign of things to come for EA going forward. Sims 4 has gotten better over the years, but it’s not very perfect or close to it. Hell, always-online handicapped Destiny in 2014 and almost assassinated the Xbox One a year prior.

Games released before the wide use of internet and mass adoption of social media has this going for them, but as much as I praise and make use of emulators, I can’t ignore the problems that exist within the practice. I mentioned earlier that my old computer had hardware limitations that I couldn’t overcome in order to play on the PCSX2 properly, but there were other problems. Bad ISOs and ROMs make a game literally unplayable. Additionally, what matters is the recency of the tutorial you might view in order to get it right step-by-step. It’s fortunate that the PCSX2 site itself directs you along the way, but more visual learners might try YouTube and without a visible dislike counter to consider (excluding add-ons), you could either use information that’s long out of date or worse be subject to a Rick Roll or something similar.

Granted, these days these are all easy fixes and minor nuisances, but spending enough time in just an internet forum can clue you in to how clueless some people can be sometimes. Another danger that can deter piracy leads into developers sneaking codes into games that make the game unplayable, like the drunk camera on pirated copies of GTA 4. But that’s largely the worst that can happen to a pirate and I’d say they deserve it. Some games aren’t worth pirating. If it’s still available, you can drop a few bucks on it or wait for a sale if you’re frugal. The worst case scenario would be a bait or a scam.

The countless YouTube sponsorships that encourage (read: implore) the viewer to get a VPN like Surfshark, Atlas, Private Internet Access, ExpressVPN, and many others do have a point, not just in identity protection, but also preventive care. If you’re not too careful about where you get your ROMs and whatnot, a lot of your data is up for grabs. I extend this to mods as well, especially those for The Sims.

But above all else, it should be all for good fun. As I said, I’m all for pirating if it means a beloved game is no longer available or if a reputedly acclaimed game can’t be played without the sacrifice of an arm, a leg, or Deez Nuts.

However, I limit my free rein to pirate to the mostly 2D and 3D era. HD games can still be purchased in the modern day and if you really want to play GTA 4 or Mortal Kombat 9 or BioShock, you can drop a few bucks or wait for a sale, or just watch a silent playthrough on YouTube. It is not hard. Speaking of acclaimed games that can’t be played today, I thought I’d make a list of the games, I’d like to play. Some of these I had heard of from a GCN video on Everything Wrong With God of War 2018. They’re as follows:

1. Onimusha: Warlords (2001)
2. Ninja Gaiden (2004)
3. God Hand (2006)
4. Devil May Cry (2001)
5. Black (2004)

As I’d done previously, moving some files around and deleting the unneeded would be required if I want to try these all, and the save files all still exist, so not a lot to worry about until I run out of room.