SexToyKiosk

They need to do this with a few other games. I set up Asteroids, Space Wars, and Starhawk with a graphic of a starfield in the background, which made the games a lot easier on the eyes. But to truly hack a classic game and improve on it rocks! What about Battle Zone in color instead of monochrome, and with new types of enemies? Karate Champ with ninjas that has new moves and new scenes? Ms. Frogger? Super Gorf, with a spinner controller ala Tron that lets you shoot targets from an angle? Gauntlet or Gauntlet II with entirely new characters or even the ones used in Gauntlet Dark Legacy? All kinds of possibilities.

It's a hack that never existed in the arcades. However, it's such a WELL DONE hack that it's now part of the canon. Hope we see more of this sort of thing.

I just discovered Stella, a package I wasn't previously aware of, and it addresses all of the issues, so... no problem now.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the arcade model is dead, I just think it needs re-imagining. The Dave & Buster's chain is on the right track if the economy ever improves enough to support it again. You definitely can't make it with dedicated machines like in the 80s, but if arcades were built with more multi-game MAME-type cabinets, it becomes more appealing. Nothing sucks more than going to your favorite arcade and waiting in line for your favorite game, but what if you eliminated said wait? I know licensing issues would have to be worked out. But it can't just be about the machines anymore; there has to be food (and, if possible, drink), and something has to be worked out to allow people to play DVDs on a screen, etc. As soon as my parents die and I get my inheritance, I'm looking into opening up one such operation with even more features than I've mentioned that I can't go into yet. But rather than trying to re-create an 80s arcade, it makes more sense to think of creating a community entertainment hangout as a whole. For it to really go the extra mile, game manufacturers/distributors also have to put out new limited-scope games that are suited to a coin-op environment using today's graphics and styles. I was just talking to my cousin the other day and he said, "Everything you see is FPS now and it sucks." I agree. To make the arcading institution work again, the games THEMSELVES have to be arcade-oriented, not Wii wannabes. That means creativity, not just hacking Doom and changing the texture files and weapons. We need GAMES again, not another flood of simulations. When I was a kid, you went to the arcade for the environment and because they had games you couldn't play at home. Now, you have to create a reason for people to leave home, and that's hard to do in an age when kids are increasingly fused to their computers and TVs. When I was growing up, you couldn't wait to get out of the house on the weekend to go to the mall or the movies or the arcade. Now, you take the kids out and all they whine is, "When can we go home? I miss my computer/game console!"

Which front-end is the best will depend on what you want out of it. If you just want a quick and dirty list of your MAME games and a display of their screen shots and history, MAMEUI32/64 is a good one. For my part, I exclusively use 3D Arcade. It's a bear to configure, but for my purposes it blows GameEx away. I haven't found an emulator it won't run, given some extensive tweaking. I can't get it to save cabinet positions no matter what (not sure if this is a Windows 7 bug or not), but I learned how to edit the files manually and got the desired results. By far, the hardest part was getting music and music video playlists to happen on the "projector screen" models, but it was worth it in the end for a true virtual arcade experience. Like I said, you may need a Ph.D. in information systems to set it up, but it's worth it if you take the time and have a system that can run it. I'm running MAME, MisfitMAME, Atari 2600 (MESS and Z24), Sega Genesis (MESS), Nintendo Entertainment System (MESS), Commodore 64 (WinVICE), Playstation (epsxe), laserdisc (Daphne), pinball machines (via 3 versions of Virtual PinMAME and Future Pinball), DOS (DOSBox), and regular Windows games out of it with no problems. I even made a couple of models of pizzas to have sitting on the tables. It's the equivalent of a doll house for grown men. I'm making my own hillbilly-tech front-end for MESS Atari 2600 by setting up an artwork file that has separate views for each game that include the box cover and the cartridge image. Tedious, but I'm a child of the 70s and simply must have my commercial imagery and pretty colors. P.S. -- Any friend of Johnny Sokko is a friend of mine!

Ugh. Tried every setting in MESS I could find and still a black screen on Starmaster. Guess I'm stuck using Z24 for now. Just sucks having to set up a separate emulator file for one game.

Re: Other Emulator I have a couple of others on here, but MESS was the only one that integrated with my front-end while providing the display I wanted. Re: Switches Problem I'm not even that far yet. The game won't even run in MESS.

Does anyone know where to get a copy of Starmaster that runs on MESS? It's the only one that doesn't run. The one I have runs on PCAE but won't run on any other emulator.

I agree with the posters that say WinVICE is the way to go, especially with Windows 7. I just tried the latest 64-bit version of WinVICE and was pleased with its features, especially color adjustment and volume slider. I also like the joystick display at the bottom because sometimes the ini file "spaces out" and this is the only way you can know up front if your stick's not reading. My only issue with WinVICE is that you really only get 2 windowed screen sizes to choose from, and neither are big enough on a 1600*900 setup. So I tried out MESS. Once you get the BIOS downloaded and the directory pointers set up, Commodore 64 runs fine enough and allows you to stretch the screen in a window at will. However, the major shortfall of MESS's version is an (apparent) inability to set up and use flip lists, critical when you're on a platform that used two-sided floppies. When you run everything out of front-ends like I do, being able to do this from a command line is what wins, and MESS isn't quite there yet. It's also frustrating that you can only create one artwork file for each console, not for each game (particularly with Atari 2600). If you're going to go C64, the latest version of WinVICE really is the only way to go for now.