You can experience the roots of video game culture with retro games for these and other classic systems. In the ‘90s, televisions got bigger, and gaming consoles got more powerful. Nintendo and Sega fought for the top spot with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Sega Genesis, respectively. The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is a miniaturized replica of the original NES system, and comes pre-installed with 30 NES games and an NES Classic Controller.

The Legend of Zelda and Megaman 2 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). F-Zero and Street Fighter II: Turbo on the Super NES. Altered Beast and Strider on the Sega Genesis. If you have a Mac and fond memories of game consoles past, read on. The vintage emulator scene—going on 20 years now, by a rough estimation—is constantly evolving.

Programs and ROMs that worked several years ago may no longer load now. The Web is littered with emulators that aren't compatible with current operating systems, or ROMs that don't run in their corresponding emulators. The thing is, it's all in good faith. Dedicated volunteer programmers develop better emulators in an effort to improve accuracy and add features. Sometimes that requires new ROMs. Other emulators fall out of favor as developers move on to different projects.

Then Windows or Mac OS updates render languishing emulators unstable or otherwise unusable. Don't despair, though. Four years ago, I wrote a lengthy story for our sister site ExtremeTech about how to. When researching that article, I ran into the aforementioned problem pretty often. This time around, I wanted to touch on the Mac side, primarily because of a huge development that has changed the vintage console gaming scene for the better:. OpenEmu to the Rescue Originally released in 2013, OpenEmu is not actually an emulator in and of itself.

Instead, it's a robust front end for other console emulators. On its own, that's nothing new; front ends have existed for a long time. What makes OpenEmu different is that it works a lot like a streamlined iTunes—that is, if iTunes were smooth and fast, and not sluggish and confusing. For example, OpenEmu shows you actual box art for each of your games, and sorts them automatically by platform.

It lets you make playlists of your favorite games by category across platforms, and universalizes controller schemes for each emulated system—all with easy-to-understand and attractive graphics. OpenEmu doesn't work for computer platforms—you'll still need separate emulators for, say, the. But for game consoles, it's outstanding.

And for once, it's a Mac exclusive, instead of something that only works on PCs. The best part: OpenEmu takes care of the core emulation engines behind each platform.

When I think of a front end, normally I think of a program I'll have to install alongside a base emulator. But OpenEmu does all that work for you, and comes packaged with integrated cores for popular systems—again with an iTunes-like, or even App Store-like interface. Microphone app for mac. All you'll need to do is download the cores you want, each one with a single click from within OpenEmu.

ROMs and Setup Before we go further, as with every article on game system emulation over the past two decades, I have to issue the standard disclaimer: It's generally illegal to own ROMs of a given arcade machine, cartridge, or CD-ROM unless you own the actual item in question. In reality, though, it's a gray area—especially for titles that aren't available by any other means. I can't link directly to any ROM sites here. But I can tell you they're pretty easy to find if you know how to use. Protip: At the time of this writing, there's a really good site that rhymes with Pool Toms. With all that out of the way, let's get started playing games. The version of OpenEmu you want is the Experimental one.