The Best Toy a Guy Could Want

I’m a geek. I’ll admit it, it’s true. I like adapters for various wire and cable types, I like network switches, hubs, and routers. I like VNC clients and Virtual Private Networks. I love tinkering with websites, but most of all; I love video games.

I always have loved video games. When I think back on my childhood, I have strong nostalgic feelings for the days of the Nintendo (or Intendo as some of my younger friends called it). It wasn’t until 3 months before the Nintendo 64 came out that I owned a Super Nintendo Entertainment system because my failure to manage, let alone save, money inhibited me from obtaining the money to purchase one.

Ok, enough back-story. I bought an Xbox 360 in November of last year, and as some of you know, this pretty much invalidates an original Xbox. Well, I am happy to say I have revived, no no, re-invigorated my Xbox. It is now more powerful than ever before, and can do so, so much more.

By using a handy software modification, I was able to transform this waste of space to a fully funcional entertainment center. Where before it only played Xbox games, it now re-lives the days of my youth. Here’s what it did before the mod:

• Play Xbox games (and DVDs with a remote).

After upgrading the hard drive to 200GB, here’s what it can now do:

• Copy Xbox games to the hard drive for play without the disk.
• Emulate the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis/CD/Master System, Nintendo 64, Playstation (one), NeoGeo, You name Atari System it can play it, Intellivision, Vectrex, older PC engines, and don’t forget Multiple Arcade Machines/Games.
• Play *just about* any digital video format.
• Store and View Pictures
• Store and Play music / Rip Music from CDs (even accessing CDDB).
• Play DVDs (without the remote)
• And so much more that I haven’t even figured out yet.

So, now I’m knee deep in nostalgia, and really enjoying video games in new and different ways — and I’ll tell you this: Good graphics alone do not a good game make. I’ll end with this: Contra seems HARDER than it was when I was a kid, and Tetris never gets old.