With very little in the way of new releases coming out, I'm back in the emulation mines once again, digging for retrogame gold and my word, I've hit a rich vein over the past week or so.

I know some people find that when you have access to such a large archive, for free, they find it hard to attach value and worth to particular titles and bounce around without sticking to something. I get that, I did it too. When you make your emulation setup a full on project, where you're constantly tweaking it and adding to it and curating it, it feels a lot more personal and it certainly helps you find games to play and stick with them.

I've gotten stuck into Manhunt and Shinobi on the PS2, I'm still playing through Chrono Trigger and I think I might finally (despite owning a copy for decades) play and finish Alundra in the coming weeks. It's great to have this many absolute bangers at my disposal, especially during these quieter times for the big current gen releases.

The Betterverse.

Whenever a massive corporate entity tries to involve itself in aspects of the internet that have grown organically, it's always the utter worst shit imaginable. At best, massively cringeworthy and, at worst, a cynical cash grab and an attempt to monopolise the independence of the internet. There's almost always this move towards monetisation and ownership over freedom of expression, for, well, free. Everything we've been told about the 'Metaverse' from companies investing heavily into it tends to fall into one of two boxes.

Box one is a horrid mass of IPs, desperately trying to shape some kind of Marvel-esque shared universe. Box two is some sterile Second Life style world full of user-created content that inevitably gets used for either a) finding ways to extract money from the userbase or b) virtual shagging between some ugly as sin avatars. Neither is particularly appealing.

There is one good idea in this whole metaverse mess: the idea that you can have your own personal space in the online world that can be shared with others. Something that can be tailored to your personal tastes without being totally shackled to reality.

Here's my metaverse.

EmuVR is, essentially, a glorified front-end for the RetroArch multi-format emulator. You're basically picking a game from a list, choosing the platform to play it on and then playing it, only here the games aren't on a list, they're represented by 'physical' cartridges and discs. Choosing the console core becomes picking a 3D model of the machine, all with full interactive buttons and disc trays that you remember and then plugging them into a virtual CRT screen so you can play them how you remember them, sat in your bedroom lit only by the warm glow of the TV. If that is all it was, it would already be perfect.

You can also customise the room with images, so you can cover the walls with movie or gig posters. I've essentially recreated my ideal room for me aged 16 (which, of course, is still pretty much my ideal room aged 38) only it is filled with every videogame I can imagine. For me, being able to boot up Bushido Blade and play it in a fairly authentic setting without needing a PS1, a CRT TV or a copy of the game in 2022 is something that feels quite important to me. I'd love a big game collection. I have a modest collection. I'd love to play everything on the original hardware I own but space and tech restrictions make it very difficult. Despite my pretty solid stance on emulation > everything else I do like as authentic an experience as I can get from it and this EmuVR feels like the final piece of the puzzle. I can pop on my headset and get away from everything for a bit, into my room full of some of the best games ever made, shaped by my own nostalgia.

The best part about all of this (and something I am yet to fully mess around with as much as I'd like to) is that EmuVR is fully multiplayer. You can invite people into your room, where they can play games with you, couch co-op style - or as we used to call it, "multiplayer". Split screen Goldeneye, some Versus Street Fighter 2, even get involved in some full four played Mario Kart if you've got the mates. You can even play two different games on two different screens at the same time. It's just a private virtual space full of the games you want to fill it with. For us old enough to remember the era this is all based upon, it's an incredible relaxing, almost soothing experience to just take a bit of time in a very specific point in the past. It's even better to share it with someone. Free, community built, customised by yourself to be a personal space and can be shared with anyone - you don't even need a VR headset to join someone's room or play EmuVR, as it has a non-VR desktop client you can use too and even join people's room's from.

To me, this is a much, much more appealing version of the 'Metaverse' idea. I can't wait to see what is next and await every update with baited breath. If they put a classic PC model in that allows me to boot stuff in DOSBox or a C64/Amiga, I might not fucking leave next time I pop in for a bit. Plug me in, stick me on a drip and leave me be.

Emulation Lesson: RetroArch on Xbox.

Any of your who keep an eye on my Twitter will have an idea that I spent most of 2020's lockdown putting together a 2TB portable emulation setup, using Launchbox as a front-end and RetroArch for most of the actual emulation, organising complete ROMsets for pretty much every major cartridge based console, most classic computer stuff and some healthy sized curated collections from disc based systems. The Launchbox front-end gives me things like cover art and, in some cases, even stuff like PDFs of manuals - it is a little library on a hard drive that I'll never get bored of. Thing is, it took ages to refine it and shape it to how I want it - months, in fact - and I'm still learning how to add cool stuff and tweak settings to make things feel and look more authentic. It's an endless, on-going project but it isn't for everyone. Some people just want to play some damn good old games and if you have an Xbox console (not just Series S/X but also even an Xbox One!) you can get a lot of this stuff running on with relative ease and on the same box that you can play your Game Pass stuff on too. I'm going to show you how to get this stuff running but a few things first.

Before we start, this is the most important part - YOU CANNOT BE BANNED FOR DOING THIS, NOR WILL IT FUCK UP YOUR XBOX IN ANY WAY AT ALL.

You also no longer need to switch your Xbox to Developer Mode. There are advantages and disadvantages in running all of this stuff in Developer Mode but that's not what this little tutorial is all about. This is a guide about getting you playing cool old games easy easily, conveniently and as quickly as possible.

You'll need a few bits before you follow the tutorial, access to a PC/laptop and a memory stick/portable hard drive. You'll need BIOS files for the disc based consoles and I can't share them here because they're usually the bit that'll get you in trouble, so you'll have to Google those - or if you know me personally, hit me up in the DMs. Some games run off the external drive you're using and some will need to be copied to the Xbox's internal storage space or they won't run. There's a few variables with this but a simple rule of thumb is for the most part, cartridge based games will run off external storage and disc based games will need to be copied to the internal storage. Again, if you want to fuck around with this and figure out what works where, go for it but in this guide I'll be sticking to that because it'll guarantee the best compatibility.

Finally, on the subject of compatibility, there are some games that just won't work. This isn't something that you can get around with the added power and brute force of the Series X, this is just down to the hardware in question and how the emulators currently run on it. This is all stuff that may get better as time goes on, can be improved by tweaking settings and also, it might be like this for all of eternity. So, if your favourite game doesn't work - tough shit. Keep your fingers crossed, basically! We're already at a point where all this other stuff is possible so it is likely that things are going to get much, much better as the generation of consoles goes on and development of this stuff continues.

Anyway: get this watched and good luck. Be sure to tweet photos of this shit running and what you're playing at me.