EMULATORS

Here are a few of my favourite emulators, along with the best available games for them.

CALLUS
  • Windows95
  • Dos
 Capcom System One emulator. One of my favourite emulators, Callus emulates almost perfectly many of the best Capcom arcade games of the late 80's and early 90's. The use of 16-bit colour is second to none, depicting Capcom's detailed background artwork in all it's glory. Best games:
  • 1941
  • Carrier Air Wing
  • Ghouls'n'Ghosts
  • Mercs
  • Three Wonders
  • U.N.Squadron
  • Varth
  • Final Fight
  • Street Fighter
  Three Wonders - Top platform larks ahoy...
          
RAGE
  • Dos
 Rage stands for 'Real Arcade Game Emulator', and pretty much lives up to its name with excellent emulations of many of the best games from arcade-legends Irem, the creators of R-Type. One word of warning though..these games are some of the hardest ever created and will test your skills ruthlessly so don't say I didn't warn you!

Also emulated are a few older Capcom games including 1943 and Gunsmoke.

 Best Games:
  • R-Type
  • R-Type II
  • In the Hunt
  • Image Fight
  • Dragon Breed
  In the Hunt - Submarine shoot-em-up with extremely smart graphics.
    
SPARCADE
  • Windows95
 Sparcade is a great emulator, very eay to use and providing pixel perfect renditions of three of my fave shooters of all time, namely Nemesis, Salamander and Vulcan Venture. The latter particularly is fantasticly well emulated in full screen with spot-on sound FX and music.

Also emulated are many older classics eg. Pacman, Pengo, Galaga, Moon Cresta, hey, even Space Invaders gets a look-in.

 Best Games:
  • Nemesis (aka Gradius}
  • Salamnder
  • Vulcan Venture
  • Terra Cresta
  Vulcan Venture, aka Gradius III.... Set your controls for the heart of the sun....
    
SHARK V2
  • Dos
 Only emulates two games at the moment, but does it very well indeed. Anyone who remembers shoving stack-fulls of ten pence pieces into Taito's extremely difficult shooter Flying Shark will appreciate this fine emulator.

The other game running on Shark V2 is Twin Cobra, a nifty little helicopter shooter, basically Flying Shark with rotor blades, but still a good game in its own right.

Both these games can be run full screen with the monitor on its side a la arcade if you wish... just be careful if you try this at home..!!

 Best Games:
  • Flying Shark
  • Twin Cobra
  Flying Shark... Rock Hard Shooter.