Baby Boomers can become Gamers

For those of us born from 1960 to 1967 we missed out!

When we were teenagers there were pinball machines – Nintendo game and watch only came out in 1980 and NES in 1985. Some of us got to play Space Invaders, Asteroid and Galaga i.e joystick and a fire button.

By this time we were in our twenties and games were for "kids".

Now we have kids of our own and the games they play are well – lets say "complicated".

So how can a father (? Grandfather) become a gamer.

We need short simple games to learn – not as easy as you might think.

I have already written about a bare bones R4 set up for NDS – I use it to play SNES games and movies. I am starting to the hang of Zelda – Link from the Past.

But I still feel there is need for a even simpler introduction – here is what I came up with that I enjoy.

1. Flash Games (online) – There are may thousands and some very good ones (for those looking for a gentle introduction). However playing online and keyboard control is cumbersome and saving games difficult. – There is always a solution

2. Download the flash game to play offline – in firefox right click on a blank part of the game web page and select page properties. Click the media tab and you will see names of lots files. Find the .swf file (if more than one select the one that is the largest) and press save as to save the file to your desired location. Now you can open this file in your browser without being online and play the game. But there is a more elegant solution.

3. Go to the adobe flash download page http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html and download the file "flash player V11 (or which ever is current) projector" for your operating system. This is the official stand alone flash player. You can open your .swf file here without opening your browser.

4. We still have the problem with keyboard inputs – have a look at "joytokey" http://www-en.jtksoft.net/home . This little utility (shareware – cost USD 7.00) is a keyboard/mouse emulator for a usb gamepad i.e you can program specific keyboard keys to buttons on your gamepad. This allows you to play your flash game with a gamepad rather than using the keyboard. Works like a charm!

Well now for some games:

RPG: Arcuz (if you like zelda you will enjoy) + Many others some with Zelda titles.

Action: Fighter Pilot 1942 and Selena Wars (If you like Gradius these will suit you)

Mario: Super Mario 63 (This is good)

Racing: 3D Rally Fever

R4DS Upgrade Guide

Below is a step by step guide to convert your Nintendo DS into a powerful multimedia / Internet and Gaming machine and it costs less than $10. Now many would have already done this and will say that this guide is out of date as it focuses on the older flash cards. I would agree however as someone who has only just started to do this I think an introduction such as this with no major cash outlay may encourage others to have a go rather than abandoning the DS in favor of 3DS. Also I must say I could not find such a guide anywhere else on the web, some parts are presented but not as complete guide.

Surprisingly Google no longer let you directly publish documents created with Google Docs into Blogger. Below is an embedded frame of the original document, unfortunately some of the formatting does not port well. If you find it difficult to read please go the original