Dear Future Gamer

Bah! I've just downloaded a SNES emulator out of pure curiosity. One of the first games I got hold of was Final Fantasy 2 as I had once owned it and remembered it fondly. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be absolutely horrible. It was still the same game I remembered, yet the years hadn't been all that kind. It was never a graphical tour-de-force, looking decidedly 8bit even then, but the marvellous gameplay I remembered so well had turned a bit wrinkly and a distinct smell of wee pervaded the air. If even a classic game such as this smells a tad when the nostalgia is stripped away, how much worse will some other gems of the past look?

So a word of warning to you all - beware emulators! Marvellous they may be, but my illusions are well and truly shattered. I'll still fly the whale to the moon (the world is split between those who know what I'm talking about and those who think I've been indulging in herbs) but it won't be quite the same as it was first time around. I can't help thinking that those without the benefit of nostalgia will laugh out loud at us for ever having played the games in the first place, but we'll have the last laugh when they start wittering on about Sonic Adventure in five years' time.

Michael Foster

FG: I can't resist this folks: nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Some things really should be allowed to become pleasant memories and shouldn't be repeated, and this can apply to games too. Having said that, Prod Ed Mark has been caught on more than one occasion this week playing an emulated version on Chuckie Egg on his PIII 500...