So I'm writing an article focusing on franchises Square-Enix has overlooked in favor of yet another Final Fantasy rehash. For the longest time i've either A: taken screenshots from a PR site (where it is public and fine) or B: Strayed away from anything in the PS2 era-onwards and focused on using emulators to get screenshots.
Now for disc based games, I was asked to get this DVR doo-hickey from Amazon that costs a whopping $300 and then I can take screenshots of current gem games.
Eh, no thanks.
I instead found a USB TV card off Ebay that I installed into my computer and used to rip images. Well it's component and the PS2 doesn't exaclty look well on it (don't ask me, I'm not getting into it.). So when I had to get screenshots for Xenogears-the shots looked like utter dogshit. After I realised that this peripheral was good for component games only, I went another route. I decided I'd have to download an emulator.
So today I figured "Well, I'll just download a PS1 emulator, put in my Xenogears disc and rip some screenshots from it."
Of course doing that is nothing more than talk. It took me about four hours to get one working to the point where I can play Xeno, and even then I wasn't really feeling right.
I started by downloading EPSXE which (allegedly) is the best PS1 emulator around. Of course after that the bloody thing won't work, and I find out I need plug-ins, a bios (which I believe is illegal), and then I gotta specifically put all these files in certain folders. After that's done, I need to configure things using some configure dilly-whopper and I'm ready to go.
Except for the fact my CDR won't read a PS1 disc. Wonderful. So now I have to get a DIFFERENT plug-in that will read the disc. What happens is something that has a notorious skip problem right from the get-go, and plays music from the games opening cinematic indefinitely.
Realising this plug-in won't work (and also listneing to three layers of Xenogear's opening song play over each other) I look for another emulator. This new one is called pSX and it's a bare bones emulator that doesn't have the bells and whistles of the EPSXE.
"Great!" I said. "I just need three screenshots. This will work"
So I download that and again run into problems. Configuring the thing was a bitch and once I got it going it wouldnt' recognise my disc. At all.
"Fuck" I said. I puleld the disc back out (again) and put it back into the jewel case (btw, Xenogears has some ugly box art for a PS1 game). I realised now I was going to have to download the ROM image somewhere to get this whole thing working just so I could get THREE FUCKING SCREENSHOTS.
Back to Google I go, running into nine or so porn sites before I find a Xenogears image I can download. I download the damn thing and spend 20 minutes getting it configured and voila! The game loads. After all this was figured out, I loaded it and tried playing the game--but there's no fucking full screen. I'm limited to this window, which was my main complaint with my USB capture card I bought.
I sighed and took it anyways and got my images. The pSX emulator is now on my harddrive for work purposes only and I'd never use a PS1 emulator for anything else.
Here's the point of the story: I have a decent PC. Yes, my CD drive sucks (it's a DVD-R that had trouble ripping Wrath of the LIch king off the disc), but it isn't decent enough to let me play PS1 games. I don't know how you guys manage to get this shit for free. I'd rather take it up the ass in Ebay prices and have a material game to play on my TV then go through this shit again.
God help me if I ever have to download a PS2 emulator. For one I don't know how my PC will run that shit when I stick in a PS2 game, for another-if I gotta go through all the plug-ins and extra crap going with it. I'm screwed.
Just go buy a PS1. Don't download emulators, theya re a pain in the ass and they suck.
