toronto sun times article about gcw zero

The Sunday Sun n January 19, 2014E38 ENT n n

Mashing buttons since 1982de

ckin

2014On

I feel like I’m holding a chunk of mychildhood in the palm of my hand.

And, theoretically, I couldget arrested for it.

As a gamer who’s been kicking aroundfor longer than I care to admit, I grewup on game consoles that have longsince faded into the mists of antiq-uity. The Super Nintendo Entertain-ment System and Sega Genesis, theearlier Nintendo Entertainment Sys-tem and original Game Boy, and evenconsoles from before that time — theAtari 2600 and ColecoVision were myintroduction to home video gaming.

The fact that now, in 2014, I can carrya device in my pocket that can store andplay thousands of games from thesebygone consoles blows my mind a bit.Well, part of my mind. The other part— the part that feels guilty about thingslike taking too many mints when leavinga restaurant — clucks disapprovingly.

The gadget in question is the GCWZero, a handheld video game machinethat launched last year after a successfulKickstarter campaign. While the Zero isby no means the first handheld designedto play a variety of retro games (in addi-tion to original “homebrew” software), itwas designed by a group of gamers whowanted to make a best-in-class device.And they’ve done a pretty fine job.

Available for $150 from ThinkGeek.com, the Zero is essentially a tiny butrelatively powerful computer with famil-iar video game controller buttons anda 320 x 240 pixel screen — low resolu-tion by today’s standards, but more thanadequate for playing old-school games.

I got the Zero for Christmas, and I’vebeen in love with it since. It’s not exactlyan intuitive gizmo, and requires a lotof learning, tinkering and tweaking tofully unlock its potential. But now I’vegot a bunch of game emulators installedon the thing, capable of playing every-thing from the original Pitfall! for theAtari 2600 to my Genesis faves Earth-worm Jim and Mutant League Foot-ball to SNES classics like Donkey KongCountry and Super Mario World.

Catch is, playing these gamesis technically against the law.

In video game terms, emula-tion refers to a piece of hard-ware mimicking an oldergaming system through rawcomputational power andclever software design. Emu-lators aren’t illegal, but ROMs— short for read-only mem-ory, a catch-all term for theseold games files — are.

Even though many of theseretro games are 20 to 30 yearsold, they’re still copyrightedmaterial and can’t legally be dis-tributed. Nintendo in particu-lar takes a dim view of emula-tion, with an entire section of theirwebsite devoted to the topic.

Are these laws enforced? Giventhat websites offering ROMs for down-load operate openly and with relativeimpunity, it appears not. I suspect gamepublishers focus their anti-piracy effortson people who illegally copy and dis-tribute newer games, rather than track-ing down folks playing 1985’s SuperMario Bros. on their home computers.

There are plenty of legal ways toplay old-school games, to be sure.Lots of classic titles are re-released onnewer consoles (Nintendo’s eShop,for instance, has tons of old favour-ites), and there’s always the optionof buying an old system and track-ing down out-of-print games throughspecialty stores, eBay and the like.

Not exactly convenient and defi-nitely not portable. So when somethinglike the GCW Zero comes along, andoffers you the seductive possibility ofcarrying your entire gaming childhoodin a single pocket-sized device… well,we must all look within and figure outwhich way our moral compasses point.

For the record, I deleted eve-rything off my Zero after writ-ing this. For the record.

Zero toleranceThis pocket-sized device lets me revisit my gaming childhood. But is what I’m doing legal?

steve.tilley@sunmedia.ca

steve tilley@stevetilley

n Infamous:Second Son(PS4)n WatchDogs (PS3,

PS4)n Destiny (PS3, PS4)n Driveclub (PS4)n Tom Clancy’s TheDivision (PS4)n TheWitcher 3: Wild Hunt(PS4)

SONy n TitanFall(Xbox One)n Watch Dogs(Xbox 360,

Xbox One)n Halo (Xbox One)n Quantum Break (XboxOne)n Destiny (Xbox 360,XboxOne)n Below (Xbox One)

XBOXn TitanFalln TomClancy’s TheDivisionn Elder

Scrolls Onlinen TheWitcher 3: WildHuntn Destinyn Watch Dogs

PCn Super Smash Bros.(Wii u, 3DS)n Mario Kart 8(Wii u)n Donkey Kong

Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii u)n Bayonetta 2 (Wii u)n Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy(3DS)n Watch Dogs (Wii u)

NiNteNDOGAMeR

The GCWZero canstore numerousclassic games,such as 1985’sSuper Mario Bros.