I suppose Iâ??ll start by introducing myself, Iâ??m 25 and Iâ??m an IT specialist for a non-profit agency in Texas as well as father of 2 and an avid gamer. While I donâ??t generally post on forums unless I have something constructive to say or add, Iâ??m pretty much the type of person that trudges through tons of posts to find what Iâ??m looking for. However, seeing this topic really made me want to share my experiences with GameEx. I have to say about 2001 it all started with an idea, one of my old military friends and I were in the dorms one weekend talking about games we used to play as kids and how awesome it would be to play those games again. And at that moment I fired on my pc and started googling any info I can find and that led me to the world of emulation. Over the past few years my collection grew and grew and pretty much spilled on to older harddrives and cdâ??s and dvdâ??s as my rank in the Air Force went up. However it all just kinda went blah when I couldnâ??t find a way to sort of have all my emulators and Mame live in harmony in a nice easy Gui that can be controlled by my Playstation 2 controller. So pretty much from time to time id play a game or two and continue to surf the web for miscellaneous things to read and so forth. I wanted to relive those days of sitting on the living room floor with my NES/SNES controller in hand and having the distraction of someone walking in front of the TV during a really hard level of Megaman. Or alternatively, one day owning a cab to relive my days after school walking into a Bodega (Iâ??m originally from Bronx, NY and for those that arenâ??t aware a Bodega is a convient store) and playing magician lord on a MVS cab or the original street fighter 2. But for the life of me I could never find a front end that would do everything I wanted! Then about 2 weeks ago (yes im a GameEx newbie and loving every minute of it!) I was fumbling around the idea of using my P4 to be soley an emulation box or sort of consolized emu box if you will, since building a cab really isnâ??t feasible for my family because of finances and space and whatnot (plus my wife is a cheap, I swear she can squeeze a penny out of thin air sometimes). So insanely determined to find SOMETHING that I can use as a frontend I scoured the internet and actually accidentally came across the GameEx website. I started checking out the site and it really got my interest piqued. I then was thinking to myself, â??hrm its worth a shot its got a free version what do I have to lose?â? (and in the world of working for a non-profit agencyâ?¦if its free its for me!) Anywho, I installed GameEx which to my shock was completely painless and I was playing some mame games and SNES games in about 10 minutes. Then I though well I want to see what else I can do with this software and man I was blown completely away with all the features. I then showed my wife and she did what she always does when I show her somethingâ?¦..â?how much did you spend?â? I told her I was using the free version and she then became more interested and thought it was pretty nifty. To make a long story short (I think this is why I donâ??t generally post in forums, I over explain everything =P ) I began to find new ways to optimize my configs by delving into the GameEx forums and pretty much found everything I had trouble with along the way. Then the real test came, my 4 year old daughterâ?¦..after having children and getting married I wanted to share my gaming era with my children. I wanted to build something that they can pick up and play and play for hours without having fiddle with complicated emulators to get a game to run. The other night my daughter came to my desk while I was putting the final touches on my configs (which to be honest I keep finding too many cool things in the forums to try so I guess Ill never be â??doneâ?) and my daughter said daddy I want to play something. So I was like ok and proceeded to load up Diddy Kong Racing which loaded up crazy fast and handed my daughter the controller. I swear the intense concentration coming from that kidâ??s face almost made me break out and tear and I thought to myself, damn thatâ??s what I looked like when I played this game so many years ago. Then the ultimate of all tests came â?? the wife test -. On Sunday evening in the thread posted about 10 NES games in 10 minutes I clicked the link and began watching it, my wife turned around and was like OH MY GOD I remember those! So then I came with the devious plan of introducing her to GameExâ?¦. I handed her the controller and watched as she began to navigate her way through the menuâ??s and she found the NES section, she then proceeded to play Battletoads and The Addams Family and she was yipping with obnoxious glee. She was shocked how easy it was to load up and play almost any game she could image. I cant even begin to explain what a feeling of happiness I get by controlling all my emulated games from 1 controller in my chair last night I actually played Megaman again and it felt right minus the head crushing blowing in the cartridge and NES. (I can live without that though) And for about 20 minutes of playing until I got disturbed with a â??daddy I want some apple juiceâ? I felt like I was an 8 year old playing on my couch. I just want to thank Tom and everyone else on the forums that have made my retro-gaming experience complete because with out everyone there would probably be no way for my family and I to have a simplified and amazing experience playing these games. Who knows maybe one day I may be fortunate enough to build a cab and I can tell you now Ill definitely be running GameEx on it! Thanks everyone!
