How to get GBA games on your Android!

Sweet! Oh dear FF1 on Android, you complete me. And lucky for you I will be taking all of the work and trouble out of getting your mobile game on like a bous. Below I'm going to list the simple steps you have to take to earn yourself some sweet slacker points and avoid boredom anywhere you may go.

Its... Beautiful.

Alright so check it out. The three key things you will be needing here are simple, One your Emulator. This is basically a digital version of the original GBA console which is the base thing that runs the game on your phone. (And don't worry, a modern smart phone has roughly 50x the processing power that the original GBA had so you should run it just fine!) For our purposes and my personal preferences we will be using GameBoid as our emulator, as it is free, easy to use and comes with some cool features.

Download GameBoid here.
The link will auto download it into your default download folder on your PC!

Next up we need a BIOS. This is the basic brain of the GBA, think of it as the thoughts to the mind (mind being the emulator.) So we need to make sure we have one that works for the GBA, but don't worry, once again I've got your back. And you can go ahead and

Download the BIOS files here.
Again its a direct link so click yes when it asks if you would like to download it.

Now for the third and final part of the puzzle! The Games!!!! As this is by far the most intense and fun part of it I cant actually supply you will all the games here as I don't like you that much. But lucky for you I'm still nice so here are a few methods for downloading games (ROMs) you can either check out CoolROMS.com which is basically a big data base of most GBA games ever made and transfer them to your phone after you download them!

OR! You can make it all mobile. And download RomGripper here.
Basically this is the same thing as CoolROMS, but its a mobile version in App form so you can just download whenever and where ever!


INSTALLING IT ALL!
(Its really easy don't worry.)

I can tell your getting excited about this, just a few more steps.

So really this is simply a matter of clicking and waiting a few seconds, easy stuff.
Now what you have to do is transfer the files you just downloaded to your phone any way you find easiest, Personally I prefer to just plug my phone in via USB and just drag and drop, or you can send yourself an email and perhaps just use your wireless sync function. Its all up to you. Just make sure you get them all! (GameBoid, BIOS & ROMS if you downloaded any)

Next up after the files are on your phone (this is the easiest part) all you have to do is locate the files on your phone, For the typical android users opening the file manager is as simple as clicking the file explorer app or going to

Menu > Settings > File Manager.

Once your in the files view go to the location you placed the files. And click on the one that should say GameBoid.apk, this will automatically install the emulator. NOTE: if prompted that it could be malicious its simply because it was not downloaded from the marketplace so don't worry.

After it finishes the install go ahead and go to your apps menu and click on GameBoid.
This should open up a window which looks like another file explorer, now what you want to do is hit

Menu > Settings > GBA BIOS file
Then you simply locate the BIOS.zip file you transferred earlier and presto your good to go! Next time you open GameBoid click on whatever ROM you transferred to your phone or downloaded from RomGripper and bam! Hours instantly begin to be wasted.

Enjoy!

Setting the tone: Average Heroics

Where better to be mauled to death?

As you may or may not have noticed, today in most games your choice of hero and weapon is usually based upon two factors, statistics and aesthetics. While there is nothing wrong with this it does deny you a great amount of immersion that could come from a more in depth, mid-game form of character creation in a game. Imagine this, a post apocalyptic world. You, one of few survivors, a average person in your life before the world fell into chaos and destruction. You are tasked with fighting off a starving wolf. Obviously this may seem like a fairly underwhelming fight for a hero of your status in most games, but not in this one. See your not some next generation bad ass from outer space with a death wish and nothing to lose in this game, you are a . You back peddle further into a ally way becoming trapped, of course you trip in fear and fall back as the wolf slowly approaches you. Your hand flails to the side of you, you clutch the lid of a aluminum trash can. Drawing on all your Captain America like strength you stand up in a rush holding it front of you with hopes that it may help you. The animal draws nearer, fangs drawn.Still you back peddle until you feel the wall bump against you. Here it comes, the animal begins a full sprint. While you squinting your eyes thrust forward your makeshift shield as it lunges towards you. A lucky shot lands throwing the beast to your side, now for most games this is where you would tap X and do a mob style beat down on the poor beast but no, your no hero remember? You run, as fast as you can. You break out of the shadow of the ally blinded momentarily by the sun as it comes into vision. You head into a full sprint across the debris ridden streets filled with wild grass and abandoned vehicles. A crash of boxes and cans comes from behind ensuring you the beast is still after you. You need to get somewhere high, you take a sharp turn down a unfamiliar street in hopes that you may find your salvation. Its gaining ground and fast. Your eyes begin pacing the landscape ahead of you searching for anywhere you may be able to hide. Ahead a chain fence comes into view, dogs cant climb. You dash for it, you have never hopped a fence before, it cant be that hard. You hit the fence and immediately it slams you back down. Scrambling back to a upright you go at it again this time slowly making your way up. The uncut wires above the fence dig into your palms. Your chest feels the sting as it comes over the top railing. You land hard against the pavement winded and cut. The animal slams into the fence inches from your face causing you to fly upwards to your feet. It cant get to you. For now.




The basic premise I hope the scenario depicted in your mind was the idea that running from something can be just as fun as killing it. Not all hero's need to be a Dovahkin (although it would be pretty bad ass.) A average human being can have just as much of a impact on player imersion as the player will feel just as much (if not more) of a sense of dread when presented with a dangerous situation.


Although I do acknowledge that the idea of running rather than fighting not to avoid the fight but because you simply can not win does have its flaws as games are meant to entertain the player, this brings me to my next point, the mechanics of the game.

OCGamer, My Machine.

The Build.

For my personal rig I had a few things in mind;

One, I had to be able to game--Obvious. 

Two, I had to serve as a excellent workshop station. (AV edits)

Three, It had to have some sort of swag to set it apart from the other stacked gaming rigs.

Yes, that is a real pho-leather wallet.

Hardware;

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T

Motherboard: ASUS EVO 6GB/s USB 3.0 AM3+ Socket

Hard Drive: WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200/rpm (32MB Cache/SATA)

RAM: 8GB Corsair DDR3
Vengance Ram (O.C. 2000/Mhz)

Video Card: VisionTek Radeon
HD 6950 2GB (Flashed To 6970)

As well as these gems of hardware, I also decided to stock up on some of the other things I would be needing to counter out the epic hardware and ensure the machine was not simply a stacked girl with horse teeth, but a all around bombshell. I got myself the one and only Razer Naga gaming mouse (Molten Core Edition of course.) And picked up the most powerful Netgear brand Dual Band N+ router on the market at the time (as well as wi-fi adapter) on top of these I needed something else to make sure my ears took as much damage as my vision and fingertips would. I picked up a nice pair of Turtle Beach x12's (sound has never been so good.)

The Case.

I started with a classic mid tower, the CM Storm Scout. But the flat black only held my attention for a while. and lacked the true intensity that I was hoping for. A quick trip to Home Depot fixed that up. A sheet of plywood and a couple of cans of spray paint later i got my creative juices flowing. 

Started off by cutting out a stencil in some cardboard paper then laying it out with a bunch of tape I found around the place. The end results were my one true love so far in life, my gaming rig. You may be thinking wait a minute, that looks familiar? Yes it does. See for this build I decided with the upcoming release of SWTOR. What else would be more fitting than a Empire Vs. Republic paint job. And so it was done. The epic amount of tape wasted was not in vain as I created something of true beauty. Not able to be beaten or decayed by time or weather (as I put about six layers of clear coat on that bitch) So when the Mona Lisa crumbles away. And the musical prowess of men such as Mozart fade do not fret. As the machine will live on.