R4 3DS .org

Playing ZX Spectrum Games On Your Nintendo 3DS is not only possible - it's absolutely fantastic!  While a lot of us like to re-live our gaming past and would love to have space for the countless computers, monitors and the games we loved on our desks, it's just not realistic.  Not to mention that most of the games some of us have in our game libraries have unfortunately degraded to the point where the cassette tapes simply won't load any more.  

That's where emulators come in.  They allow you to download digital versions of your favourite games.  Game you own but can no longer play.  The ZX Spectrum games on tapes are actually one of the worst for not working any more.  Perhaps proper storage would make a difference, but lets face it.  These games are old, and most of them have been exposed to use and the elements for for decades.  

Being able to play your games on a hand held system has a certain cool factor to it.  There won't ever be a portal ZX Spectrum system, but with the right emulators and hardware, you can play those old games, and make your own portable zx spectrum system.  The R4 3DS Card is at the centre of it all, as are the developers that code and create these amazing emulators for all of us to use.

zxDS is the emulator of choice here.  It offers up some of the best compatibility for pretty much the entire collection of ZX Spectrum games.  Games like Elite, Manic Miner, and of course R-Type.  You will need to use an R4 3DS card with your Nintendo 3DS or 3DS XL in order to load the emulator and the games as well.  The R4 is a multimedia adapter for the 3DS that packs a whole slew of features in to one tiny little cartridge that looks and acts just like a regular game.

You really can have a portable Speccy with zxDS and your 3DS system.  Something we had probably wished for back in those days, even before the original Gameboy was released.

Which games would be the first games you play on your Nintendo 3DS with zxDS?  We have 3 favorites we'd load up right away.  A couple of them because they really were the BEST games on the system as a whole (this is subjective of course) and another that started a whole platform game revolution like we'd never seen.

Our #1 Pick: Elite

Elite was one of those games that made everyone that played it at the time say WOW!  Games before Elite were variations on platform style gameplay.  When Elite was released, that all changed.  It boasted cool 3D vector style graphics that seemed impossible and wonderful, all at the same time. Only a few arcade games actually had a similar look and feel to them.

Our second pick was a game called Manic Miner.  It wasn't because of the mystery sourrounding the dissappearance of the creator if the game (it hadn't happened yet), nor was it because the graphics were amazing or breathtaking.  It was because before Manic Miner hit the personal computer world, games were mostly relegated to singel screen levels, that swapped screens or had all of their gameplay on a on screen play area.  Manic Miner by contrast brought scrolling levels and countless hours and hours and fun, and redefined the platform game genre.  Some people have said it actually created the whole platform game style of games.

Our third ZX Spectrum game we play on zxDS and our Nintendo 3DS is a classic shooter.  If you like shoot'em up games, you have definitely played - or at the very least head of - R-Type.  It was one of the best shooters on the ZX Spectrum and one of the games that wa sported to virtually every single home computer or game console of the day.  Originally developed as an arcade game by IREM, it was so good, and so popular that game publishers couldn't wait to get the rights to make if for home gamers.  R-type, like Manic Miner, ended up redifing the shooting game genre.  It was a beautiful game to look at, that was also extremely hard to master - but you just couldn't stop playing it.

That's our top 3... what's yours?  To sum it all up.  You really CAN play all of your favorite classic games on your Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 3DS XL.  With your trusty R4 3DS card and some amazing emulators, you'll be reliving the old golden days of gaming and taking your classic with you no matter where you are - all in your pocket.

To play these old games, you'll need the following:

• A Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 3DS XL.  You can of course play all of these on the DS, DS Lite or Nintendo DSi as well.
• An R4 3DS Card and a 2, 4 or 8 gig Micro SD Card
• zxDS Emulator. You can download this from our homebrew section where we have zxDS and various other emulators available.

For more great titles, there are countless website onlive covering all of the ZX Spectrum games released.   Do a quick Google search for find more great games, if you don't have your own top 3 list.