Hands-On 2: Hands REALLY On

Down To Business

I know what you're all thinking. "Enough with the nitty-gritty," you're thinking, "let's get down to business. And pass me another Nutter Butter - those things are tasty!" Well, I'm here, as always, to answer the questions you really want to know the answers to. Well, maybe we can get into those habits a little later.

Well, let's talk about Bleem's overall effectiveness. As the Magic 8-Ball would say, "Outlook not so good." As bleem is an emulator, one of the things it has to emulate is the proper speed of a Playstation; otherwise, the experience is not as the game was intended to be played. There are two options you have as far as how fast the game runs; either turn on the speed limiter option, or don't. If you turn on the option, the game will only run up to a predetermined speed; if you leave it off, it will go as fast as your lil' computer can take it.

Playstation

Bleem

Need for Speed Settings

Unfortunately, neither way is accurate. Obviously, if your computer can't handle a game, it won't go fast enough; we're all used to that. (Unfortunately, it seems that a Celeron 400 with a 16meg TNT2 can't quite run Gran Turismo fast enough in 640x480x16) And we've all played old games that just ran too darn fast for our pumped up new system. The speed limiting feature of bleem, then, is a great inclusion, or rather, it would be - if it was done properly!

As became readily apparent when switching between the Playstation and bleem, however, the speed limiter is not implemented correctly. There's only one setting, and it slows the game down too much! Not just a slight speed discrepancy, but rather, enough of a slowdown to be downright irritating and unplayable. This is really frustrating, because it's obvious that bleem could run at the right speed, it just doesn't - you have to choose either too fast (generally way too fast) or too slow. And that's no fun for any gamer.

Playstation

Bleem