PlayStation Games Online – 1,006 PS1 Classics
Sony’s first PlayStation (1994) turned CD-based 3D gaming into the mainstream and left behind one of the deepest libraries ever assembled: Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tekken 3, Gran Turismo, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Past Play has 1,006 PS1 games running in the browser from their original disc images.
PS1 games are large – hundreds of megabytes rather than the kilobytes of a cartridge – so the first load takes longer than for the 8- and 16-bit shelves; the image is cached afterwards. A gamepad is recommended for anything that uses the DualShock’s analogue sticks. The emulator’s save states sit alongside the game’s own memory-card saves, so a 40-hour RPG can be paused anywhere. Multi-disc games switch discs from the emulator menu.
