Nesoid Lite
Platform: Android

Read all of my past Android app reviews at Appolicious and Yahoo! Tech -- click here.

RATING:
4 out of 5

PRICE:
FREE

TASTY:
Brings all original Nintendo (NES) games to your smart phone!

BUMMER:
Works best on DROIDs with physical keyboards, though an on-screen ‘board is available for other models. Finding and installing game ROMs from the Internet can be tricky for non-technical DROID owners.

COOL:
Finally, original Mario and other NES games on our DROIDs, complete with excellent loader software and save/load game capabilities!

REVIEW:
Gaming on the DROID has been somewhat lacking to date, at least in terms of the quantity of titles to choose from. But lament no more, as a solid Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator has been burning up the sales charts on the Android Marketplace for several weeks now.

If you’re new to game emulator software, an explanation is in order. Simply put, the free and paid ($1.99) versions of Nesoid are standalone apps that allow you to play original games (called ROMs) on your device. The trick is finding ROMs online to move to your phone, and copyright is dodgy, given that you should own the actual original NES title in order to legally download and play the ROM on your phone.

Once you get your ROM(s) in place (Super Mario, anyone?) the app’s built-in loader software makes it easy to pick a title and place it into memory. The paid version gives you the ability to save your game at any point in any level and pick right up where you left off at a later time. Sound can be an issue; the more complex the tune, the more likely it will cause a ROM to slow down or get super-choppy at times. Thankfully, turning off the tunes clears things up considerably.

The controls can be tough to master, given then the trackpad isn’t implemented. Instead, 1, A, Q, W control up, down, left, and right, while O and P stand in for the B and A buttons. Finally, delete and enter are employed for select and start. You can tweak these as you wish, but for most of us, these will work just fine.

If you’re familiar with game emulators and don’t mind getting your hands dirty moving ROM files to and from your phone, Nesoid will greatly expand the gaming potential of your smart phone by bringing some oldies but goodies to your device.