Play Classic Games To Your Hearts Content With Playr

So, let’s say you’re putzing about in front of your computer one night, when all of a sudden, you’ve got a hankering to play some Pokemon.  unfortunately, while you’ve found your game cartridge, your handheld is nowhere in sight. The last instance you can recall seeing it brings to mind vague memories of a poker game, tequila, and a goat. Unfortunately, it looks like you might just be out of luck, and unless you want to download an emulator and some ROMs for your daily dose of games, you’re not going to be playing Pokemon any time soon.

Hold up a sec.

See, there’s this lovely little website a friend showed me some time ago. It’s called Playr, and it features one of the largest online collections of old-school games I’ve yet seen, along with a few more…unusual freeware titles. Some of them are pretty amusing, such as a strange, poorly translated title which merges pokemon, Legend of Zelda, baseball, and likely a few other games into an unquestionably bizarre experience.

Now, a lot of you probably took one look at that website and cried foul. The site probably doesn’t look completely legal, does it?  Truth be told, it actually sits in something of a legal gray area- they’ve not been shut down by their host in the several years they’ve been operating, and the operator of the site claims not to profit from the hosting of the files- only that they use the revenue from the site to keep things up and running. In addition, they’ve stated on several occasions that the content hosted on their site is protected under the DMCA Fair Use Agreement.

Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry- try not to play any games on the site that you don’t already own, and it couldn’t hurt to keep an ad-blocker active while visiting the site, as well- though I generally keep mine up no matter where I go. Anyway, there you have it- if you’re looking to get your daily taste of nostalgia, you can find the website here.

Free Weekly PCMech Newsletter

Over 500 Issues... And Counting. Received By Thousands Every Week.

The PCMech.com weekly newsletter has been running strong for over 8 years. Sign up to get tech news, updates and exclusive content - right in your inbox. Also get (several) free gifts.

First Name

Email