While Virtual Console NES games are cheap, I’d still rather not waste money buying a game that turns out to be junk. Sometimes, a video of the gameplay just isn’t enough. One way to try-before-you-buy is to use vNES, a web based (Java applet) Nintendo Entertainment System emulator.

While there are a few other sites like it, vNES is one of the best and draws from a large library of NES games accessible online.

There is one slight catch to all this; since the Opera browser on the Wii doesn’t support Java Applets, vNES will not work on the Wii – you’ll need to use a computer with a browser that has the Java plugin (basically all of them do these days). Still, if you connect your Wii Remote to your PC via bluetooth, there is even a GlovePIE script to let you use it to play vNES games.

Checking games out like this certainly beats hunting for torrents of NES ROMs to play with MAME … with vNES you get instant gratification. Of course nothing beats playing the original game on a real (or Virtual) console, but at least with vNES you can get a real taste before shelling out any cash.