The Internet Archive, as its name suggests, is the great Alexandria library of the Internet: a huge vault of knowledge from where we can view classic movies, vintage advertisements, digitized video game magazines , 78 RPM records, and even retro machine video games .
The good thing about these games -from Street Fighter II, through DOOM and many others- is that they weigh very little, and since they are not technically demanding either, they can be emulated and played perfectly from the browser, without having to leave even from the Internet Archive website. Now, the question is: can we grab this gigantic catalog of games from Amiga, MS-DOS, PC, NES, NeoGeo, etc. and load them directly from KODI ?
How to configure KODI to emulate and play all titles available on the Internet Archive
To achieve our goal we are going to use a tool called Internet Archive Game Launcher. It is a complement or add-on that will help us to search and load games online from KODI.
1- Update KODI to version 18
Starting with KODI 18 Leia, the player added a new tool called RetroPlayer , thanks to which we can install emulators from dozens of retro consoles to load ROMs inside KODI itself.
Unfortunately, it seems that the KODI 19 Matrix version is not compatible with the Internet Archive plugin that we need to install a few paragraphs below. Therefore, if we have version 19 of KODI, we will have no choice but to revert the application to a previous version. To do this you can uninstall the program and download version 18 of KODI from its official repository HERE .
2- Configure RetroPlayer
The first thing we have to do is install the add-ons for the emulators that we want to use. We can find the entire list of emulators and install the ones that interest us the most from ” Settings (gear icon) -> Add-ons -> Install from repository -> Game add-ons -> Emulators “.
3- How to configure the gamepad
Some games only work with a controller or gamepad, and others allow the use of a mouse and keyboard. In any case, if we are going to use a controller via Bluetooth or USB it is necessary that we configure it and map the buttons.
For this we go to ” Settings -> System -> Input -> Configure attached controllers “. Here we will find 3 types of controllers: Xbox, NES and Super NES. We click on the profile that interests us and we follow the instructions to complete the configuration.
4- Install the IAGL Add-on
Note: Remember that IAGL is not currently compatible with KODI 19. If you try to install it you will get the error “the dependency on xbmc.python version 2.25.0 could not be satisfied”. This is a common problem that has been seen with many add-ons after the latest KODI update.
Now that we have the emulators and the gamepad, we can only load the library of ROMs available on the Internet Archive. We achieve this by installing the IAGL plugin developed by Zach Morris and available through his Github page HERE . Instead you can also download the latest IAGL add-on (released in 2020) from its repository HERE .
From this link we will download the IAGL repository in a ZIP file. From here we just have to go back to KODI, go to “Add-ons” and click on the install icon (an open box, located at the top of the side menu.
Next, click on ” Install from a ZIP file ” and select the ZIP file that we have just downloaded.
Next, we go to ” Add-ons -> Install (open box icon) -> Install from repository -> Zach Morris Add-ons -> Game Add-ons -> Game Provider -> Internet Archive Game Launcher ” and click on ” Install “.
In this way, the add-on to load the Internet Archive ROMs in our KODI player will be installed. Once IAGL is installed we can open it from the add-ons section of “Games” in the main menu.
5- Let’s play!
We already have all the pieces in place to start playing. We enter IAGL, select a console or system (make sure you have installed the corresponding emulator in step 2) and we will automatically enter the Internet Archive games repository for that system. We select a game from the list, we wait for its file to load and we click on the “Launch” button. We choose an emulator to run the game, and let’s play!
Currently the Internet Archive retro games repository now exceeds 10,000 titles, covering all these systems:
- Friend
- Apple 2GS
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Atari 800
- Atari Jaguar
- Atari Lynx
- Atari ST
- Atomiswave
- CannonBall (Port)
- CaveStory (Port)
- ColecoVision
- Commodore 64
- Dinothawr (Port)
- Doom (Ports)
- Final Burn Alpha (Arcade)
- Game and Watch
- Game Boy Advance
- Game Boy Classic
- Game Boy Color
- Intellivision
- Lutro (Ports)
- Magnavox Odyssey2
- MAME (Arcade) (Multiple Versions)
- MS-DOS
- MSX1
- MSX2
- NAOMI
- N64
- NeoGeo CD
- NeoGeo Pocket Color
- NES
- Panasonic 3DO
- PCE CD
- Phillips CD-i
- Powder Toy (Port)
- PS1
- Quake (Ports)
- ScummVM
- Sega 32X
- Sega CD
- Sega Dreamcast
- Sega game gear
- Sega genesis
- Sega Master System
- Sega saturn
- Sega SG1000
- SNES
- TurboGrafx16 / PCE
- Vectrex
- Wonderswan
- Wonderswan Color
- x68000
- ZX Spectrum
As you can see, this is an excellent method to enjoy all those retro games that, although they are accessible from any browser by visiting the Internet Archive website, acquire a new level of playability thanks to this excellent complement for KODI.
