After finishing reorganizing/redecorating our bonus room, I realized that while there is plenty to look at in there, the only two things to do in there were building LEGOs and playing board games. Both of those are fun, but the room needed a little more fun added. So I moved an original XBox that was sitting relatively unused in the home theater, hooked it up to the old tube TV in the bonus room, and can now enjoy plenty of retro gaming – but not of XBox games. If I’m going to go retro, I’m going to go way back to the best games.

With XBMC running on the system, I have also installed emulators for Nintendo, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and arcade machines. That means I can now head up to the bonus room and slip away into the 80s, playing Contra, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even the amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, which is pictured below.

Since I also have the XBox hooked up to a wireless network adapter and a pair of speakers with subwoofer (both were also lying around the house), I can enjoy videos and music off of my network-attached storage. And now the bonus room is more than just a fun place to look at stuff… it’s a fun place to look at stuff while playing video games, listening to music, and watching old cartoons!