PC

 Bleem v1.5b        Screenshots courtesy of Arcade At Home.              This review was posted on:  August 9, 2000







 

Bleem! picture source:  Bleem! website

   When this product was released in late 1999, many people thought they had quality Playstation titles which can be dramatically enhanced with the graphics power of the PC, using D3D.  But instead, all they got were bugs galore and may I say that there were no *FREAKING* updates to bleem! v1.5b since it was released and bleem! had a whole truckload of compability issues to it.  Why would bleem! market such an anticipated piece of software and release a version full of still remaining bugs and glitches is anyone's guess.  For example, Final Fantasy Anthology, which was a collection of both Final Fantasy V and VI, both were originally released for the SNES and I found that both games should work great, but much to everyone's surprise, both V and VI only PARTIALLY work! Sadly, this is one of the many bugs and glitches that were present in v1.5b which in turn had various bugs in which in some instances, you had to change your sound card in order to make the sound work in a game or it might not work at all.  The game list in which shows what games are compatible with bleem! are outdated and bleem! has not even given a single update for us to work with.

Street Fighter EX.

    The graphics of the games range from good to horribly brutal depending on your graphics card and sometimes bleem! would lock up your computer and force you to reload bleem! thus a BIG pain if you haven't saved your game yet.  The control is okay, but sometimes buttons are hard to recognize because you have to remember square is this and so on.  Unfortunately, other PS emulators suck even more than bleem! so people are out of luck for now.  In windowed mode the graphics look definitely better and the textures are more smooth.  In my opinion I hate the windowed mode!  I mean, who wants to look at a stupid puny window where all the action is going on in that crammed up piece of @#$%!  In the full screen mode bleem! has to resize, so it'll take a second and sometimes it gets annoying after a while.

A screen of the game One.

    Overall, bleem! is a disappointing emulator which I think isn't even that CLOSE! to successfully emulating a Playstation to its full ability and  that's my opinion on how bad bleem! is.  Bleem! is currently in a lawsuit against Sony in which Sony doesn't have enough evidence to prove that bleem! has violated the PS code, but bleem! is so crappy I think that bleem! deserves to get their ass sued by Sony.

Tekken 3.

    Right now I'm not happy with bleem!, so my solution would be to wait for bleem! for Dreamcast which they claim would have little or no bugs in it because they are releasing four discs in different types of games (RPGs, adventure, simulation, etc.), which means lesser compatibility issues.  And I anticipate it very much because the Sega Dreamcast has very good graphics and sound, so playing Playstation games should be nothing to the Dreamcast.  Also, bleem! made a release saying that bleem! for Dreamcast (Bleemcast) will not be released until it's flawless (no bugs/glitches).  I believe its currently set for a September 15 release.

If you have any questions about our rating system, like how we rate games, see here.                                                                                                                                   Crash Bandicoot 3 screenshot.

GAMEPLAY 6 Keyboard control is poor, try getting a game pad.
GRAPHICS 8 Good, but the PC could've made more use of the 3D graphics enhancements.  Also in cases like Final Fantasy 7, it doesn't display the arrow for certain parts in the battle screen.
SOUND 6 Occasional  fuzzy sound, sound card problems.
VALUE 4 It should be free, like the other emulators, and it should be high performing like the SNES 9x Super Nintendo emulator.
BUGS 3 Tons of minor glitches and compability issues.
EXTRAS 6 The promised bonus of D3D enhanced graphics aren't always present in some games.  Also, they have a good memory card manager.
CLASSIC? 0 No, all of these bugs don't come even that close to being a classic.  It looks more like a beta than a finished product.
FUN FACTOR 6.5 While most of your favourite PS games are compatible, the bugs produce a level of mere frustration within the games.
OVERALL 4.9 Considering the fact that this was highly anticipated, it disappoints more people than it pleases.  Sorry to say, but this definitely deserves the VG Critics Online STINKER award.

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