Now more than ever, people are turning to retro games for entertainment. And why not? There are no massive 55GB patches to download, no wait times to jump into a session with others, and, most importantly, no need to worry about excessive costs with downloadable content and Season passes.
But, as you might guess, a lot of these games just aren’t accessible. In fact, a recent report revealed that 87 percent of physical classic games have gone missing (!), making the remaining copies a must for die-hard collectors. That makes it difficult to build up a collection, especially if you’re short on moolah.
That’s where Antstream Arcade comes in. The company has been running its service on PC and mobile for some time, introducing dozens of classic games from the arcade, Commodore 64, Amiga and console eras, including favorites from Data East, SNK, Atari, Warner Bros./Midway and more. And later tonight, it launches on Xbox.
We had a chance to take the service for a test drive. So how does it fare for the $29.99 (per year) or $79.99 (for lifetime) price? Not bad, to say the least.
Enter the World of Retro
The first thing you’ll notice booting up the app for Xbox is how easy it is to access favorites. They’re divided into categories, and you can browse with ease for some of your favorites, be it Mortal Kombat, Joe & Mac, Gauntlet or whatever countless others you come across. Now, it’s now an ultimate list – you won’t find Sega or Capcom in here – but it’s quite abundant given the price tag of, what, $3 a month? Don’t be picky.
There’s also a hearty amount of tournaments available. These are a great interaction tool with the app, as you can indirectly compete with others for “top dog” status when it comes to scoring. These are rather cool, but also challenging – you have one life, and after that, the challenge pretty much comes to an end. (It varies by game, mind you.) We only had one tournament break down on us over the course of the beta, but the others worked wonderfully, and even awarded us bonus XP (to level up our internal score) and gems, so we could take on other challenges. These also change rather frequently, so there’s always something new to tackle.
The overall layout is superb, really giving you a lot of leeway when it comes to browsing challenges and available games. And it updates constantly over the course of each week, with over 1,400 ready at launch. I do wish there were more PS1 games (there’s only two right now – 40 Winks and Loaded), but I’m sure the variety will pick up. There’s no shortage of stuff to try, and you might just find some new favorites as well.
The Emulation Isn’t Bad At All
Now, given that this is a cloud-based app, you’re playing everything through a streaming app. That means the games aren’t downloaded to your library, saving you precious room on your hard drive for, I dunno, Haloor something. But that also means the question comes into play – how well do these games run on the cloud?
So far, based on the time with the early version of the game, they’re excellent. The games load right up, and we only experienced a few mild hiccups with performance with some titles. Overall, they’re smooth and don’t take up much time to load at all. There’s also volume settings, in case the music in some games might drive you crazy.
What’s also great is how well Antstream configured the game controls to work properly with Xbox. You’ll see a map-out of controls before you start each title, so you can see how they operate. There’s also a virtual keyboard, though we had yet to test this feature out. (It’s likely for chat purposes or something within certain games.) Overall, it’s nicely configured, and you’ll have no trouble jumping back into something like Smash TV. Why, yes, we would buy that for a dollar.
Also, quick suggestion – track down Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures. It’s a long-lost SNES favorite that we’ve been quite addicted to. This one deserves a re-release, now that we mention it…
Believe In the Antstream
We have yet to see how the servers are going to hold up at launch, as the server goes live tonight. However, based on our impressions so far, Antstream Arcade is a beautiful addition to the Xbox library. There are tons of games here for a relatively small price, and no matter which subscription you go with, there’s significant value. Not to mention you’ll discover some favorites you never knew you missed, like Elevator Action Returns and indie games like Manic Miner. The addition of multiplayer (with some titles) and online tournaments and challenges are icing on this delicious cake.
If you’re a retro fan, this service is well worth checking out. And who knows, we’ll see even more games come around in the months ahead. That’s how this little ant just keeps on going.
