I’ve been trying out Antstream Arcade these last couple of days and it’s a cool digital arcade filled with some retro gaming gems! All the games that are available are licensed with the creators permission, so of course you won’t find the mainstream stuff like Nintendo games, but there were a lot of great games created back in the day by lesser known creators and publishers!
There’s over 1000 different games to be found on Antstream. Games from the Amiga era, and the old computers like ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Atari but also home console games from the Mega Drive and even arcade games like Neo Geo titles! There’s also games for every taste, puzzle games, shmups, arcade and action, strategy, RPGs, sports and more!
My first go to was Horace Goes Skiing for the ZX Spectrum since it was right there on the first page 😀 I have the original cassette tape for my ZX Spectrum and I show it to everyone who visits my game room XD So I had to see what it was like here on Antstream…
You can play the games regularly and try to get a high score. The platform saves your high scores and you can see where you’re at compared to all the other users who have attempted the game. You have a profile where you collect XP and achievements as well 🙂 And then there’s some games that have challenges! This had me stuck playing for hours trying to reach 1st place in all the challenges for Horace Goes Skiing! XD The challenges had just taken out a part of the gameplay and focused on a particular challenge, like stay on the road for as many seconds as possible, get hit by the ambulance as many times as possible during a set time, capture as many blue flags as possible etc. The challenges were short but intense and the new aspect of the gameplay in this classic that I already love had me hooked ^_^ Now I wanna invite all my friends to compete and play with me!
I have also tried out a couple of shoot ’em ups. Some of the games became really busy and started lagging immensely for me though, then again, it’s streaming, and my internet connection is the shittiest (old broadband 1.2 Mbit down, 0.5 Mbit up XD). But I endured the lagg and made it through the entire arcade version of E.D.F. (Earth Defence Force)!
The Antstream Arcade application is available on Mac, PC, Android tablet and mobile devices, Nvidia Shield, and Amazon Fire Stick, with other platforms becoming available later, including PS4 thanks to their Kickstarter campaign! I hope they can get it working on the Xbox as well, since that’s my go to new gen system ❤
I think Antstream is a great way to explore some lesser known titles and expand your experience in the golden days of gaming 😉 So go play some games! The trial is free ^_^