Imagine having a seamless experience playing almost any retro game you could think of. That is Anstream Arcade, an online subscription service that allows you to play over 1300 classic games from the classic arcades, to the NES/SNES all the way to PS1. Universal control schemes, including using your mouse for the laser shooter in games like Operation Wolf make each game seamless to load and play.
This is a strange one to review because it’s a subscription platform for retro games, but it does offer such an amazing value that it’s remiss to mention it. It’s only $39.99 a year for access to pretty much every single major arcade game I could think of, without the need to set anything up and the ability to play across multiple platforms.
There isn’t anything to say about the games, outside of the previously mentioned seamless controls. Fantastic in that regard, I was literally gleeful that I could play Operation Wolf for the first time in ages. I haven’t ever really tried to figure out how to play it outside of the arcade and it’s really not something you’d see these days. The NES version isn’t as cool as the arcade one. So that’s fantastic to have when you want to drop into something.
The Anstream Platform
The platform itself though, when compared to its cost ($39.99/yr), is actually quite good. You’re getting not only the games along the streaming service that streams them to you so that you’re not downloading and running anything. The entire library of games is right there for you anytime you want to play.
There’s a small neat little catch though: there’s an array of competitive micro-challenges, leaderboards and achievements spanning their retro game library. You can just play the games and ignore the extra bits, but it really adds new life to old games. The challenges are fun, unique and can throw you into the middle of a really hard retro game with a short goal to reach.
You’re not just getting the games, but a nice platform to play on and record your overall score. Finally the high score from older games can persist.
Total Value
In the end, the roughly $3-4 a month for the server depending on how you pay is worth it. It’s a no download, multi-platform service that lets you play a massive library of retro games. There’s no issue with the platform, the service isn’t laggy and the controls on PC and mobile are solid. It does lean more to controller play with mobile phones, but that makes sense even if you’re playing the games via some other way on mobile.
If you’re interested, visit Antstream today.
Antstream Arcade
Summary
Antstream Arcade is a solid platform that provides a way to stream retro games with ease.
Note, premium access was granted for free by Antstream.
