Antstream Arcade Reviews
Despite some hefty flaws, the fact that Antstream Arcade has come on leaps and bounds since its debut in 2013 gives me hope that the service will continue to improve in the weeks, months and years after its PlayStation debut. Even so, in its current far from perfect form, Antstream Arcade still represents great value for what is a veritable mountain of games from a broad swathe of gaming systems that would otherwise be lost to time and garnishes that offering with a compelling social gaming hook.
Antstream has won awards like “Heritage in Games” at the TIGA awards, and that best describes the quality of this platform. It’s a preservation library that gives players to play things that they would simply never come across, much less find a way to play. It might not be the “greatest hits” platform, yes, but if spending an afternoon wading through a library of obscure titles and trying things that alternate between happy discovery and dismal waste of time sounds like fun, then Antstream is probably something you’ll enjoy.
As someone who had plenty of experience with M.A.M.E. (that’s Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator to you young’uns!) has a MiSTer, the Antstream service isn’t something I absolutely need. However if you are not interested in performing questionable legal activities, researching front ends…or gasp run command line (it’s been a while since I’ve used MAME, ok), Antstream is a perfectly fine off-the-shelf product to sate your retrogaming needs.
As a gamer who has played on the vast majority of the platforms available in Antstream Arcade, getting back onto some of these games was an absolute joy. I had a permanent smile on my face even from just scrolling through the available games.