There are numerous and slightly illegal ways of gathering an assortment of retro games these days, but for those who have some moral doubts about these methods, Antstream Arcade just might be the answer.

The collection spans over 1300 retro titles

Antstream Arcade provides a cloud-based retro gaming service that brings a vast collection of classic games to modern platforms, including the PlayStation 5.

If you are of a certain age this will take you back to your childhood as it encompasses older platforms like the Amiga, Spectrum, C64, MSX (I remember owning one of those many moons ago) and a whole other plethora of platforms and publishers.

The collection spans over 1300 retro titles in all, with the massive library being added to all the time. The library is its biggest feature with anything from Pac-man, Galaga to several Star Wars games and a whole host of more niche items. The inclusion of games from multiple platforms gives players a wide variety of experiences, from side-scrolling shooters to classic beat 'em ups and puzzle games.

The focus here is on older machines, arcade classics and handheld gaming platforms, so don’t expect to see much from either XBox or PlayStation.

The whole game library is cloud based, so a good internet connection is needed, plus this means that there are no off-line options. For the most part there is no noticeable lag, but one thing that I would have wished that they had done was to map all the buttons to the same parts of the pad, its not a great problem and each of the games informs you of what button does which action. If you have a slower internet connection this may be an issue with response times on precision-based games.

The focus is on older machines, arcade classics and handheld platforms

One of the coolest aspects of Antstream Arcade is its challenge system. Instead of just offering classic games as they were, it introduces unique challenges, leaderboards, and competitive tournaments, adding a fresh twist to retro gaming. Features like save states and cloud saves also make playing older games much more convenient than on original hardware. There is also support for multiplayer, where the game supports it, where you can challenge either your friends or worldwide strangers.

Because its cloud streamed Antstream works as a subscription service, generally it’s a little over thirty quid for a year, but now that’s going for half price on the PS5 store.

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Charles Packer