Classics in the cloud
I love retro games. I grew up in the golden era of gaming and revisiting those memories have been one of my favorite pastimes in adulthood. Anyone who enjoys the idea of playing classic games knows that it can be near impossible to play them without digging out old consoles and finding cartridges, which are extremely overpriced thanks to collectors and scalpers more worried about the condition of the cartridge than the quality of the game. With the popularity of cloud gaming it was only a matter of time before someone attempted to license these games for streaming. Antstream isn’t new, it has been available on PC and some Smart TVs for a while, but it is finally making its way onto a home console, and the results are…mixed.
It is hard to miss as it is plastered all over the artwork, but Antstream on Xbox delivers over 1300 games from a multitude of classic consoles. Titles from classic systems such as ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amiga through SNES and Genesis and up to as recent as the original PlayStation. There is literally something here for everyone. Upon my first boot up I recognized most of the titles, but they are in the area of obscure. It feels like the entire SNK library is here, but when Mortal Kombat popped up I was excited only to find out it was just the first game. Which is a common theme here.
MSRP: $29.99 (one year) $79.99 (lifetime)
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PC
Price I’d Pay: $29.99
There are a ton of games, but plenty most fans have likely never heard of. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good games. There are plenty of hidden gems here, but the distribution is interesting. The bulk of games come from just a handful of systems. Arcade, ZX SPectrum, Amiga, and C64 make up most of the number. While systems like PlayStation only have one title and NES is a paltry 33 games. What is nice is that new games are added weekly which of course means this is a subscription model, and the prices are surprisingly not bad.
On Xbox things work a little bit differently. There are only two options. The initial pack is $30 for a year or if you want to never have to worry about it again they do offer a lifetime license for $80, which as long as it lasts for three years is an easy purchase. $80 for 1300+ games is a good deal honestly. If you opt to only do a year, you can upgrade at any point, or after your sub ends. Sadly though if you jump in at $30 and decide to upgrade six months in, there is no credit for the $30 you already spent. It is a flat $80 whenever you decide to upgrade.
In addition to just being able to play the games they have also added challenges as well as Achievements, which are mostly tied to these challenges. These are neat ways to experience familiar games. For example one challenge for MK was to see how high of a score I could get on one credit. Another involved seeing how long I could hold the bat in Double Dragon without dropping it in-game. These are updated daily and weekly and add some great replay to these classic games.
Now let’s get to performance. This is a streaming service, even with games that are super small you are constantly streaming the game to your console. During my tests I was connected via a hardwire and my internet is 1GB down so I should meet all the requirements for streaming. I have tested Stadia, Xbox Cloud Gaming, as well as PSN streaming. All those work relatively well most of the time. Antstream felt fickle from session to session. My first game played great, lag was nonexistent, but the image quality took hits consistently. Other times I had bad input lag but the image quality was stupendous. I think I speak for most gamers when I say that lag is the most important thing. I would like to see them focus on that instead of image quality.
Even saying that watching a 30 year old game struggle to load was disappointing at times. When it worked, it felt good, but I did run into issues more than I would have liked. I ran the tests at times and it said my connection was bad, which is weird because I can stream 4K video without issue 99% of the time. I have never had these issues with other cloud services, which makes me wonder if their servers are just not up to the Xbox crowd as of yet. Now I expect this to improve over time, but at launch it definitely has issues. Even the menu was laggy at times taking seconds to load game icons, think of it like the current Switch eShop and you get the idea.
Antstream Arcade is a solid solution to a huge problem with gaming. Sadly the technology is not at a spot where it makes it easy to recommend. The value is unquestionable, but the performance leaves a little to be desired. Still I have hope they will iron this out over time, and their license mentality is great. So far only five games have left the service and all five are coming back. So the library will only grow over time. I look forward to seeing how it evolves and for those looking for a retro fix, $30 to check out 1300+ games is definitely a solid deal. Let’s see how it evolves over time, I just hope the streaming tech is improved as we move forward.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
