Antstream Review – “Retro Gaming on Modern Technology”

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  • A Game Streaming Service for the Mobile Age
  • Play over a thousand retro games on your touchscreen
  • Fair prices

If you ever have a craving to feel old, just look up what is considered retro in the gaming community, because the answer is most. We've come a long way since gaming was as simple as plugging a box into another box, and yet we still try to revisit those days with retro game stores and services like Antstream.

In the age of digital convenience, Antstream has arrived to offer you the opportunity to stream a number of classic console games ranging from SNK to arcade machines. But it's the price, the selection, and ultimately how these games run on technology you never expected to see.

What is Antstream?

Antstream's game selection page.

Before you get all excited, this has nothing to do with ants, so put away your little terrarium. Anststream is the newest addition to the ever-expanding garden of game streaming services.

You can download it on your favorite iOS or Android device and choose one of two plans: a monthly plan that will cost you about 5 of your respective currency per month or an annual plan that will set you back about 40 dollars while you wonder whether writing down resolutions is useless or not.

Once you sign up, you’ll have full access to a ton of official retro games, as well as some indies that may or may not have been made specifically for the service. Either way, it’s like a little digital library where you can visit some of your old favorites… And if you’re too young to have old favorites, this is a way to get into the retro scene.

The beautiful flow of Antstream

The Daily Challenge page.

Now, the big and obvious question for Antstream is: what games does it have? Well, I won't bore you with the details of all the licensing hurdles a streaming service has to jump through (I'm still learning about them myself) and will say that the service tries to have a balanced coverage to start with.

It covers platforms and companies like SNES, Megadrive, Atari, Taito, SNK and the like. It has many popular and influential games like Metal Slug, Double Dragon, Fatal Fury, Joe & Mac, Space Invaders, Galaga, Centipede and the like. It even includes long-running adventure games like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. For a retro streaming service, it has a pretty solid foundation.

Then there are the controls and how they translate to touchscreen. Since these are older games, many of them operate on a simple move-and-jump regime, perhaps throwing in an attack function where appropriate. Default the movement and action buttons to clearly defined spots in the corners of the screen and it works well. The controls are responsive and the gameplay is pretty fluid (well, for a retro game anyway). It might take a little getting used to the exact location of the buttons, but you can always take breaks between continuations.

Another neat trick is the rotating challenge. While your subscription is active, the service will introduce challenges for certain games. Choosing a particular challenge will highlight something you need to do in a particular game, like completing a difficult part without dying. Doing this only serves to add your name to the leaderboard and maybe earn you some in-game currency to spend on specific game challenges, but it’s a nice touch to keep you coming back and introducing you to new games.

The rapids on Antstream

Metal Slug X's locked challenges.

The biggest problem Antstream has faced is the same one Google Stadia faced before it instantly crashed and burned several years later: titles. For a gaming service to be successful, it needs to have access to IP that a lot of people love. Older people will want access to the games they grew up playing, and younger people will want access to the games they grew up with, too, so they can try to figure out what all those old people are babbling about.

It has a pretty big library with over 1300 games ready to play right out of the box, but maybe only a third of them have mass appeal. It would be like going to a karaoke bar and the only songs they have from the 80s are Duran Duran's greatest hits. Nothing against them, but I came to this place for a real Trip. If you know what I mean.

Riding the Antstream

I'm about to play Pac-Man!

Antstream is a new mobile streaming service focused on retro gaming. The prices are reasonable, the catalog is extensive, and the touchscreen is well-suited to adapting controls for 40-year-old games. It’s new, so it still has time to expand its licensing library for games people hope to play, but it’s going to have to move quickly. Otherwise, it’s going to have a hard time imitating the mighty salmon swimming upstream in the gaming market.

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