A selection of old-school arcade games to play on your iPhone
While there is no shortage of games available for iOS, many of which are technologically and graphically impressive but there are times when the latest and greatest is not what is needed; there are times when a little nostalgia is called for. Anyone of a certain ages will remember the days of pumping coins into arcade machines, playing a wide range of classic games. The MAME project (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an emulator that brings some of these classic titles to other platforms.
iMAME Is not officially associated with MAME, but it enables you to play a number of arcade games on your iPhone or iPad.There are a huge number of games that were great in their day, but have not been updated. This does not mean that they are not still great games, but without an emulator such titles could be consigned to the history books. iMAME comes bundled with nine classic games including Targ, Fire One and Crash.
While this may not seem like a collection of games that will blow you away, many users have found that it is possible to use a third party file manager to load other games – usually referred to as ROMs – into the emulator. This makes iMAME a far more interesting app, and the fact that it is available free of charge is a great reason to grab it straight away.
Another reason to jump on the download as soon as possible is Apple’s view on emulation. Emulators have had something of a checkered history, particularly when it comes to the iOS platform. Apple has famously withdrawn a number of emulators from the App Store so there is no guarantee that this one will be around forever – grab yourself a copy while you can.
Final Verdict: There are not many games available at the moment, but this is a great start and hopefully there will be more to come.
Freeware
Easily find and download free games
Open Source
Conquer the world with this free, open-source variation on Sid Meier's Civilization
Open Source
Build your own powerful empire from scratch in this entertaining city-building game
Freeware
Boost the performance of your computer to optimize gameplay
Freeware
A quality remake of the classic 80's game, "Arkanoid"
Open Source
Rebuild civilisation and save the world in this exciting real-time strategy game
Freeware
Play favourite old arcade games on your PC
Open Source
Colonize and control the New World with this impressive strategy game
Freeware
Easily organise and play your old DOS games with this powerful DOSBox front end
Freeware
An Amiga emulator for fans of retro computing