Highlights
- Antstream Arcade offers over 1,000 classic video games for free with ads or a small subscription fee. The collection includes legendary titles and more obscure gems.
- Alien Breed: Tower Assault, Worms, The Chaos Engine, Mega Lo Mania, and the Super Star Wars series are some of the must-play games on Antstream Arcade.
- The service has expanded to other platforms and offers accurate emulations of 1,470 games from Atari 2600 to PS
- With continued support, more iconic games may be added to the collection.
Epic Games recently added a new service called Antstream Arcade. For free with ads or for a small subscription fee, players have access to over one thousand classic video games. Some are bona fide legendary titles, while others fall on the more obscure side.
Players could spend years diving through every title in this collection and probably not go through all the games available. To help sort through the massive collection, this list will point out the cream of the crop. There are certainly more classics in the pile, but these are absolute must-plays for anybody interested in retro gaming goodness.
Updated on Saturday 16th 2023 by David Heath: The Antstream service has expanded in the past few years. On top of being on PC, it can be used on Mac, iOS/Android tablets, Atari VCS, Nvidia Shield, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One.
That's not to mention it has accurate emulations of 1,470 games spread across classic consoles from the Atari 2600 to the PS1. If it keeps up its momentum, it may receive more support and even more iconic games. However, there is still plenty of gold in its collection. These are more of the best games on Antstream Arcade.
15 Alien Breed: Tower Assault
Antstream Arcade has mainly platforms, but some have more games than others. Their Commodore Amiga section has a wide range of the microcomputer's classics, including Team 17's top-down shooter series Alien Breed. Its sequel, Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues is also available, along with its best entry: Alien Breed: Tower Assault.
Unlike its predecessors, Tower Assault is open-ended, offering players multiple exits per level to seek while keeping the Xenomorph-like foes off their back. The original game said it had 276 different ways to beat the game, which will keep anyone with the service busy for a while.
14 Worms
Otherwise, if players prefer something more strategic, they'll find it with Team 17's most famous game: Worms. 1-4 players control a team of 4 worms each, spread in different spots across its randomly generated levels. They have to take it in turns to pick the right weapons and items to take out their enemies until they're the last ones standing.
Since its 1995 release, it has received 18 sequels, 6 spin-offs, and a few expansions. Antstream Arcade offers up the Amiga version, with its SNES and Genesis ports on the side. The latter two are neat to see, but they're not a patch on the original Amiga game.
13 The Chaos Engine
Released as Soldiers of Fortune in North America, The Chaos Engine is a top-down steampunk shooter about mercenaries infiltrating a quarantined Britain to claim the titular device, if they survive the ravenous monsters and maniacal machines the device has created.
Players pick two of 6 characters, with the second acting as their back-up to pick up keys, power-ups and gold to progress through the levels. It split up the shooting fun with puzzles to test the player's brain as well as their blasting. Antstream also has the Genesis port, but it runs too fast, making the Amiga original the better option.
12 Mega Lo Mania
There are many great games from Sensible Software available on Antstream Arcade: Sensible Soccer, Sensible World of Soccer, Cannon Fodder (and its Sensible Soccer crossover Cannon Soccer). So, it would be nice to highlight one of their lesser known gems in Mega Lo Mania.
Better known in North America as Tyrants: Fight Through Time, it's a competitive RTS where the player picks one of four gods, picks a spot in the sector to build their first tower, then start the game. They have to mine elements and forge weapons and shields to build up their armies to destroy the other gods' towers. The SNES and Genesis ports are also available, but the Amiga version plays best.
11 Super Star Wars series
Antstream has a lot of games on its service, but it doesn't have all the classics. It has some Fatal Fury games, but no Street Fighter entries. There are MSX and MSX2 games, neither which feature Metal Gear nor Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. So it might be a surprise to see all three entries in the SNES' Super Star Wars series.
They adapt the original trilogy of movies into run & gun platformers where players control Luke, Han Solo, and occasionally Chewbacca through their events. The game were lauded when they were first released in the early 1990s, and are still fun today. Just be prepared as they're not simple affairs.
10 Dig Dug
This simple Namco game has players digging through the earth to destroy all the targets burrowed deep underground. Instead of a pre-determined maze-like Pac-Man, players in Dig Dug have to create their own pathways to move around and trap the enemies.
From there, they can be killed by being crushed by rocks, or inflated until they pop. But the player has to watch out with the latter, as the enemies take a few seconds to pop. It leaves them vulnerable to attack from other foes in the meantime. They're not safe until every enemy is finished off. Only then can they go on to the next level.
9 Rampage
Not to be confused with its loose 2018 movie adaptation, this is the arcade classic that started it all. In Rampage, players control one of three giant monsters each and traverse through cities. They have to destroy each building they see to progress, avoiding military fire and choppers while grabbing unfortunate people to eat and replenish their health.
Even after nearly 40 years later it is still extremely satisfying to scale buildings, pummel them into rubble, and scoff on the tiny humans. Several sequels also came out and expanded upon the concept, but the original has retained its charm and satisfying gameplay.
8 Centipede
This old school arcade game is one of the many that has the player shooting descending enemies. The screen is static, but the titular foes come zooming down toward the bottom and players have to destroy them before they reach it.
There is an extra element of strategy here since players want the centipedes to be in a narrow spot to make them easier to shoot, but this also means they make it down to the bottom faster. Old school games like Centipede may be easy to pick up, but they can be hard to master.
7 Earthworm Jim
Thanks to Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog, the retro scene was filled with classic platformers. While the genre is not as prevalent as it once was, many of the classic titles hold up excellently, and Earthworm Jim is no exception. The unique art style is enough to draw any player in, but the gameplay will keep them playing for hours.
An HD version was developed for PS3 and Xbox 360, but this has been delisted for a few years now. Which makes Antstream Arcade one of the better options to catch up with the earthworm as it has both the SNES and Genesis versions of the first two games in the series.
6 Gauntlet
The Gauntlet series is some awesome mindless fun for friends. Players go through a series of dungeon floors while hordes of enemies attack. It is overwhelming, but this is exactly what fans desire from the franchise. The hectic rush through the game's floors while evading and zapping enemies is part of the fun.
There were several 3D entries for the arcades, PS1, and N64. Yet the 2D classics are still wildly entertaining, with both the original and its sequel available on the service. In some ways, it feels like a predecessor to dungeon crawlers like Diablo but with simpler gameplay.
5 Monkey Island
This game is an outlier on the list. Monkey Island does not rely on quick reflexes or strategy; it's a point & click game through and through, complete with some tricky puzzles. The answers to some of the puzzles can be tricky and seem downright unfair, but at least they're told with good humor and connected to an entertaining story.
Besides, these days players can always look up a guide for the answers to the harder questions. The game was one of many in the genre created for Lucasarts by Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman. Some of which, like Zak McCracken, Sam & Max Hit The Road and Full Throttle can also be found on Antstream Arcade.
4 Double Dragon
Double Dragon is a side-scrolling beat 'em up perfect for two players. Like the best entries in the genre, the controls are simple, making it perfect for anybody whether they be experienced or not. The two sequels are also available on the service, but the original is the best of the bunch.
It won't take long to go through all three games, but it will be time well spent. Players who enjoy them can then jump to the more recent Double Dragon IV, which is a throwback to the old graphics and gameplay.
3 Metal Slug
Metal Slug has an instantly recognizable art style. One does not need to see the logo or UI to understand when they are looking at a Metal Slug game. The lush animations, charming characters, and heavy firepower are all hallmarks that have stayed consistent with SNK's shooter since the original 1996 release. The service has three games from the franchise available. Kind of.
Metal Slug 2 has some lag which some thought eased on the game's difficulty. Others preferred its re-release, Metal Slug X, which fixed the lag and brought back the challenge. So both were added to join the first game on Antstream Arcade. The other five mainline entries in the franchise are available elsewhere (for now) and give players plenty more to explore if they click with these classics.
2 Pac-Man
Who could have guessed that such a simple concept like Pac-Man would become one of the most revered games of its era? Ms. Pac-Man is sadly missing from the service, likely due to its tricky legal situation. But Super Pac-Man, Pac & Pal and Pac-Mania are available for players to dabble in after they're done with the original.
Super Pac-Man changes up the gameplay to have players open up parts of a larger level by collecting keys. Pac & Pal refines Super's gameplay by giving Pac-Man a helper in Miru. Pac-Mania feels like a remake of the original with the classic pill-chomping action, but it has new levels and isometric 3D graphics.
1 Mortal Kombat
The first entry in this legendary series hasn't aged so well. The controls, small roster, and single fatalities were more of a phenomenon back in 1991 than in 2023. But the hard hits, character designs, and blood splatters make it a blast to play so many years later. It is just a shame Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 are currently absent since they hold up better.
All the same, it's still great to play as a party game with friends. Anyone who has played the more recent games but missed out on the classics owe it to themselves to play the original and discover where the Mortal Kombat franchise started.