Antstream Arcade PS5 review — Bringing the arcade to you

There are so many subscription services out there, and that’s even if you just look at video games. Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, Ubisoft+, EA Play, and more. Heck, live service games to a degree have subscriptions if you want to point to battle passes. In a loaded market, can anything break in worth the extra money? After messing around with Antstream Arcade, I say yes.

Antstream Arcade is a subscription service that’s been around, but is just now coming to PlayStation 5. It features over 1300 retro games, with tons of different platforms and genres represented, and more added weekly. That alone should be enough to wet your whistle, but it’s how Anstream Arcade offers it all that makes this a service worth your money.

To access the games available, you simply log into the Antstream Arcade app (which is only 103MB) on your PlayStation 4 or 5. Nothing here is native, and while that’s a little disappointing, everything I’ve tried has run flawlessly. Perusing all of the games is also easy, grouped into different genres and trending categories. It’ll remind you a lot of a TV streaming app, pushing things into view that are popular or might tickle your fancy in a particular flavor. One thing I’m a bit surprised with is a lack of a platform category; given the sheer volume of games on different retro platforms, it’d be nice to browse them that way. Even so, there is a search bar, and that makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Not every game in the collection is a winner, and that’s okay. For every Pac-Man, you’ll have multiple forgettable retro ones like Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe or Planet Smashers 7800. It’s fine, because there are plenty of great choices to play like Metal Slug or Burger Time. Worms Armageddon just got added, so the team behind Antstream Arcade aren’t slowing down at licensing good ones.

When you open the game up in the Hulu-esque menu, you can see a few options in front of you. Having a similar titles hub makes sense, and score leaderboards and challenges are a part of the experience, but an unexpected extra is a remapping menu. Here you’ll find several drop-down menus allowing you to change the button inputs for play, which is a fantastic way to enable players and give them options.

I immediately had to try the Star Wars titles. The old Super Empire Strikes Back game is one of my favorites. Not only did it load instantaneously, but I found the controls to be extremely responsive, one to one in my case. I do have great internet speeds, but I can see this working very well elsewhere given what I would imagine to be less information needing to stream across the internet. It also looks great, with your chosen game getting to be the star of the screen in vivid display. Thankfully they aren’t stretched, presented in 4:3 aspect ratios.

There are also save states available. You’ll be able to set three on your own, with one autosave that will let you continue from your last checkpoint. I’m very impressed with the three manual saves; you wouldn’t think a cloud game would be able to do them at all, let alone well. My save on Super Star Wars was right where I left it from the day before, ready to be booted up and played at my leisure.

A nice bonus I didn’t expect: local multiplayer. I booted into a game of Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja, and my wife picked up the second controller. All it took was quickly pressing the options button, and she was in. There wasn’t any extra latency either from the second connection, everything worked exactly as if we were in an arcade together. Surprisingly, there isn’t any online multiplayer, but between leaderboards and being able to challenge a friend through the challenge system, you can somewhat make up for it.

Speaking of challenges, this is something very different that adds some pizzazz to Antstream Arcade. More than 600 games have them – you can find them in the main challenge menu and in the hub menu of each game – and they vary from time trials to high score runs. Most involve a single life, and the overlay Antstream employs tracks these and sets you up by booting into that scenario. These can be done on your own, sent to someone specific for a one on one duel, or you can compete in the open challenges or tournaments. They’re displayed on your profile as well, so it’s cool to be able to show off your wins… although I could do without seeing my losses.

Competing in these open competitions is neat, with tournaments available on a bigger, leaderboard-based scale. You “buy” your way in via gems, a currency that isn’t purchasable but earned by your play. I believe these can be used differently depending on if you have a premium account, but I’m not sure. In any case, I would like a little more explanation as to how these are earned so I can build up my coffers for future tournaments and challenges. There are daily solo challenges available for a good chunk of them, so this looks like the best way.

While it might not be a revolutionary feature, your profile has plenty of nice touches to it. Beyond being able to see what you’ve played recently and the challenges you’ve done, you’ll be able to find your friends and favorites list. Your friends list will be useful for sending 1v1 challenges (termed duels), and your favorites is where you can find games you have starred to keep track of them to play later. It just works.

Something I don’t usually address in reviews is the price. This usually doesn’t pertain to the product, as whether or not it’s worth playing is generally on the game and not the dollar signs behind it. That said, I’m very impressed with the value proposition of Antstream Arcade. For only forty bucks on PS5, I’ve got access to everything Antstream Arcade has to offer for a year. Even better, for only one hundred dollars, you can make it a lifetime subscription. There aren’t many services that have a lifetime sub available, and this idea is a great one. My only qualms: I’d love to be able to upgrade from my year subscription, and you don’t get cross buy access on other platforms.

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