MAME for iPhone & iOS

Apple is bound to take this one off the App Store sooner or later, meaning that you really have to hurry. Visit the App Store as soon as possible and download the free iOS version of the venerable MAME arcade emulator. It's brilliant, comes bundled with an eclectic selection of classics and, well, just hurry. 

Winter Walk - a Festive Freebie

As far as seasonal games go, well, Winter Walk is definitely the festivest of them all. And an incredibly stylish, humorous and simple to play offering too. Grab it now for your iOS thingy or Android contraption; it is gloriously free and one of the preciously few games that require you to hold on to your hat.

More Text Adventures for the Road

Following the post on interactive fiction player Twisty for Android, Kristian Still and Stadtgorilla let me know of more text adventure related goodies and, well, I thought I really should pass those tips on to you lovely readers. There's two of them, you know. No, wait, there's three!

So, better start off with the new interactive fiction interpreter: Hunky Punk. It is apparently and according to Stadtgorilla more stable than Twisty, supports covers and metadata, likes connecting itself to the IFDB and is obviously free to grab. It also is available on the Android Market.

Following this, both Android and iOS gamers should grab the freeware and pretty excellent The Things That Go Bump In The Night. It's a polished text adventure by Tim Hamilton that sports a fantastic and pretty intuitive touch-based interface, auto-saves, a choice of fonts and a particularly engrossing plot. And it's not too difficult either. Download it via the App Store or the Android Market.

Finally and as The Things That Go Bump In The Night has been created with it, I simply have to point the more creative among us towards the pretty amazing Quest. It is, after all, an excellent and happily free to grab interactive fiction authoring tool that impressively also let's you publish on Android and iPhone! Think I might actually be using it very soon. 

Twisty Android Interactive Fiction

Text adventures and interactive fiction, despite what everyone else might tell you, will never die. Not as long as people care for stories and enjoy playing around with text. Not as long as Infocom, Level 9 and Magnetic Scrolls are remembered and definitely not as long as the vibrant, modern interactive fiction community keeps creating dozens of excellent new games.

What's more, you can enjoy the world of text adventuring on your Android phone too with the help of the brilliant Twisty app. It is absolutely free, comes bundled with one of the best horror adventures I've ever played and supports everything from Infocom's classics to modern day freebies. Get it over at the Android Market. 

Sonic CD: the iOS revival

Sonic CD, a Sonic game originally released for the Sega CD / Sega Mega CD back in 1993, was much more than just a brilliant game. It was one of the best Sonic offerings ever, a properly huge platformer and a game that really showed off what the storage space of CD-ROM could be used for: top graphics, tons of levels, lovely animated sequences and a fantastic soundtrack. It was, in a nutshell, a game that promised a new era and an oddly overlooked (compared to other Sonic games, that is) classic.

And now for the good news. Sonic CD has been ported to iOS in a most excellent version. You can grab it over at the App Store and enjoy a brilliant, innovatively designed and frantic game complete with a ton of extras, multiple soundtrack options, achievements and more. Oh, and according to this most informative Sonic CD review by Toucharcade the quality of the emulation is simply unbelievable.  

Grand Theft Auto 3 (iOS)

Grand Theft Auto 3, a true modern PC gaming classic, has just been released for the iOS platform, meaning that iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad gamers will finally be able to shoot and drive their way around Liberty City, while listening to some truly brilliant (virtual) radio stations. GTA 3 for the iOS sports updated HD graphics with new 3D models, custom controls and all the gameplay and locations of the original. 

You can buy Grand Theft Auto 3 over at the App Store for a very reasonable $4.99. 

ScummVM Android

ScummVM is the ultimate retro adventure gaming tool. Things are really that simple. It's an excellent piece of software that easily, freely and intuitively let's you play the vast majority of classic graphic adventures, by supporting all Lucasarts releases (from Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island all the way to Full Throttle and The Dig), most Sierra games and a huge variety of offerings by other major developers; it even supports quite a few modern, indie AGS-crafted releases.

Happily, you can now enjoy the retro brilliance of ScummVM on your Android phone. It costs absolutely nothing, played everything I tried on it perfectly and can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Spy Mouse free for a day!

I've already provided you luvs with a Spy Mouse review and now I'm in the happy position of letting you know that you can grab this excellent offering for free over at the App Store. Better hurry though; the offer will only last for a day.

Evertales iOS for free

Time for another freebie for the iOS crowd it seems. Time for you to grab the pretty impressive Evertales. It will run on anything from the 3GS to the iPad 2 and 4S and will let you enjoy an excellent and very arcade-y mix of platforming and fighting in a fantasy world. What's more, Evertales comes with three playable heroes, dozens of weapons, a particularly weird plot, impressive bosses, lovely graphics and a ton of other features. Its one drawback? It's pretty short, it is. 

Air Penguin for free (Android)

Air Penguin, one of the more successful iOS games, has not only been ported to Android, but has apparently become a free app in the process, which is quite lovely. The game is after all an excellent arcade offering with lovely graphics, good graphics and some truly responsive tilt controls. You can grab it over at the Android Market. 

Tiger Arcade: the Android arcade Emulator

The Tiger Arcade itself is reason enough to actually own an Android phone. It is an amazing arcade emulator that lets you play over 500 classic games from three different platforms (CPS1, CPS2 and Neo Geo). It features incredibly decent touch controls and save states and is happily available for free. You can download it from SlideMe.

12 Indie Apps for Christmas

Bundles, they are all the rage these days, aren't they? Indie bundles especially, but when it comes to the iOS, bundling stuff can be pretty tricky to achieve, what with those App Store restrictions and all. And that's why we don't exactly get bundles, but lovely initiatives like the 12 Indie Apps for Christmas. 12 independent game developers have each pledged 25% of the sales of their 12 indie games for the entire month of December to Child's Play or Doctors Without Borders.

The 12 games are Galcon Labs, Christmas Air Hockey, Sword of Fargoal, Harbor Master, Velocispider, Disc Drivin', Tilt to Live, Full Deck Word Games, Red Nova, Trainyard, iBlast Moki and Smiles HD. Not bad, eh?

Icarus-X free on iOS

Icarus-X is one of the better iOS shmups around and, should you hurry, a most excellent freebie. Just click yourselves over to the App Store and grab the iPhone/iPad version of the game free of charge. Better do so within the next 24 hours too. As for the game itself, well, it is a vertically scrolling sci-fi themed shoot-'em-up with great graphics and surprisingly decent controls. Definitely worth your time.

Angband for Wiz

Care for a rogue-like RPG on the go? Would you rather have it for free? For your Wiz too? Excellent, go grab Angband then. 

Cthulhu Christmas Calendar

For a merry Cyclopean Christmas you simply cannot go wrong with the pretty lovely Christmas Cthulhu Calendar. It's an app that has already been released for iPhone, Android and iPad, sports some amazing artwork and allows you to count the days till Cthulhu rises again (or Xmas, on can never be sure), while also providing with some lovecraftian trivial questions.

Desert Bus iOS for free

Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors is an unreleased game for the Sega (Mega) CD that, among a variety of deranged mini games and sketches, also featured the now-famous Desert Bus bus-driving simulator. It was a game (of sorts) that was designed to both infuriate and ridicule hardcore gamers, as all you had to do was drive a painfully slow bus between Tuscon and Las Vegas in real time. Games rarely get duller than this, but as a joke and a means to organize charity gaming events the thing worked.

Happily, it will now also work on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (and thus even on a real bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas) as Amateur Pixels have ported the game to iOS and released it free of charge. You can download Desert Bus via the App Store. Just remember that the game doesn't let you pause it and will not provide you with any challenge whatsoever. Fun, eh?

War on Terror on iOS

Seems like the iOS platform is quite the popular place for them digital ports of lovely board games and, spectacularly, even indie board games. War on Terror is the latest such offering and it's a brilliantly illustrated, deeply satirical, excellently designed and incredibly fun strategy game. Apparently the the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch port is of the highest quality too and you can grab it over here.

Kindle Infocom Wallpapers

If you are a happy owner of a Kindle, you'll be an even happier one if you change its wallpaper/screensaver collection to something more gamer-friendly. Something like a selection of Infocom's covers. Happily, you can grab a few and find out how to install them (for free of course) over at the excellent Z-Machine Matter.

Frogger iOS for free

After 30 years of entertaining us Frogger has been ported to the iOS and is now available for free. You can grab it over at the App Store and try to replicate those nostalgic arcade moments on the comfort of your iDevice. It even allows you to choose between classic and modern graphics. Nice.

Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk Returns!

Good news for us retro loving gamers on the go, as 8-bit (ZX Spectrum, actually) born Dizzy is about to return and remind the world just how brilliant a cartoon-y platformer with proper adventure game elements can be. The first Dizzy, you see, was created back in the mid-eighties and due to its phenomenal success went on and evolved via a multitude of sequels. Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk was the mature 1991 release for the Amiga, Atari ST, NES, PC and them 8-bits and, well, it was brilliant.

Happily, Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk will be released for the iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android platforms  on the 9th of this very December. It will sport updated HD graphics, touch-controls and -apparently- a lot of egg-centered puns. Find out more over at DizzyGame.com and have a look at the trailer below:  

AC/DC Pinball Rocks HD

Now this is something that should have been done ages ago: a shiny pinball sim complete with the tunes and aesthetic of legendary rock band AC/DC! That's AC/DC Pinball Rocks HD for you. A game that sports amazing visuals, quality physics, a variety of mini-games, a Brian Johnson voice-over and such classic songs as Highway to Hell. You can grab it for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad over at the App Store.

Dingo: a lost Speccy classic on iOS

Dingo was an Ashby Computer & Graphics arcade game that, most shockingly, never got the Ultimate Play The Game treatment and was thus never ported to the ZX Spectrum. Happily, coder Soren Borgquist and artist Mark Jones came to the rescue and released an excellent Speccy remake/port of the thing; the aptly named Dingo. The new Dingo is available for free both on the ZX Spectrum and iOS (via the App Store). It's a fantastic and elegant retro offering of a game, that despite being let down by touch controls is definitely worth the brief download. It does play brilliantly on anything with a keyboard mind.

DOS emulator for the DS

What a difference an O can make, eh? Hmm, feel free to ignore that, but -if you own a Nintendo DS- also feel free to grab the freeware and pretty excellent PC/MS-DOS emulator that is DSx86. It emulates both 286 and 386 PC on the DS and comes with complete Soundblaster, mouse, keyboard and VGA support and will let you enjoy all those unforgettable classics on the go. The emulator is already compatible with dozens of games, among which you can find such brilliant titles as Wing Commander, Ultima Underworld, Sensible Soccer, Stellar 7, Alley Cat, Dune 2 and Elvira.

Rebuild for the iPad 2

I have lost countless hours playing Rebuild and then a few more playing Rebuild 2. Sad, I know, but true and quite frankly unavoidable. Rebuild, you see, is a ridiculously addictive turn-based strategy game that lets players guide a community of zombie apocalypse survivors to the creation of a new zombie free society, by managing personnel and resources, defending their settlement, researching tech, growing food and killing zombies. Rebuild 2 is of course the better and more polished game of the two.

Though you can already play the game for free in the comfort of your browser (link) you can now also enjoy it -exclusively- on your iPad 2. Download it via the App Store and enjoy the best version of the game so far. Also prepare to lose countless of hours.

Chickon Chikon Chikon!

Galcon is an elegant, very simple, incredibly smart and highly addictive real-time-strategy offering. Chickon, on the other hand, is Galcon with chickens. And roosters. And happily available for free via the App Store. Guess you should grab it then.

Paradroid & Paradroid HD for iOS

Elite has been releasing quite a few excellent retro offerings on Apple's App Store recently, but Paradroid is easily the best of them so far. Actually it's a true classic. A shining gem of gaming. One of the best -if not the best, as Retro Gamer readers seem to believe- Commodore 64 games ever, and an excellent combination of action gaming with tactical/puzzle elements. You really owe it to yourselves to spend the $1 required for either the iPhone/iPod Touch or the iPad version and play it. Play it a lot. And then buy a Commodore 64 and play it properly; with a joystick!

Xenowar for Android

Remember UFO: Enemy Unknown? No? Well, you most probably remember it as X-Com then, and no matter what it was called, it remains the best tactical, turn-based, sci-fi game with strategic elements ever created. It has also inspired Xenowar, a truly stunning Android and PC offering you can download for free over at xenowar.net, though I believe you'd want to grab the mobile version over at the Android Market instead. The game is brilliant, visually unique, addictive and impressively deep. 

The history of Game & Watch

Interested in finding out more on the history of Nintendo's Game & Watch series? Of course you are, and that's why I'll simply point you over at Club Nintendo where all your questions will (most probably and provided they are G&W centered) be answered. Enjoy.

The iOS BASIC

The CBM flavour of Hand BASIC, one of the few programming languages you can get for free and run on your iOS device of choice, is fully compatible with the BASIC you knew and loved on the Commodore 64 and can be downloaded over at the App Store. Grab it, if only for old times sake. Or to start teaching yourself programming. Anything will work, provided you come to grips with them virtual keyboards, though admittedly this lovely BASIC does come with a few handy built-in extras, like a pretty brilliant help system.

The BBC Micro Emulator for Android

The BBC Micro, the powerful 8-bit micro that helped educate Britain's youth back in the 80s, was a unique and most excellent machine, that had more than a few classics developed for it. It was after all the home of the original Elite and my favourite less-known gem Frak. Happily, you can now either get to know or nostalgically re-experience BBC Micro gaming on your Android phone.

How? Why, by grabbing the brilliant, freeware and opensource Beebdroid emulator of course. It's available over at the Android Market, runs smoothly on any Android device, has been optimized for the Xperia Play and will let you enjoy a ton of fantastic retro games. Beebdroid will also allow you to customize your controls, while also providing all the handy features modern emulators do.

The Android Graveyard

Belgian indie developer Tale of Tales isn't afraid to try new, wild, and deeply artistic things, and it most definitely isn't afraid to publish its well-known The Graveyard on Android. Now, as Graveyard isn't exactly a game, but more of poetic, interactive experience of sorts it most definitely isn't for everyone. Then again some might say that slowly having an old lady walk through a most atmospheric, melancholic and serene graveyard is both enlightening and rather boring. Especially when lacking any meaningful sort of objectives or exploration options.

Anyway. Why don't you first give the free version of The Graveyard a try and, then, should you want to experience the full (yet very short) thing, buy the full version? Oh, and do visit the highly intriguing Tale of Tales site. It's filled with odd and ambitious projects, it is.

Akalabeth for iOS

Back in the mists of time, back in the day when your truly was probably shorter than 60cm, back in 1978, Richard Garriott, the creator of the Ultima series, released Akalabeth. It was a pretty ground-breaking RPG offering and a historically important game, that helped shape the things to come. It was the grandaddy of the modern CRPG. Besides, it is a deeply retro game that hasn't aged that badly either, as anyone deciding to grab Akalabeth for the iPhone/iPod Touch is bound to discover. And its got some handy extras too!

Giana Sisters for Android

Not much to add there, is it? Simply grab this remake of the classic and controversial platfromer and show them Mario Bros. what the sisters can do. It's just been made available on the Android Market. And it does indeed look better than ever. Go Giana Sisters!

Meanwhile iOS released

Meanwhile, as its creators are keen to explain, is not an ordinary comic. Far from it. It's a choose-your-own-adventure (or, well, path) comic, that splits into hundreds of directions, sports some amazing artwork, excellent production values and an intuitive interface, and is the work of interactive fiction maestro Andrew Plotkin and artist/mathematician Jason Shiga. It is thus something you should really experience. Something beautiful and unique. 

Meanwhile is available for the iPhone and iPad and can be grabbed over at the App Store. It does have an official site too mind.  

Tales of Monkey Island for the iPhone!

Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island is an excellent series of adventure games and one of the truly rare times a classic game has been so successfully re-imagined. It is hilarious, nostalgic and innovative, sports an excellent plot, features some of the funniest characters in recent gaming history and is brilliantly designed. Thing is, it was iPad owners only that could so far enjoy its excellent puzzles and abundance of monkeys and pirates. Them and -of course- everyone with a decent PC, Mac or Wii.

Happily though, Telltale put an end to this outrage by releasing the first episode of Tales for the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can and indeed should grab it immediately from the App Store.

Geek 'em up for Wiz

It's short and simple, but Geek 'em up is a shoot-'em-up every Wiz owner simply has to download. Its unique retro-esque graphics, 8-bit sounds and lovely bosses make it a beautiful little game, that, handily, wont cost you a thing. Download it over at OpenHandhelds. 

Aquaria iPad Released!

And there was much rejoicing!

Aquaria, you see, is one of the few true contemporary indie classics, a uniquely beautiful offering and an excellent game altogether. Winning IGF's Game of the Year is neither trivial nor easy, and Aquaria is worthy of all the praise and love it's been getting. What's more, reliable sources tell me that the freshly released Aquaria iPad is even better than the PC/Mac original. Apparently you can download it via the App Store. Do so!

Having second thoughts? You shouldn't, but surely this Windows demo of the game will convince you otherwise.

Sonic CD coming to iOS

It's odd, but Sega seems to be generally ignoring the excellent and expansive Sonic CD, despite the fact that Sonic's Sega (Mega) CD outing reviewed very well indeed and is still fondly remembered. Happily, Sega seems ready to rectify this mistake by preparing an impressive sounding port of Sega CD for iOS. How do I know? Well, by reading the excellent TouchArcade blog apparently...

Elder Sign: Omens for iPhone

Seems that porting successful board games to the iPhone is all the rage these days, but you definitely wont see me complaining about it. Not when such excellent games as Elder Sign: Omens by Fantasy Flight is now available on the App Store, complete with stunning graphics, tons of polish and the updated game mechanics we all came to love on the original Elder Sign game. 

Hopefully the trailer posted below and a virtual trip over to the game's site will get you all excited too. This my friends is a fantastic game.

Gensoid: the Genesis Android emulator

Though I really don't think that anything could emulate the Sega Genesis / Sega MegaDrive as well as my dear WiZ can, I must admit that Gensoid for Android phones does come pretty close. Granted, a d-pad can never be properly substituted by them touch-screens, but Gensoid is one of the best Sega 16-bit emulators I've seen on any handheld. 

It did run everything we tried in full speed with excellent sound and graphics, but also sports a customizable control interface, supports saves and net-play, and can run almost any game you might own. What's more, Gensoid is absolutely free to download and you should grab it from SlideMe.

Codify let's you build games on the iPad

It had to happen I suppose... Every games machine that respects itself, you see, simply has to have a game creation toolkit available for it and the iPad just got its very own. It's none other than the pretty impressive Codify. A powerful code editor with a ton of extras that will let you create almost everything you can come up with. Find it over at the App Store.

The editor costs a mere $7.99 and comes bundled with a ton of examples and tools, including a vector graphics  renderer, sound effects generator, image renderer, syntax highlighter and more. This video should be most enlightening:

It's alive! On iOS too!

Yehuda Berlinger's excellent board-game has gotten a much deserved yet utterly unexpected iOS remake, meaning that It's Alive! can now also be enjoyed the digital way. Well, provided one (and his or her friends of course) has access to an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The game will obviously sport AI opponents, but will also be playable by up to 5 people, while simultaneously sporting beautiful graphics, a full soundtrack, an illustrated in-game manual and a variety of other extras. As for the original board game itself, you can find out more here or read Yehuda's interview on Gnome's Lair. The iOS game will very soon be available on the App Store. For now, better try its official site.

[UPDATE]: It's Alive! has been released! Get it via the App Store.

The ultimate PSone Emulator for Android

The original Sony PlayStation, the console we now affectionately know as the PSone, was a truly revolutionary machine that forever changed the gaming industry and helped bring countless classics to the masses. Games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Wipeout, Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo, Symphony of the Night and Metal Gear Solid -all PlayStation originals- are still after rightly considered as timeless gems.

What's more, you can now enjoy them all, along with a few hundred more offerings, in the mobile comfort of your Android phone with a little help from the excellent FPse emulator. A truly impressive emulator, that let's you play using the iso files of your original games and that, from what I've seen, is as fluid as the original hardware, while offering a variety of control options. You can grab it via the Android Market. Here's the trailer:

Muffin Knight (Android)

Looking for a colorful, arcadey platfomer with excellent graphics and a ton of playable characters? Own an Android phone? Well, I do believe you'd better give Muffin Knight a try then. It does look stunning and from what I've seen plays excellently too!

Super Mario 3D Land Screenshots

It does seem that Super Mario 3D Land, Nintendo's attempt at a 3DS killer-app, is shaping up rather beautifully. How beautifully? Well, as beautiful as its official site, the legacy of all Mario games, and these shiny screenshots suggest: