As the year comes to a close, we were blessed with a good amount of retro titles from the AppStore. Some of which were garbage retreaded, others were masterpieces. As you know I am the oldest of the bunch here at a young 37. I have played some of remixed titles in their glory days for sure.
Either in a pizza joint or a three story arcade, it was there I cut my teeth on the classics. Have I known how addicting those were back then I could have saved up a boatload of quarters and bought myself something useful like a home console, whatever was the latest at the time. Even through college I tend to take a “study” break and play some vids. And again as a married man, with two girls, I still play these games in any form they come.
Lately it’s my iPhone being plugged in and recharged A LOT, playing the games NAMCO, Taito , ID Software and so on who shaped my life with a wealth of knowledge. When something new comes out, the latest fad, it’s usually something that has already been released, other with minor tweaks here and there. So my admin asked me to go through a few titles and review what has been released this year in the retro department.
**Space Invaders & Space Invaders Infinity Gene**
I reviewed both of these as they came out. The First one was a perfect rendition of the classic. For those purists, it’s a no brainer to pick that one up! But the 2nd one, holy moley, I was NOT expecting Taito to take such a left turn, it’s one I kept on my phone, just to show how cool it is and how much went into the remix.

Such a good job and worth the 5 bucks spent when it was released a few months ago. Both are easy to play, with the second being so graciously over the top. As of lately Taito has gone into the OpenFeint realm. Hey better late than never!
**Nescaline & Commodore 64**
Wow, Nescaline slipped in the cracks of the App Store approval dudes. Only for a day was this available to purchase and it was yanked just like C64 was before thedev took out the BASIC coding feature. I was able to get my hands on both, I’m telling ya, if Nescaline has a bigger screen it would have been better!

It came with a handful of crappy homebrews. If you own some of these actual cartridge based NES games and are able to upload them to a site, you could play them as well. Hence the reason why it was pulled, most of us don’t own any actual NES games. Although I don’t see Nintendo releasing any Apps in the future anyways, which is a shame other than the third party releases I see here and there (Mega Man II).
C64 on the other hand is built with licensing involved. The titles themselves are out of date, so the authors were excited to see them being resurrected once more. With updates in the future, more games are added in packs for 99 cents. For retro gamers, it’s a blessing to see some exclusive C64 titles able to be played again without trying to hook up a coax cable to a 1080 high definition TV.
**Pinball Dreaming & Pinball Fantasies**

Both published by the same company, Cowboy Rodeo it’s good ol’ simulated pinball with several themes to choose from. The games came from the Amiga era, in which the publishers bought the license for the games. Both titles are identical, with 4playfield to choose from. The only part missing in this is the ability to tilt the ball when needed. Something every pinball wizard knows how to manipulate the field without tilting board. Good retro fun from the Amiga!
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