Those of us who love retro gaming tend to be insatiable. There’s just a certain quality to older video games that’s almost inexplicably satisfying, no matter how beautiful and sophisticated modern video games may become. Additionally, a lot of retro games can be played fairly quickly, which means there’s always time for more! Fortunately, the internet has made it relatively easy to find a lot of great old games – so long as you know where to look. This list doesn’t cover it all by any means, but we have some suggestions for where to look for great retro games.
1. Emulator Sites
For regular gamers this might be a fairly obvious tip, but online emulators have built up fairly incredible collections of retro games from outdated devices. Emulator Online alone carries games from Nintendo and SEGA devices that haven’t been popular (or in some cases even available) for years. This is just one example of a whole category of sites where you can often find yourself playing an old favorite on your laptop in just a few clicks.
2. Steam
Steam is perhaps the biggest and at this point best-known marketplace for game downloads on the internet. For many, it’s a place to buy and download the very latest console and PC games. However, buried beneath the flashy new titles is a library of games that extends back decades. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a crapshoot figuring out which games are available on which devices. But whether you’re looking for an old version of Street Fighter, your first Civilization game, or even a bona fide classic like DOOM, you can usually find it on Steam (and usually for a very reasonable price).
3. Casino Sites
Casino sites often look like they’re trying to be as new as possible. They pitch their newest games and best graphics. They advertise promotions and offer bonuses that basically give you free money to play with. And these days they promote mobile crossover capability, or even VR compatibility. However, you can also usually find really great versions of basic, classic games on these sites. Poker, blackjack, fruit slots, and more are usually available, and in their most basic versions they can take you back to the late ‘90s and the earliest days of digital casinos.
4. Arcade Sites
This is a very broad category, and this site ought to be included within it. But suffice it to say the browser-based gaming site is not dead. There are plenty of old favorites across the web, as well as aggregators like addictinggames.com, that still have all kinds of fun games you might have played 15 or 20 years ago on your computer. Every now and then, if you like simple retro gaming, it’s fun to visit a few of these sites and just look through old offerings. It’s a nostalgic but enjoyable experience.
5. The App Store
Mobile app stores are a little bit like casino sites just in that they tend to put their newest and most cutting edge games on the front pages. That can obscure the fact that there are awesome retro games further down the lists. In fact, if you care to look around for a while, you’ll find dozens of old favorites, as well as some newer games that are blatant imitations of them. There can be something a little bit odd about playing retro games on such modern devices, but you get over it quickly. And if you really want to be old school about it, you can always purchase a controller compatible with a smartphone so that the games feel like they’re on an old SEGA or GameBoy.
Post written in collaboration with Luke Henderson .