There are few iPhone games that I will immediately buy. Most of the ones I do, however, are the classic games I played as a teenager.

The iPhone/iPod touch is more than powerful enough to handle these games and it seems that there are many people like me who are keen to experience these classics again. So, here’s a roundup of modern ports of classic games. Only official ports of classic games are detailed here — clones and the like do exist but I had to draw a line in the sand. I’ve also included links to Wikipedia for those interested in the history of the games.

Classic Arcaders

The Video Arcade is where mainstream gaming began, and there are plenty of original ports from this era to re-live your youth shoving coins into cabinets. I’d still like to see BubbleBobble make an appearance here to completely satisfy my urges.

Space Invaders

Release Year: 1978
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Super Breakout

Release Year: 1978
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Centipede

Release Year: 1980
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Missile Command

Release Year: 1980
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

PAC-MAN

Release Year: 1980
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Ms. PAC-MAN

Release Year: 1981
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Galaga

Release Year: 1981
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Frogger

Release Year: 1981
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Dig Dug

Release Year: 1982
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Pole Position

Release Year: 1982
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $2.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Q*Bert

Release Year: 1982
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Space Ace

Release Year: 1984
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Time Crisis

Release Year: 1995
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Alpine Racer

Release Year: 1995
Original Platform: Arcade
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Adventures

The classic point and click adventure games let you guide your character around a scene, interacting with computer characters and objects by either entering text or clicking on action words. Sierra and Lucas Arts were the kings of this genre until the 3D graphics revolution when they seemed to die out. Myst took a different take on the genre while InfoGames was one of the original companies where text adventures all started (Frotz is an open source interpretor of text adventure games and includes the M.I.T version of Zork).

Zork (available in Frotz)

Release Year: 1977
Original Platform: DEC PDP-10
Price: Free
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Mystery House

Release Year: 1980
Original Platform: Apple II
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Secret of Monkey Island

Release Year: 1990
Original Platform: Atari ST, Macintosh and PC
Price: $7.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Simon The Sorcerer

Release Year: 1993
Original Platform: PC
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Myst

Release Year: 1993
Original Platform: Mac
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Flight of the Amazon Queen

Release Year: 1995
Original Platform: Amiga, PC
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Shooters

The memories of borrowing my school’s greyscale brief-case sized 386 for the weekend to play the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3D are still with me. It started a new era of gaming can now be fondly relived on the iPhone. Duke Nukem 3D is another old favorite, athough ID was clearly the leader.

Wolf 3D

Release Year: 1992
Original Platform: PC
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Duke Nukem 3D

Release Year: 1996
Original Platform: PC
Price: $2.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Platformers

While the original jump’n'run platformer Super Mario Bros isn’t available (yet?), Sega’s main competition Sonic The Hedgehog is, as well as other classic variations of platform games (including hack’n'slash platformers like Golden Axe).

Golden Axe

Release Year: 1989
Original Platform: Arcade Consoles (Sega System 16)
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Rick Dangerous

Release Year: 1989
Original Platforms: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, DOS
Price: $1.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Sonic the Hedgehog

Release Year: 1991
Original Platform: Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
Price: $5.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Streets of Rage

Release Year: 1991
Original Platform: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Flashback

Release Year: 1992
Original Platform: Amiga
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Super Methane Bros

Release Year: 1993
Original Platform: Amiga
Price: $0.99
Links: Webpage, iTunes

Strategy / Simulation

Sim City and Civilisation are two of the most well known and loved strategy simulation games and of course they make a showing in this list. Personally I’d love to see the old Bullfrog Amiga classics PowerMonger and Populous appear on the App Store too.

Archon

Release Year: 1983
Original Platform: Atari
Price: $2.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Sim City

Release Year: 1988
Original Platforms: Amiga, Mac
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Civilization

Release Year: 1991
Original Platform: PC
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Puzzlers and Others

From the original puzzle game Tetris, to early classics like Bomberman.

Rogue

Release Year: Early 1980s
Original Platform: UNIX
Price: Free
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Bomberman

Release Year: 1983
Original Platform: MSX, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-6001, Sharp MZ-700, FM-7, ZX Spectrum
Price: $7.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Tetris

Release Year: 1984
Original Platform: PC
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Boulderdash

Release Year: 1984
Original Platform: Atari 400/800, Apple II, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, ColecoVision
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Crystal Quest

Release Year: 1987
Original Platform: Apple Mac
Price: $0.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Pinball Dreams

Release Year: 1992
Original Platform: Amiga
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Pinball Fantasies

Release Year: 1992
Original Platform: Amiga
Price: $6.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Worms

Release Year: 1994
Original Platform: Amiga
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

Vay

Release Year: 1994
Original Platform: Sega CD
Price: $4.99
Links: Wikipedia, Webpage, iTunes

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So how does it compare to Stanza? Would I recommend it? The answers, in my opinion, are that it doesn’t, and I wouldn’t. Not now, anyway. 

Classics primarily touts two things: special book cover art and a pseudo real-book page-turning experience. But the former could be more hindrance than help when you’ve got a lot of volumes, and the latter’s novelty wears off quickly, though it seems to be the primary reason Classics has received a lot of praise. 

Classics

The books’ cover art, sitting on virtual “shelves”, are lovely. And since there are only 12 they present no problems scrolling through them. But if you get 50 or so on this thing it’s likely to be an awkward list. Too bad we don’t know how quickly we’ll get that many, since it’s not under our control. Currently it’s a dozen, and we have to wait for more. I believe content should be a lot higher priority than that. 

When reading, the Classics page is quite nice. A very light beige background with dark brown text. It looks great. And yet I have to see the menu at the top of the page all the time. Why? Further, I have to see the iPhone’s info bar above that. Why? 

It’s kind of hard to get immersed in reading when you’re staring at two menus that painfully remind you you’re not in any kind of book. It’s also an issue because the screen is small, so why waste space showing items that aren’t necessary? 

I’d talk about the rest of Classics’ features, but it doesn’t have any. You can drag the books in the order you want (again, that’ll be a lot of fun when you have 50 of them) but that’s about it. No control over how the page looks or any other visual aspect of the program.

And no searching! How could they leave this out in an ereader? When you’re in Classics, forget about finding that quote you’re looking for. 

In short, version 1.0 of Classics is a one-trick pony consisting of a really cool page-turning interface. 

Stanza

Stanza lets you download public domain content directly to the iPhone. There are magazines, high school text books, Feedbooks.com content, and more.

But the biggest source is that you have all of Project Gutenberg to choose from. That’s 25,000+ books! You can browse these by several categories, such as author or subject, or even by popularity as shown below. Clearly, unlike Classics, content is front and center with Stanza. 

And so is the reading experience. You have the option to hide everything so the entire screen is the book page. You also have full control over what the page looks like. The font, leading, margin, size, background and font colors are all customizable. See below for the same page above in Stanza.

As you can see, I’ve chosen a background similar to what Classics uses, though I prefer my font closer to black than brown. Without a menu bar and the iPhone’s info bar, I do get immersed in reading. When you need to navigate via a table of contents, or get back home, or search, etc., just tap and the menus come up. 

As for page turning, Stanza doesn’t have Classics’ cool animation, but it has a couple of options to go back and forth. I prefer page swiping (like Classics), which uses a slide animation. While the slide may not be as cool as Classics, its duration is configurable and I get a very nice “turning” experience. You can use left and right taps instead of swiping if you prefer.

Aside from the nearly limitless customization and thousands of books to choose from, Stanza also has much better navigation through your library:

• Scrolling List by Title (with or without book cover art) 
• List by Author
• List by Subject
• Cover Flow view of book covers
• You can create your own “libraries” and add books there. For example, I have one called “Sherlock Holmes” with all nine volumes in it. 

When your library gets up to 50+ books, the above will make it a lot easier to find and organize it than a shelf that can only show nine books at a time. 

Oh, and Stanza allows you to search through your book, highlighting each found occurrence.

On top of all this, Stanza is free. 

There is no question my major gripes with Classics can be added later as enhancements, and we’ll see if the developers do so. Still, some of them are obvious enough I wonder why they’re not there now. If the developers provide a lot of content (from which I can choose), and better navigation, and searching, and control over the page, then they’ll have… Stanza. OK, not really, but it will be better able to compete. 

As it is, my impression of Classics is that it’s a really good page-turning animation with a minimal book reader and content wrapped around it.

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When you first open Classics, you’re presented with a bookshelf with your available choices. The current version offers you eleven books including: Alice in Wonderland, Flatland, and The Metamorphosis. You can rearrange your books to your liking, but as it stands, there is no option to add or delete books. Once you’ve decided on a book, you just tap to open it.

The developers took great care in giving you the most minimal of interfaces so the words can shine. All there is, is a title bar (that also acts as a progress bar for how far along in the book you are), a Home button, and a Table of Contents button. Beyond that, everything else is the beautifully formatted page.

When turning the page, you can either go forward by swiping your finger right-to-left or clicking the top-right/bottom-right corners, and to go backwards you just swipe from left-to-right or click the top-left/bottom left corner. Each turn is rewarded with a beautifully realistic page turn animation that was rendered by CGI designer, Kevin Capizzi. If you have your sound on, there is also a rustling of paper.

Admittedly, there was a minor learning curve for me, as I was always constantly trying to scroll the page, but after about four page turns I got the hang of it. When you’re done with your book you can just click back on the home button and you get a lovely bookmark animation that indicates that your page will be saved.

Probably the most important aspect is readability. While the Apple’s touch devices obviously don’t have the advantage of e-ink’s high resolution, it is high enough that you could read for an extended period of time without experiencing much fatigue and strain on your eyes. That is to say, you most likely won’t be reading any of these books from cover to cover, but it’s a nice option when you’re looking for something to pass the time. There’s also the added benefit of curling up with iPhone/iPod touch, something you can’t really do with a laptop.

Overall, if you value a good user experience and enjoy literature’s classic novels, then Classics is well worth the $2.99 price of admission. And with more books to come with each update, there’s sure to be something for everyone.

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Classics, an upcoming e-book reader for the iPhone/iPod touch, looks like the Crown Jewel for the App Store’s Book category.

Developed by Phill Ryu and Andrew Kaz, it features a gorgeous UI that includes elements such as a virtual page flip to give the illusion that you’re turning an actual page, and an elegant bookmark letting you know that your page is saved when you switch books. It comes preloaded with eleven classic works and more will be made available via free updates.

The ability to add your own books (that are in PDF or text format) does not exist, but the developers are evaluating this, and other possibilities, for a spinoff e-book reading app.

The initial library includes:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Gulliver’s Travels
• The Metamorphosis
• Paradise Lost
• Hound of the Baskervilles
• Alice in Wonderland (Illustrated)
• Through the Looking Glass (Illustrated)
• Flatland (Illustrated)
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Robinson Crusoe
• The Jungle Book

The developers took great care in making sure each book was properly formatted for optimal reading and trimmed down all the would-be application clutter to the bare necessities so you can focus on the book and forget about the app. As a bit of a teaser, we’ve included the wireframe of the page-turn animation (designed by CG artist Kevin Capizzi) as well as a run through of the app just to show the detailing that went into Classics development.

You can sign-up to be notified of when Classics is released and, when available, will sell for $2.99.

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