Touch Arcade just reviewed the iCade, and made a bunch of points I agree with, but some that I vehemently disagree with, notably

I found tearing through these classic games [in Atari’s Greatest Hits] on the iCade to be everything I’d hoped it to be. On the whole, it’s just an awesome experience

and

As far as I’m concerned, the iCade (along with Atari’s Greatest Hits) is an absolute must-have iPad accessory for the serious retro gamer.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so QUICKFIRE HISTORY MODE!

In April 2010, wags at ThinkGeek announced the iCade, but, alas, it was April 1, stupid face! Duh! But heros in the distance emerged in the shape of ION Audio, who went “man, that’s a great idea”, licensed the design and made it a real boy.

I got to play with an iCade while working on issue 5 of Tap! magazine, and my review unit came pre-assembled, so I’ll have to take Touch Arcade’s word for how easy it is to put together. Touch Arcade’s bang-on about the unit itself, though:

  • The iCade feels weighty and robust. It feels like it could stand up to a lot of fairly heavy gaming.
  • The buttons have a great feel to them, and click in a very satisfying manner.
  • The stick’s travel is too long (and my unit’s one ‘stuck’ in the left position quite a lot), but is nonetheless reminiscent of arcade sticks of old. (I always used to play games with a Competition Pro, which had a lower travel and was therefore more responsive.)
  • The iPad sits very nicely within the unit in portrait mode, although you need to watch the surprisingly heavy lid doesn’t snap down on a finger, like it did on mine. (Ouch.)
  • In landscape mode, the iPad perches a little precariously in a small ridge.
  • Set-up/pairing with the iPad was reasonably simple, although in my case it took a few attempts.

The problem I have with the iCade as it currently stands is the games—well, app (singular) Currently, iCade only works with Atari’s Greatest Hits, which is a compilation I’d call middling if I was being charitable. The compilation includes a bunch of Atari 2600 games, which aren’t emulated correctly and only play in portrait (wasting loads of screen space), along with a selection of arcade hits, most of which were specifically designed by Atari to have unique control systems. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

In use, the iCade itself is actually pretty good, but the experience of the only compatible piece of software is not. Atari helpfully leave some of the interface behind, so you get to watch a giant pause button along with your game, but it helpfully removes the gigantic virtual joystick, leaving a huge blank space under the game. Had Atari enabled landscape mode for Atari 2600 games, I might have overlooked the shortcomings in emulation (major colour problems in some games, poorly emulated sound), but the entire thing felt more proof-of-concept than “an absolute must-have iPad accessory for the serious retro gamer”.

With arcade games, things weren’t much better. The games felt a bit like home conversions rather than the arcade originals: Tempest and Crystal Castles stripped of their spinner and trackball, respectively, and lumbered with joystick controls aren’t as satisfying nor as playable. However, ironically, because Atari’s Greatest Hits is so bad on the iPad, scaling up the iPhone mode’s virtual controls (meaning in Tempest that you need GIANT THUMBS to reach the superzapper button), iCade does actually make for a better experience—but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one. And again there’s the interface issue, with some games barely filling half the screen and many showing redundant controls.

Given that the iCade will cost 75 quid in the UK (it’s $99 in the US), I think you’d be bonkers to consider it, purely because of the lack of software. But if ION can get a lot of developers on board, and those developers actually take enough care when adding iCade support (minimum: full-screen games), the device would be a very different prospect. I know Manomio (the C64 emulator guys) are already working on support, and I sincerely hope others follow suit, including Taito, Namco and especially Capcom. Street Fighter games on iPad with the iCade would be fantastic, as would Namco’s Pac-Man: Championship Edition. But that’s currently a big ‘if’. For now, then, my opinion of the iCade is subtly different to what Touch Arcade wrote, but it’s an important difference: iCade could become an absolute must-have iPad accessory for the serious retro gamer—but it’s not there yet.