What with all the trouble surrounding Manomio's C64emulator for the iPhone, it was rather a surprise to see this German-made ZX Spectrum emulator quietly walk out onto the App Store without any apparent difficulty.
ZXGamer promises to put a Spectrum in your pocket (hurrah!), though currently only works on the iPhone 3GS (boo!). It comes bundled with three retro classics from the awesome 8-bit days, Cyclone, Batty and Exolon.
The ZXGamer emulator comes fully preconfigured, and uses virtual buttons down either side of the screen to control the three bundled games. From what we can tell, there's no virtual rubber keyboard, and this is an emulation of the 48K model of Sir Clive's classic silicon warrior.
Judging by the screenshots, I'd say the aspect ratio on the games is a little squashed, and although the developer promises more fully licensed downloads are coming soon, this isn't something Apple will currently allow (and it's unclear whether it ever will).
Unfortunately, early reactions to ZXGamer on the App Store haven't been too favourable. It seems the emulator is lacking audio (not that the beloved Speccy had much sound, but the few beeps and bleeps it did have were vital) and its performance even on the 3GS is apparently very lethargic.
For retro gamers and devoted Spectrum worshippers (such as myself), this is still an exciting development on a purely political front, given that Apple seemed to quickly and happily approve a new emu (especially considering the hoops Manomio had to jump through), but right now ZXGamer isn't quite looking like the Spec-chum's pocket gaming saviour. We'll keep you posted.
"What with all the trouble surrounding Manomio's C64 emulator for the iPhone, it was rather a surprise to see this German-made ZX Spectrum emulator quietly walk out onto the App Store without any apparent difficulty."
Manomio's troubles were of it's own making, they snuck in the ability to enter command line code, which is a violation of the SDK license agreement, so they got pulled.
"although... fully licensed downloads are coming soon, this isn't something Apple will currently allow (and it's unclear whether it ever will)".
They do allow it and have done since 3.0, you're aware of 'in app purchasing' yes?
