MAME for iPhone & iPad released

UPDATE: See below for information about the temporary official release of iMAME on the App Store

This makes me so happy…a really solid build of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has been released for all iDevices (iPad/iPhone/Touch) via the Cydia store (so you’ll need a jailbroken iDevice to use this). MAME has long been a favorite app of mine, emulating 1000s of arcade games on just about any hardware.

There has been previous attempts at MAME on the iPhone but none work as well as this one. To get it, you’ll need to grab it from Cydia by searching for iMAME4all. You’ll also need to have game roms (don’t ask me for them – Google is your friend) which you’ll need to SSH to your device once it’s installed (instructions are within the app and on Cydia when you download it).

I installed it and threw a few of my favorites onto my iPhone to see how it runs…and it runs really well. It will just take a little time to get used to the touch controls.

Pro Tip: When you are prompted with an “OK to continue” prompt, press left then right on the Dpad

You can even configure some of the screen effects like scanlines by hitting the R2 button and choosing options.

This build of iMAME4all supports approximately 2000 game roms…although not all work perfectly….but most do, the trick is just to find a complete rom set for each game as a number of games I tried didn’t work as they were missing files…which can be fixed by repacking the zip file that contains the rom.

So what’s your favorite retro videogame that isn’t currently on the App Store that you can’t wait to run with this?

UPDATE (December 21, 2011): Looks like iMAME just popped up on the App Store legitimately. Get it before it gets pulled!

TouchArcade has details on how to side load roms as well.

UPDATE #2: Apple pulled iMAME on December 23rd…hope you grabbed it!