Back in 2011, an app called iMAME surfaced in the App Store that allowed you to run thousands of classic arcade titles by sideloading the games onto an iOS device. Apple has never really allowed emulators in the App Store, and iMAME was swiftly pulled.

Now another app has crept into the App Store that allows you to emulate old games. It likely won’t be in the App Store long, so get it while you can!

Did Santa forget to bring you an iCade controller for your iPhone this Christmas? Well, don’t feel too downhearted, because you can now pick up ThinkGeek’s iCade Jr. for iPhone and iPod touch for just $9.99. That’s a whopping 80% off its regular $49.99 price tag.

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it hard to keep up with all these awesome Black Friday deals. If you’ve picked up a reduced iOS device from Apple — or another third-party retailer — during today’s sales, you may want one of ThinkGeek’s iCade controllers to accompany it. The company is now offering up to $50 off.

Reliving your childhood with retro games on iOS is, I find, one of the best ways to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon — until you get frustrated with the virtual controls that keep getting you killed and you threaten to throw your iPad out of the window. But thanks to the iCade 8-Bitty, a new Bluetooth control pad for iOS, you can now play your favorite titles with real controls.

iOS is the gaming platform of the future. Just ask Nintendo, who this year posted its first annual loss (nearly half a billion dollars). And while Game Boy-esque portable playing is good enough most of the time, you only need to add a few accessories to turn the iPhone into a full-on be-buttoned handheld, and the iPad into the center of a big-screen home gaming system. Read on to find out our picks for the best iOS gaming accessories.

As a gamer, I’d love nothing more than to see a proper physical controller for my iOS devices. Sure, the touchscreen works great with titles like Angry Birds or Words With Friends, and accessories like the iCade work well with retro games. But for first-person shooters, soccer sims, 3D platformers and the like, nothing beats a physical controller with real analog sticks and real buttons.

Google’s Android operating system already supports external game controllers, and that’s one of the few things it has over iOS. But maybe not for long. According to one source, Apple is working on a physical controller of its own that will make iOS gaming even more incredible.

Video games were about 50 times better when I was a kid than they are now. Maybe it was because we had to fill in the 8-bit graphics of Contra with our imaginations, rather than having all the gory beauty envisioned for us like in Modern Warfare 3. We’re big fans of iCade and their efforts to resurrect retro gaming, so when news hit today that they’re coming out with this cute little iOS controller called the iCade 8-Bitty, our news room collectively swooned over the contraption’s ambrosial charm.

I’m undoubtedly the least musically inclined person I know, which makes me furiously jealous as I watch my guitar playing friends pick up a guitar and serenade girls à la John Mayer. I need to learn how to play guitar, which is why I’m excited about this new iPad guitar accessory we came across at CES.  Ion Audio, makers of the iCade iPad arcade machine, unveiled their newest accessory that helps users perfect their guitar shredding chops on the iPad, so that even those of us without musical talent can look cool playing guitar.

While this may not be quite as awesome as that NES controller concept for the iPhone we showed you last week, it’s still pretty amazing. Paul Rickards, a blogger behind biosrhythm, has hacked a NES controller to work with iCade games on his iPad using a Camera Connection Kit.

ION Audio is showing off two new iCade products at CES in Las Vegas this week that provide retro gamers with physical controls while they’re on the go.

Unlike its original iCade Arcade Cabinet, which you wouldn’t dream of carrying around in your rucksack, the iCade Core and iCade Mobile accessories from ION are compact, lightweight, and ready to follow you about.