iPhone gamers who grew up in the 1990s are in for a bit of a treat this evening. The three greatest things about the nineties were the X-men, bustling arcades, and the playing of X-men in bustling arcades. Tonight, the third of those three will be re-released on iOS in anticipation of the nationwide launch of the film X-men: First Class Friday night.

The X-men arcade game was infamous for two things back in its day: incredible difficulty, and six-player co-op. The arcade machine was an absolute beast sporting six full joypads and a huge screen. Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, and Dazzler (yeah, we're still not sure why Dazzler was in there) battled through hundreds of sentinels and bosses like Juggernaut and the climactic battle with Magneto.

The only problem is that this game seems to be a direct port of the original code. This version has been available on Xbox Live for a while already, and the game has its problems. First and foremost is the fact that it's still a quarter-munching arcade game even though it's left the arcade, so the game occassionally uses cheap tactics to kill you and force you to spend more quarters. 

We're very much hoping that the game received some optimizations for this release. However, even if it hasn't then this is still worth a quick, cheap trip down memory lane. Especially if you've got friends to experience it with.