For those of you that don't know, xbox live now offers an "arcade" add-on for the service. Basically... it's a disc you pop in that allows you to download mini games to your xbox. The disc is free, as is the service. (xbox live is required) Of course, in true microsoft fashion 99% of the downloads cost something. We'll get to that later, on with the review.
It's brand spankin new (at least in the U.S.) so there are only a handful of games at the moment. Every single game has a downloadable demo available through the service, so I'll review most of the games thus far.
Ms Pacman:
The disc comes with a free copy of Ms Pacman. This is the arcade port of Ms Pacman, not some cheap console port. All of the dipswitches found on the arcade machine are available in the options menu. The hi-score of the machine is uploaded into the national leaderboards (xbox live's hiscore repository). This adds one thing that playing mspacman on your pc can't, namely the bragging rights of having the hiscore, just like in the arcade, but on a grander scale. That's the good news about the game, now on to the bad news. It is an arcade port, but you can't insert coins. It seems that microsoft thought this might confuse the younger generation and thus circumvented coin insertion. When in attract mode, the area of the screen that normally says: "Insert coin" is covered with an xbox live settings band with the message "A for 1 player game, X for 2 player game". Pressing them inserts the appropriate nuber of coins and presses the appropriate start button. How do I know this? Because during gameplay the number of credits is displayed at the bottom just like in the arcade. One more thing of note is the bezel they put around the screen. It's a cropped bezel similar to sirp's hacks for mame. You'd think that would be a good thing, unfortunately it isn't the proper bezel. Yes, you heard me right, they put on the wrong bezel, at least for American audiences. They have the crappy, tacky looking japaneese bezel in place. This is probably due to the fact that live arcade launched in Asia a few months ago. Imho this bezel is nearly as hideous as the puckman bezel. It ruins the game so much I had to turn it off in the options.
Overall Score: 8.5 ( -1 for the bezel, -0.5 for not letting me insert coins)
Namco Vintage Collection:
Ever played those Jakks Tv Games all in one joysticks? Then You have an idea of what this one is like. The package comes with Pole Position, Galaga and, Dig Dug and the arcade correctness of each game varies, so I'll do three mini reviews.
Pole Position: The dips are all there, in case you are wondering. Graphically it's a pretty decent port, but it's obviously the port they used for the aforementioned tv games joysticks. There isn't an insert coin message (like ms pacman) and although you cna map the steering wheel to the analog stick, it appears to still work in digital mode. This is a
huge mistake on namco's part. The only bad thing about the tv stick containing pole position is the fact that you are trying ot play an analog game with a crappy digital joystick. By using a direct port they have ruined what could have been a "must buy"
collection.
Games Score: 6.0 ( -3 for the crappy controls, -1 for no coin insertion)
Galaga: Not much to say; a near perfect port. Again no coin insertion. Galaga, like Ms Pacman, includes a bezel option. This time, however, the bezel is appropriate and doesn't distract from gameplay. Very well done indeed..
Games Score: 9.0 (-1 for no coin insertion)
Dig Dug: You know where on the tv joysticks they put the score to the right on vertical games to try to eat up extra screen space? They do that on Dig Dug, which is confusing, as they didn't do it on Galaga. Also no coin insertion again. This game screams "cheap port" more than any of the others, and for that alone it gets low marks.
Games Score: 5.0 ( -4 for inauthentic port -1 for no coin insertion)
Overall I'd say this collection isn't worth it. Why you ask? Namely the price. The collection is now offered at an introductory price of 14.99. Bah! I say! Bah!! You might be thinking that this is a reasonable price, but considering that you can get the tv games joysticks, which include 5 games for the same price (not to mention a semi nifty joystick and the convenience of being able to play them anywhere). If they were direct arcade ports I'd say the price is right, however, as we've covered above, they clearly aren't. Of course, just to be fair Dig Dug is sold seperately for the other two... it is included on the original namco classics joystick while the other two are on the newer ms pacman joystick. Also you have the national leaderboards, the arcade dips and the galaga bezel. But in my humble opinion, you can skip this one unless you are really into high scores. Also keep in mind, this is the intorductory price, whihc means the price will eventually get even higher. That's just plain crazy.
Overall 4.0 (unreasonable price, game issues mentioned above)
BeJeweled:
You know that flash game your mom plays on your computer for way too long for no apparent reason? Well this is it. For those of you who aren't familair, it's like tetris, except the blocks don't fall and there isn't a time limit. In other words, it's a little lame.
A direct pc port basically, straight from pogo.com. It's a pretty fun game for what it is but nothing more. Of course the hiscore is tied into the national leaderboard, so that's nice I guess. In this case, however this isn't a feature as pogo also has it's own leaderboard. The only problem is they expect you to pay for this p.o.s. It's now offered at the intorductory price of 9.99. That's actually not to bad, except for the fact that the price will eventually raise. Explain to me why I'd pay over 10 bucks to play BeJewled in my living room when I can play it on pogo for free?
Overall Score: 4.0 (you can't charge 10 bucks for a 4 year old flash game that is still available for free on the net and expecting someone to pay even more than that is insaine.)
Note: Pogo.com recently pulled it's support of bejewled, probably because of this new service. The standard bejewled game, however, is still available for free at pop cap games.
Ricochet, Lost Worlds:
Again, a pc port. For those of you living in a cave, it is the third in the ricochet series, which is the finest modern upgrade to arkanoid available (including recent official arkanoid sequels for the pc).
This one sports hdtv resolutions and some added xbox functionality. When playing the game, you can now use the L and R triggers to quickly dash to either side of the screen, which really adds to gameplay more than you would think. Also, for me at least, the xbox analog stick is much easier to use than the mouse on your pc. Mostly because your wrist is gets sore after moving the mouse all around your desk for several hours. The intorductory price is 9.99, a full 10 dollars cheaper than the pc version. Even when the price raises, it'll probably just raise to the retail pc price of 19.99 which seems ok to me as it's the exact same game with even a few added features.
Overall Score: 10 (I've wasted far too much of my life playing this series to give it any less considering that if you order it on live now you get a nice discount.)
Hardwood Solitare:
Well, it's solitare. Hey! Don't leave yet! It's based upon the pc game Hardwood Solitare III. The animations are fluid, there is actual music and overall, it is probably the best version of solitare out there. Also, there are over 100 of variants of solitare to play. Don't ask me what they are as I'm not a hardcore solitare player, but what I do know is you get 30 variants on the xbox live version you can't get on the pc version. Also something I found amazing, is the good controls. Instead of simulating a cursor they went the extra mile and made the entire game playable with the joystick/dpad and a single button. Pretty frikkin cool in my book, it's just too bad they didn't do it on the pc port else we'd all have it running on our mame cabs. The price is the standard 9.99 with reason to raise later. Getting the xbox version now will again save you some cash.
9.5 (-0.5 for being solitare
)
The Rest:
They are all crappy ports of evne crappier pc games with crappy prices... they weren't worth me downloading, much less reviewing.
The Future:
As I said earlier, the service is brand new in the states, in asia they already have a buttload more games. The one's slated to come out soon in north america are:
Joust, Defender, Robotron, Gauntlet (all supposed to be direct arcade ports)
Card and board games like poker, hearts, spades, backgammon, and chess.
Arcade Style Pc games like Alien Sky, Hamsterball, Feeding Frenzy, and Marble Blast.
A bunch of crappy flash games I won't mention.
And games like golf, pool, and bowling.
Although there isn't any word on a North American release, it should also be noted that the asian service also offers special versions of metal slug 3 and street fighter 2 anniversary edition.
Conclusion:
The service, while simply "ok" at the present has a lot of room to grow. The main thing it could offer is arcade ports of 4 player games like gauntlet, making it fun that is hard to have on the average mame cab. Also exclusive mini games for hte right price and the convenience of auto-downloading, auto-installing, auto-charging games could make it ideal for computer illiterate types.
The main thing I see holding it back are the prices. While some of thse games are worth the price, many (especially the flash games) aren't. also the demos are even more crippled than normal pc demos. Solitare limits you to 1 unique deal (meaning you can really only play each game once) while it's pc counterpart simply limits the types of games you can play. The namco vintage collection has a 2 minute time limit on each game. The others have similar cripples.
So the bottom line: If you have the xbox live service pick up a disc and give it a try. While it definately isn't a reason to fork over 50 bucks a year for xbox live service, it is a nice distraction with some old school goodness. And hey, you get a free copy of ms pacman. In the future it could be far more impressive and because of that, if any new titles of any merit are released I'll be sure to add on to this review.
Overall Service Score: 7.0 (Good but not great.... potential for growth gives it extra points)
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