Xbox 360 "Game Room"

[system11]

Well it's landed - Microsoft's virtual arcade setup.

The initial line-up is 30 or so games, but 16 of them are Atari 2600 and Intellivision ones, which I personally don't remember playing in arcades...

To cut a long story short, while the idea isn't bad, the implementation is terrible. All games are plagued with control input lag and timing/frame rate issues - bad enough that it makes the music in some games sounds wrong due to delays between the notes. The visual options (such as fake scanlines) are poorly implemented, and the graphics in vector games are all too dark.

Don't waste your money, or your time. If you don't believe me, just try Super Cobra and Shao Lins Road, both are ruined by the timing/update trouble, Super Cobra actually becomes unplayable. Luckily you get 20 free credits so you don't have to pay to find out.

[Udderdude]

That's pretty dissapointing. You think they would have just licensed MAME like everyone else ..

[szycag]

What a huge disappointment. These are some of the laziest ports I've seen in a while. Should have guessed this would be garbage looking at the other stuff from Krome Studios.

[Elixir]

They couldn't have picked shittier games to release with it, who wants to pay for Tempest in 2010 (or play it for that matter)?

[No_not_like_Quake]

Agreed that the emulation is unacceptable. Unless they can some how fix the emulation, or at least provide MAME-level emulation on other games, this thing is to be avoided. Also, the addition of 2600 and Intellivision games baffles me.

[Lordstar]

Agreed that the emulation is unacceptable. Unless they can some how fix the emulation, or at least provide MAME-level emulation on other games, this thing is to be avoided. Also, the addition of 2600 and Intellivision games baffles me.

makes up the numbers. Your right though its fucking dire.

[Skykid]

They couldn't have picked shittier games to release with it, who wants to pay for Tempest in 2010 (or play it for that matter)?

Yeah, who wants to play old games when we've got Final Fantasy XIII to waste our time with!

[Icarus]

Yeah, who wants to play Final Fantasy XIII when we've got old games to waste our time with!

Fixed for forum accuracy.

[Skykid]

Yeah, who wants to play Final Fantasy XIII when we've got old games to waste our time with!

Fixed for forum accuracy.

Icarus to the rescue with sarcasm translation!

Tempest is the only reason I still have a Jaguar (it's the only Jag game I have, in fact).

[t0yrobo]

Yeah, good idea, but awful implementation. I'll keep it around for a bit in hopes something decent happens, but it'll probably be getting deleted.

[Zeether]

They couldn't have picked shittier games to release with it, who wants to pay for Tempest in 2010 (or play it for that matter)?

>implying Tempest is a bad game

[Skykid]

They couldn't have picked shittier games to release with it, who wants to pay for Tempest in 2010 (or play it for that matter)?

>implying Tempest is a bad game

Implying poster lacks taste in games.

[Elixir]

It is pretty bad by today's standards. We're going to see every single nameless game from the 70's and 80's with the occasional worthwhile one before we start seeing stuff from the 90's, if that even comes. I don't want to play games from the 70's and 80's, if I did, I would just do so in MAME with better resolution options, with the ability to use any stick/pad I wanted and being able to configure it however I wanted, with different filters and all that stuff which makes MAME still worth using.

The problem with this, just like Virtual Console, is that you have people waiting for previously released, old games to slowly dribble out (in rom form, even) because people just absolutely cannot resist buying their favourite childhood games even though they have barely touched them since.

Why do people still pay for roms?

[Domino]

It is pretty bad by today's standards.

You're high.

Still a great game from the vector graphics era, plus hard to boot.

[Elixir]

It doesn't matter if it's good or not, what matters is that you're paying for roms of games with limited settings. It's possible to get better without having to pay a cent, but people still choose to buy roms. People feel like re-buying the game is just like supporting it when it first came out.

Nostalgia blinds all fools.

[monkeyman]

Have to agree it seems a strange opening line up. Guess MS just acquired the rights to a bunch of old games and has shovelled them out.

Might get a little more excited if some 80s shooters hit the game room in future, but for now I'm regarding it as a failed experiment.

[sjewkestheloon]

Utter scrotum sweat.

I love the way that the game setup gives you an achievement by starting it up. Makes it so you can't remove the waste of space from your game list.

I personally don't give a toss about that but I know a few more compulsive people who will insist on spending so much time on it to fill out the gamerscore and not ruin their 'completion percentage'.

[TodayIsForgotten]

I also think the idea is good but exactly, why not use mame? They should have done a tier level for pricing. It's a bit ridiculous in my opinion that all the games are 3 dollars. Can't say i would buy any black background based games for 3 dollars unless it were asteroids or something. I think 3 dollars is a fair price but not overall with 90% of the crap on there. Oh well.

[Skykid]

Nostalgia blinds all fools.

No it doesn't, that's a weak attempt at profundity and a stupid thing to say because it doesn't make any sense.

I'm guessing you're pretty young Elixir, and therefore not interested in giving the time to anything you don't have a personal nostalgia for. Tempest is a good game worth playing by anyone at anytime, like many other games of its era.
Games didn't just start getting good when you started playing them.

[Ed Oscuro]

Luckily you get 20 free credits so you don't have to pay to find out.

wait, you pay MS points in place of actual game tokens? To play something you have downloaded to your machine at home? Serious

[Elixir]

Nostalgia blinds all fools.

No it doesn't, that's a weak attempt at profundity and a stupid thing to say because it doesn't make any sense.

I'm guessing you're pretty young Elixir, and therefore not interested in giving the time to anything you don't have a personal nostalgia for. Tempest is a good game worth playing by anyone at anytime, like many other games of its era.
Games didn't just start getting good when you started playing them.

It makes perfect sense, companies have been releasing compilations for ages now. Even moreso now that XBLA/PSN and Virtual Console exist. People see their old favourites, buy them, play them a couple of times and never touch them again. It's called cashing in on nostalgia.

Young? I guess, I'm 23. I'm old enough to know how to spend my money wisely, young enough to rather put that money towards newer games.

Your favourite game isn't as enjoyable as what it was when you first played it, "buying" it again isn't supporting the creators, and with these services you're almost always subject to limitations (that can be lifted in MAME/emulators, but you can't throw money at those). It's a waste of money.

[Elixir]

Someone on SA dug through the Windows version and found these:



Basically, I hope you enjoy Atari, Konami, Intellivison and Activision games for the next christ knows how long.

[Exarion]

They have scramble, and a new "time rewind" function. This lets you go back and undo any sort of mistake you make. You can now 1lc all of these games with max score on your first run. Something tells me this isn't good.

[Skykid]

They have scramble, and a new "time rewind" function. This lets you go back and undo any sort of mistake you make. You can now 1lc all of these games with max score on your first run. Something tells me this isn't good.

No, that's definitely bad.

[PepsimanVsJoe]

To be fair scores can only be posted on the leaderboards via ranked games(which means no rewind).

But yeah not really enjoying the service either.

http://pepsimanvsjoe.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ughts.html

Whether they work it out or not doesn't really matter since either way I'll have MAME.

[BrianC]

They couldn't have picked shittier games to release with it, who wants to pay for Tempest in 2010 (or play it for that matter)?

I would gladly pay for the arcade machine since emulation doesn't do it justice. Not that there aren't good ports or emulation of it, but nothing compares to playing it with a spinner on a true vector monitor. I would also gladly pay for a Tempest 2010.

[Jeneki]

Are they adding tate mode for the appropriate arcade games? Lack of tate was an issue with many older Live Arcade releases such as Time Pilot, the arcade Contras, etc.

[system11]

No chance whatsoever.

[Pirate1019]

If I had a quarter for every good idea for the 360 that got fucked over a bramblepatch...

[EPS21]

It is pretty bad by today's standards. We're going to see every single nameless game from the 70's and 80's with the occasional worthwhile one before we start seeing stuff from the 90's, if that even comes. I don't want to play games from the 70's and 80's, if I did, I would just do so in MAME with better resolution options, with the ability to use any stick/pad I wanted and being able to configure it however I wanted, with different filters and all that stuff which makes MAME still worth using.

The problem with this, just like Virtual Console, is that you have people waiting for previously released, old games to slowly dribble out (in rom form, even) because people just absolutely cannot resist buying their favourite childhood games even though they have barely touched them since.

Why do people still pay for roms?

It isn't all bad in the sense if enough interest (people buying the games) is towards these older games, they might warrant sequels that are actually in the old style vein (and not redone in 3D, HD etc). A good example of this is Megaman9, sure it's an original game released recently, but because it was made exactly like the older megaman titles, it became very popular to all of us who have enjoyed the first 7 (8 doesn't count since it was much different on psx hardware and all) when they came out. "Cashing in on nostalgia" with a new title, it did well enough to warrant a similar sequel with Megaman10.

I see no problem with rebuying old games if not for the convenience of playing it on your console, but also for the chance it would warrant a dev to make a true sequel that should have been in years past.