Game Room – Review

For a certain generation of gamers, there’s still something magical about arcades. Even the pale imitations you see dotted up and down crumbling seaside towns around the country, they still hold a fascination to me and I’ll always make a detour to check out what’s lurking at the back of an arcade amongst the toy-grabbers and pointless slot machines.

Microsoft obviously thinks that arcade classics deserve a whole new audience. Their new Game Room application is a virtual arcade that brings together a motley collection of arcade classics ranging from extremely creaky old console titles that ran on the Intellivision and the Atari 2600, to some of the most legendary early 80s arcade classics.

For free, you can download Game Room and check out demos of the first two packs of games. Trying before you buy is a very good idea, as the quality of titles included is variable at best.

The Game Room takes the form of a virtual gaming space that feels a lot like Sony’s rival Home service, without the tedious queues or execrably long loading times. Game Room allows your avatar to wander around inside the complex and take in the sights, sounds and gameplay of the classics on offer. It’s extremely atmospheric, with the electronic thunder of machines constantly burbling away in the background taking me back 25 years to when I’d sneak up to London on the coach and root out some of the back street arcades spoken fondly of in old gaming magazines like Computer and Video Games or Zzap 64 (in fact Zzap’s arcade articles were fantastic, complete with maps to tell you where to find the best arcades in and around central London itself).

There is a catch with Game Room though. Just like a real arcade, you’re going to need a lot of spare change to get the most out of the service. Though there is a lot you can do with the free content, eventually you’re going to reach the end of each game’s limited demo availability and have to stump up some cash in the form of Microsoft points, with each game costing anything from 240 points upwards for unlimited play, or upwards of 40 points a pop if you just want to keep feeding your virtual money into those virtual slots.  What’s rather neat about Game Room is that it really does encapsulate some of the history of arcades. You can set up your own presence within the Game Room, outfitting your own room with accessories, decorations, themes and any games you’ve bought. This is something that Sony’s Home promised a long time ago but it’s never really come to fruition.

Your virtual arcade is then made available to friends and other players so they can check out your taste in games and decor, and you can even invite them to try and beat your top scores as all bought arcade games keep tabs on your best performances.

I was initially quite cynical about Game Room, having spent a lot of time fiddling with MAME since it first revolutionised arcade emulation back in the early nineties, and also having previously spent a fair amount on various retro retreads and arcade compilations for various consoles. The service is in its early days and is still cutting its teeth, and it seems odd that the initial burst of game packs won’t be followed up until later on in April. I’m moderately excited to see what’s offered up in the future, as Microsoft has promised to release another couple of gamepacks and then follow them up each week with new additions to the Game Room. Eventually this could mean the service almost becomes a “gaming museum” but I’m hoping that it’s not just used as a dumping ground for ropey old games that only a hardened rose-coloured spectacle wearer would have any interest in playing.

Of the games I tried, Asteroids Deluxe, Gravitar and Scramble were definitely at the top of my shopping list. Each game may be old enough to get a free bus pass, but they still have brilliant compulsive gameplay. I even gave Atari’s ‘Adventure’ a go for old times sake, a game that could be completed in one frenetic sitting at our local Rumbelows when I was an arcade-obsessed kid.

The older console titles have fared worst at the hands of old father time, and though I once held the ‘world record’ for Astro Smash on the Intellivision (for a glorious few weeks when C & VG used to collect high scores together) , I found the game tedious and unplayable. Likewise, most of the Atari 2600 titles are unbearably ugly and simplistic, and though I still own a genuine “woody” it lives at the back of a junk cupboard and I certainly wouldn’t pay real money to play any of the games again, not even conveniently offered in a repackaged form in Game Room. It seems odd that these games are as expensive as some of the better quality arcade titles, they really should cost peanuts because you’re never going to get a lot of satisfaction out of them other than a twinge of nostalgia.

So Game Room is an interesting experiment, and one that seems to offer the potential to become somewhere I’ll spend a lot of time – but I’ll be keeping a keen eye on the release lists for it, because there’s absolutely no reason why more recent and better quality games couldn’t find their way onto the service, along with plenty of supporting content to flesh out the Game Room virtual space a little more.

It would be impossible to rate the service as a whole like you’d traditionally review a game, but there are a few superb little games in Game Room and here’s hoping that the next game packs contain even more.