Game Room is a case of a great idea poorly executed but can be recitified if Microsoft fix things.

User Rating: 6 | Game Room X360
By sirbargearse | Review Date:
OK. We've all seen retro compilation before. But none from Microsoft. There's a reason for that. They're still the new kids on the block and have no REAL history yet. But they are here attempting to provide a venue for third party companies to unload some old prehistoric titles with newly attached mechanisms such as "challenges" and "medals" to spark new life into these crusty old ROMs. Now I'm a big retro gamer from way back. I do miss the smell and sounds of the suburban arcades. But there's something about this Game Room title that urks me. Microsoft have (in true form to Micro$oft) gone about a great idea all wrong.

But before I rip it apart I'll give ya a run down on what Game Room offers. Game Room is a Xbox 360 or Game for Windows title that allows you to decorate a three story Arcade joint with themed rooms for your virtual game cabinets. You'll see peoples Avatars walking about, playing games and pulling all sorts of faces but... they are just randoms. Not based on any activity actually taking place. You get to unlock items to decorate your arcade with and you can buy (yes BUY with MS points) mascots to run about your place with.

Now the cool thing here is that all the games have a virtual cabinet that looks exactly like the original thing. Each game has medals to earn for either Points Earned, Time Lasted or Total Time played. You can send challenges to friends but... THEY MUST ALSO OWN THAT GAME. Lame. Here's the thing. You download the Game Room title. You download the Game Packs (currently #1 and #2) but... YOU GET ZERO GAMES! You must fork out if you wanna decorate your Arcade with an Arcade Game. This is the titles biggest drawback which urgently needs addressing as the gaming world in general are slagging out this title and it's so not fair to the programmers who designed the sweet presentation that is in this new look on a bygone era.

Currently the games are few. 30 in all from the likes of Atari, Intellivision (I own one!) and Konami. But Capcom are soon to launch Final Fight and Microsoft are talking up having a game a day being released when things get into full swing. Remembering that some of these titles belong to companies since shut down it's not hard to remember that Microsoft has to fully gain the IP rights to avoid being sued! But hopefully Sega will release a virtual Mega Drive list of titles along with more gems from Capcom, Vectrex and Activision. This is a case of a great idea poorly executed but can be recitified if Microsoft do the right thing and fix things.

Download it for some free Achievement points but remember games cost:

400 Microsoft Points: buy once and play on both platforms – Xbox 360 and a Windows PC.

240 Microsoft Points: buy to play on anyone platform – either the Xbox 360 or a Windows PC.

40 Microsoft Points: play a single game only once.

Here's a list of the titles available so far:

Adventure
Armor Battle
Asteroids Deluxe
Astrosmash
Centipede
Battlantis
Crystal Castles
Gravitar
Lunar Lander
Red Baron
Combat
Finalizer
Football
Tempest
Jungler
Millipede
Outlaw
Road Fighter
Realsports Tennis
Sea Battle
Scramble
Skiing, Mountain Madness/Super Pro
Space Armada
Space Hawk
Shao-lin's Road (Kicker)
Star Raiders
Super Cobra
Sub Hunt
Tutankham
Yar's Revenge

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