Does size matter? If so, Midway Arcade Origins is going to be a bit of a letdown. I get all new games installed on my 360 hard drive before playing and most take a good 5-10 minutes to get installed. Origins was done in 20 seconds. I guess that’s what happens when you go retro!
Consisting of 31 games from the buzzing 80’s arcade halls, this collection will only appeal to a select few. Those who hark back to the glory days will be right up for this package, whilst those graphics hungry whores will no doubt hate it with a vengeance. All have had nice HD updates although I have to admit to hardly being able to notice a fair bit of it. Multiplayer/achievement support has also been added to all (apparently), but is that enough to keep dragging you back for more? I guess that all depends on the game. Some are, to be quite frank, horrid stale affairs and have obviously been put on the disc just to fill space. Others are timeless classics that will keep you quiet for a little while. None though will keep you going for much more than half an hour without a little boredom creeping in.
Much of the problem is found in the controls. Overly sensitive is what can only be used to sum up a number of the games and for that reason a fair few of these should have been left back where they belong. In the 80’s. In a big old cabinet. Covered in crisps, Coca-Cola and bubble gum.
But let’s stick a modern Twitter style review on these old school classics and see which are worth a look and which are just well, crap.
- Joust - A single screen platformer in which you must ‘joust’ your opponents off the birds they sit atop of. A strange concept and not one that works particularly well. Poor.
- Defender - Side scrolling shooter that was a big seller back in the day. Kill the aliens, save the astronauts. Pretty simple really. No multiplayer. Poor.
- Rampage - Think King Kong. You play as a large ape/reptile/wolfman and need to smash down the buildings. The army are trying to stop you. I remember playing this in my youth and quite enjoying it. It has however aged horribly. Poor.
- Total Carnage - Vertical scrolling Commando style shooter that is pleasantly decent. Proper 2 player multiplayer that works very well. Good.
- Gauntlet - A top down adventure game in which your choice of character has to battle his/her way through increasingly difficult levels filled with ghosts and ghouls. Starts off easy. Gets hard real quick! A decent game though and up to 4 players can play together to make things easier. Average.
- 720 - A filler of the very worst quality. A skateboarding game that Tony Hawks will have had exactly zero sleepness nights about. Pretty much unplayable due to terrible controls. Very Poor.
- A.P.B. - You play as a policeman aiming to move up the ranks by arresting criminals. A top down driver that succumbs to a near on impossible control system. Poor.
- Arch Rivals - A two on two basketball game in which you are allowed to punch your opponents to the floor! Plays ok but is about as exciting as real basketball, ie not very. Average.
- Bubbles - Strange strange game. Needs to be played to be believed but is actually pretty addictive. Average.
- Championship Sprint - The sequel to Super Sprint but with different tracks. Would have been nice if they had toned down the difficulty. Poor.
- Tournament Cyberball 2072 - American football. Played in the year 2072. By big robots. With an exploding ball. Good fun. Allows up to 4 people to play at the same time, either in two teams, on the same team or in two totally different matches. Good.
- Defender II - Sequel to Defender but with a working multiplayer (albeit not at the same time). Smoother controls makes for a nicer game and lots of replayability. Average.
- Gauntlet II - The sequel to Gauntlet (obviously!). Other than new levels, an updated graphics pack is probably the only real difference. Average.
- Joust 2 - Joust 2 unfortunately gives you more of the same from the original but with the added bonus of being able to transform your bird into a Pegasus like creature. Poor.
- Marble Madness - One of my most favourite games of the 80’s and it doesn't disappoint. Control your marble through a maze. Pretty simple to begin with but the time limit for each level means things get pretty tough. Very good.
- Pit-Fighter - If you like your Mortal Kombat, you’ll probably quite like this. A beat em up with, at the time, remarkable graphics and a pretty fast pace about it too. Up to 3 players playing on screen at once. Average.
- Rampart - Please. Help. Me. A strategy game? A tower defence game? Neither really, just the worst game I’ve ever set eyes on. Very poor.
- Robotron 2084 - Another game in the Asteroids vein but sees your ship being replaced with a person and gives you the task of saving mankind from the alien guys. Controls are very good and the whole thing plays nice and smoothly. Good.
- Root Beer Tapper - Everyone likes beer. Serve your customers beer and they will like you. Don’t and they won’t. Good for 10 minutes of fun but not much more and I’m still at a loss to understand WHY someone would even create such a game. Average.
- Satan’s Hollow - Taken it’s lead from Space Invaders but put it all on a much smaller scale. Not bad, but nothing here to make you want to go back for more. Average.
- Sinistar - In the style of Asteroids, this is a fast paced good bit of fun. You’ll need to collect the crystals as well as shooting the other ships in order to defeat the big boss at the end. Average.
- Smash TV - An overhead shooter that is probably the best game on the disc. Controls are near on perfect and it still plays as good as it always did. Very Good.
- Spy Hunter - Obviously inspired by James Bond but no wonder they didn’t lend the name to this pile of crap. An overhead vertically scrolling racer in the style of Pole Position but without the fun factor. Poor.
- Spy Hunter II - The ultimate in how to ruin an already terrible game. The sequel to Spy Hunter and with it’s updated graphics and it’s 2 player mode, you would think it would be a little better. WRONG! Very Poor.
- Super Off Road - Superb overhead racer that plays just as it did all those years ago. Real head-to-head multiplayer. Good.
- Super Sprint - Over head racer with twitchy controls. Multiplayer consists of 1 player at a time. Too difficult to play which means you soon give up. Poor.
- Toobin - Jump in your rubber ring and race your friend down the river. The controls are remarkably good and as such it isn’t a bad little game. Average.
- Vindicators Part II - An overhead tank shooter/adventure which needs the original controller to do it any justice. Just stupidly difficult to control with the XBOX pad. Poor.
- Wizard Of Wor - A very poor Pacman type imitation but old Pac has been replaced by some very dodgy wizard with an even dodgier voice. Wander around a maze shooting scary monsters seems to be the order of the day. Truly awful.
- Xenophobe - You seem to have the enviable job of clearing a spaceship of face-huggers and the suchlike. Wonder where they got the idea from? A single screen scrolling shooter that is pretty tiresome from the get go although does allow for 3 players all going for it at once. Poor.
- Xybots - A decent third person shooter set in a maze overrun by robots and aliens. Kill the bad guys and escape the level to progress. Much fun had with this one. Good.
A nice touch included on each game is the option of score attack and free play modes. Free play allows you to continue going on and on, dying numerous times until you lose the will to live or your electricity meter runs out. Needless to say, for the majority of these games, I can’t ever see it being the latter.
Score attack sees you having a limited amount of lives before its game over. Achievements and leaderboards only work in this mode. With one single achievement for each game, it’s going to be fairly simple to rack up the gamerscore. A couple seem to be pretty difficult to get but with a bit of time and patience, you should be on course for the full 1000GS.
Unfortunately there is no XBOX Live multiplayer in any of the games, so unless you can persuade some real-world friends to pop round for a game of Toobin, I’m afraid you’ll be sitting there, in your rubber ring, on your own. If you do manage to bribe your mates, you’ll probably find yourself having a good laugh for 45 minutes or so. After that, boredom and frustration will start setting in and you’ll find yourself only playing 3 or 4 of the games more than once.
If you really must go retro, then I’m sure there are better ways of doing it. Many of the games have been released on previous Midway Arcade compilations and a few have already appeared as single XBOX Live Arcade titles, so if you have one or more of those then you may really have to think carefully about forking out the cash for the same thing again.
Decent for a quick 20 minute hit (if only to play Smash TV, Marble Madness or Super Off Road), but in the end I guess size really does matter.
