Game Room

We start off Gaming Everything with some games within a game: Game Room.



Game Room

Publisher: Krome Studios

Developer: Microsoft Game Studios

Consoles: XBox 360, Games for Windows

Let's start by explaining what Game Room actually is. Game Room is the player's own personal arcade, a tribute back to retro arcade and console classics from the 80's. Players may visit arcades where they can purchase games for their own game room, and may play games, try to earn medals and Achievements, and challenge friends to beat high scores. One can decorate their arcade with arcade cabinets, items, and even themes. Want a haunted house, aztec temple, or retro 80's themed arcade? Go for it! Even better is that there are multiple arcade rooms and floors for as much space as you'd like.

It's a wonderful concept that leaves me wondering what took so long to come up with the idea like this? To be able to create your own arcade and play the games within, without any of the hassle of maintenance? Think The Sims for retro gamers. It's nice to see many of these classic games brought back, from memorable hits like Centipede, Lunar Lander, Asteroids, and Tempest, to games many might not have heard of, such as Finalizer, Shao-Lin's Road, and Red Baron. What's better is not all of the games are classic arcade titles - Atari has thrown in some classic Atari 2600 games, which shows itself mounted to the arcade cabinet, and Intellivision has done the same with its classic Intellivision console. These two companies, as well as Konami, have thrown in the first groups of games with two free downloadable "game packs," which include several titles users can play from.

While it was meant to be an XBox Live Arcade title, Game Room includes a full 1000 Gamerscore points to collect like retail games do, as opposed to the 200 each XBL Arcade games have. Also, the game does not work by itself - a game pack is required for download in order to play. Again, the first two released at this point are free, so there's a good start.



However, every game has flaws, and this game's are a bit ugly. First, you do not have control over your avatar; this means you don't get to walk around and explore your or friends' arcades, nor do you get to interact with the themed items. You control a camera point that chooses which arcade room to enter, and a tilted camera in the room will allow you to view available arcade titles to play. This is a bit of a bummer, as it makes the interactive feel outside of playing the arcade games nearly nonexistent.

Another problem is if you visit a friend's arcade, you have to actually own the game in order to play it. You can save up tokens, but you can't really use them to play any games in your friends' arcades unless you own the game yourself. What's the point? This gives me little reason to want to go to any arcade that's not mine unless I want the easy Achievements for simply visiting and playing in a friend's arcade. There's also no real easy way to find friends that have invested time into Game Room, as the friends listing shows a list of your friends where you can view their profiles. If they haven't downloaded or played, their profile is blank, meaning you have to check every friend's profile to see which have played and which haven't. It's a sloppy mess that needs more organization; allow me to see what friends have played, and the option to suggest friends that haven't played yet.

One of the biggest problems of the game, however, is the price. Game Room is a free download. The game packs are free downloads. The games themselves, however, are not. The games run at about 240 Microsoft Points, which equates to $3.00 per game. That's not too bad, right? Now, look at it this way: I have four games in my arcade. That's $12.00. Double that and I can nearly afford a Platinum Hits title. And even with four games, my arcade looks barren.

There are four floors, each with four arcade rooms. That's sixteen rooms in total. Now, there are eight places per room for arcade cabinets. If I want to fill every room with games, I would need 128 games. That's approximately $384.00 to fill the arcade. Seriously, that's a LOT of fucking money. That's a PS3, that's nearly two Nintendo Wiis.

On top of that, if you want to challenge a friend, they have to own the game as well. It's as if you have to get with friends before playing to figure out what everyone has. It's a total pain in the ass, and furthermore, many people don't wanna shell out the cash for "old games." If there were more recognizable titles, I'd be on top of it, but at launch, there's simply not enough interest to be held. Microsoft promises "1000's of titles," but without a proper system to get them up, something as fast as Harmonix does with its Rock Band downloads week after week, the game won't last long, which is unfortunate.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun. But it's a bit expensive, especially if you'd like to level up and rank your profile; getting medals by achieving goals in games allows you to level, and every game has 15 medals to get. However, it takes 20 medal points to level, so you have to own at least two games to hit level two. It seems the game was made to be a cash guzzler, and that honestly hurts my feelings.



VERDICT: Try it out. Look at the layout, see if you like how things are, and try the (shortly timed) free trials for games out before deciding if you'd like to download a game. If you have some spare points, I say buy one game, and see what you think. Play casually, or play Ranked battles to get medals. See what your friends have and challenge them. If you're tight on money, though, you might wanna pass over this one until you can afford a game or two.