Reviews / previews
Return with us now to those thrilling days of
yesteryear, when the last word-almost the only
word-in games could be found at the mall. That's
where a batch of machines with quaint, 2D,
maze-based games sat in the local arcade, with all
sorts of goggle-eyed, long-haired players lined up to
do battle for a 25 cents a shot.
Sounds like a plot from That '70s Show? Actually, it's
Microsoft's Revenge of Arcade. This five-game
collection of arcade classics hailing from the early
'80s is the sequel to Microsoft Arcade, a million-seller
that proved there's still an audience for basic
arcade-level games.
That's because they're fun, of course. Also, they're
not necessarily easy. Take Rally-X, where you race a
little blue Indy car, trying to capture flags for points
while you dodge big rocks and a chase posse of red
cars. Your one weapon is a smoke blast that'll spin
out the pursuit cars, while costing you fuel each time
you use it.
Simple premise, right? Yep. Yet it can be devilishly
hard to ditch the pursuit even on the easiest setting.
Rally-X is one of those games that has you sitting at
your machine for hours at a shot, doggedly trying to
get ahead a few more levels. These games were all
meant to suck quarters out of your pocket, of course,
so none of them were a snap to play.
Most of the other choices are as worthy as Rally-X,
too. Ms. Pac-Man is the bow-topped version of the
original-same courses, same chomping enemies.
Mappy is a variant on the Donkey Kong formula: a
little trampoline-jumping mouse tries to grab as much
loot as possible in a series of houses while avoiding
trapdoors and pursuers. The best of the whole lot is
Xevious, the precursor to a whole genre of
fly-and-shoot futuristic adventures. You pilot a ship
with air-to-air double guns and air-to-ground missiles, trying to go as far and
blow up as much as possible. (I spent a lot of college-era money on this one.)
Only Motos, an annoying little bumper-car-style game, doesn't make the
quality cut on this disc.
Now, do you really want to pay for ROA? That
depends on how adventurous you are. All of
these games, not to mention hundreds of other
arcade classics, are available for the MAME
arcade emulator, the freeware package that
translates and lets you play the same ROMs
the arcade machines used. That's exactly what
Revenge of Arcade does, too, with some nice
options thrown in, like double-sizing your
screen and setting difficulty levels. If you're up
to downloading MAME and the ROMs (which
are pirate versions unless you own the arcade
machine) and the occasional hassle of getting
them to work (MAME and DirectX aren't always
on speaking terms), then by all means save
the money you'd pay for the CD.
However, if you want these nice and easy and
don't mind shelling out a somewhat exorbitant
$35 (or if you're really scrupulous about
respecting licenses), Revenge of Arcade is the
answer. Motos aside, the bucks you'll pay work
out to about 140 quarters-35 per game. Those
quarters all buy you a lot more replays than you
could afford in 1981, and in the comfort of your
own home-not bad for the obsessive in all of us.-- Don St. John / GamePro
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