XBox 360 Game Room

[SepticLemon]

I'm Curious who on the forum has used GameRoom.

I have, and I've used it quite a bit. For me, I was born after the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, so I've been using this as a way to play games on consoles before my time without the need to get the kit from eBay. And to be honest GameRoom has been a mixed bag; from day one the servers weren't ready, so there was a delay before people could actually try out and play the games. So far I've enjoyed the port of Yar's Revenge on GameRoom, I love how well it works on the 360, and so far I've played Yar's the most. A few weeks back they released Kaboom, a favourite of Scoots or Socals (I can't remember who, lol) and I bought it without playing the demo, and oh geez... They screwed up the padel controls for it, I found myself either over moving where I would zip to left to right in a pico second, or under move where the cursor was so slow I lost by default because I didn't catch the bomb in time.

Anyways, what have been your GameRoom experiences? And how does it compare to have the real hardware?

[Duke.Togo]

I've tried out some of trials, but haven't purchased since I have alot of the originals. I can't say I am impressed so far. The prices are high enough that you can buy the original carts in most cases, and you are dead on about control problems. Games like Tempest, Kaboom, and Centipede just weren't designed with an analog stick in mind. Nice try Microsoft, I like the concept but I think this thing is stillborn.

[Dhalamar]

I've tried out some of trials, but haven't purchased since I have alot of the originals. I can't say I am impressed so far. The prices are high enough that you can buy the original carts in most cases, and you are dead on about control problems. Games like Tempest, Kaboom, and Centipede just weren't designed with an analog stick in mind. Nice try Microsoft, I like the concept but I think this thing is stillborn.

That, and they haven't done shit to market the thing. Even most of the podcasts I listen to, when they talk about games that got released ... Game Room is completely left out. Microsoft doesn't do anything to try to help it. The price, while annoying doesn't really mean much in the end. The companies like Atari and Konami don't really pay attention to eBay auctions and whatnot because none of that money is going to them. They see however many people buying a game off of game room and those "votes" mean a bit more.

I got some games off of it when it first came out, but other than that I've barely touched it. It's just more cost effective to stick with my Atari Anthology and Intellivision Lives! on the PS2 (where they actually have a directional pad that works). heh

[Edwards80]

I've had a play with it but I don't think the pricing is justified. Some of the ports are ropey and there are far better ways of playing these games.

80 MS points a game and they would fly off the virtual shelves I think.

[Dhalamar]

I've had a play with it but I don't think the pricing is justified. Some of the ports are ropey and there are far better ways of playing these games.

80 MS points a game and they would fly off the virtual shelves I think.

Hell yeah. I'd probably buy every game in the packs as they come out. lol

[SepticLemon]

Hmm... I don't think the prices are a problem, though I will admit, 400 MS Points for a dual 360/PC licence is a bit steep. Speaking of that, I was hoping that the PC version of GameRoom had mouse-to-paddle support, so as an experiment I bought the dual licence for Kaboom, to then discover that there isn't any...

Lemon was a sad panda that day...

Well, guess I should seek out the real deal if they're having issues emulating the Paddles consoles. But as I said, some games work very well, such as Yar's, Scramble, Pitfall and Goemon, then again they play with 8 ways joysticks, so you expect they would work.

Come on Microsoft, fix the paddle controls...


...or at least release a 360 paddles controller :P

[CargoRunner]

I was really hyped for game room. I thought it was going to be brilliant. I like the idea of the rewind function so that I can finish some of the harder games I like. They promised a great release schedule. I expected to spend a fortune, I bought loads of points ready to shop.

But I have only bought a couple of the arcade games. I have 100 games I like on my MAME cab, but last time I checked Miscorosoft had only released a couple of the arcade games I really like. I have played most of the other arcade and console games in demo mode and generally 1 play is enough and I don't want to buy them.

Miscrosoft should have released Game Room with some of the most popular classics so that everyone could try it and find something they loved. People would then start building a collection and they would come back regularly to play the games they had and maybe buy more.

The starting list of arcade games is really poor and you have to manually download new packs just to see if there is anything new you like. I did not realise this at first so every time I checked for new games the list was the same. So I game up checking for ages.

As mentioned above nobody discusses the new game room releases and it's just too much effort to keep downloading packs that fill up your hard drive with games you don't want.

Game Room was another fantastic idea that was implemented poorly. They do 95% of a great job and then cock up the last 5% making the whole project a waste of time.

Sad sad sad

[StormyX73]

I think I am the only person in the world still playing Game Room.

It may be flawed but it is such a great idea with so much potential: almost a legal MAME. It just hasn't been supported properly by MS or many of the big game manufacturers. I mean come on Namco, Capcom, Irem, stop releasing ugly hi-def skinned versions of your back catalogue and just stick the originals into Game Room. I keep looking out for new releases but since the software's producers Krome has gone boobies skyward, I expect Microsoft will quietly take it behind the barn and shoot it.

Very sad really.

[alyinsanfran]

I went and got a big USB arcade stick just to play it! It's still great, but with no updates it comes way behind everything else in my house. Plus Red Dead Redemption has my soul at the mo'!

[Cynicaster]

Trying to play games that were designed with rotary controls in mind with an analog stick is like trying to play drums with short segments of rope instead of sticks. It's clunky and unnatural--totally sucks, IMO. I remember playing Kaboom! on my PS1 Activision collection, and ending up being pissed off that they actually included that game. Imagine trying to play the 8th level of Kaboom! with an analog stick (or worse, a d-pad). Talk about a nostalgia-fueled cash grab.

Even modern games that are the spiritual successors to the paddle games of yesterday ("Shatter" on PSN comes to mind) suck with analog sticks. I think Shatter would be sweet if I could play it with a paddle controller.