Review: Capcom Arcade Cabinet Game Pack 1
Good ol’ fashion fun.
Capcom Arcade Cabinet is an awesome compilation of some of Capcom’s classic games. From Avenger to Ghosts ‘n Goblins, there is a great variety of games of different play-styles and quality. Capcom Arcade Cabinet supports a wide variety of options and configurations. You can set the display to be exactly how you want it. Do you want the game to take up your whole TV? No problem! Do you want the game to look like you are playing it on an arcade cabinet with scan lines? Go for it! You even are capable of messing around with the dip switches in the game. Would you like to have an extra life awarded at 100,000 points instead of 1,000,000 points? It’s all right there at your finger tips. A rather unique feature that Capcom Arcade Cabinet brings to the table is the ability to save your replays on games that you own. This could be very useful if you are interested in recording yourself performing a speed run, or if you simply just want to archive you playing a game that you love. The replay system is a pretty awesome feature that more games should include. Capcom Arcade Cabinet as a whole is pretty awesome. However, for the sake of this review I am reviewing this as Game Pack 1, and not as Capcom Arcade Cabinet as a whole.
Game Pack 1 comes packed with Black Tiger, Avenger, and 1943: Battle of Midway. I wanna go ahead and get what I didn’t like out of the way, Avenger. Avenger is a game that I actually already have some brief experience with from before playing Capcom Arcade Cabinet. I am a fan of games that provide a challenge, but I always felt that Avenger was one of those games that was hard for all the wrong reasons. The biggest thing that irks me with Avenger is it’s combat. The hitboxes are really odd in the game. Your character’s fist will go right through the enemies frequently, and then the enemy will grab you from even farther away. This will severely damage you even if you shake out of the grapple really quick. This is just one example of issues that I have with the combat. For a brawling video game, I just feel that the combat is overall lacking and brings down the fun in Avenger.
1943: Battle of Midway is probably the most popular of the games in this pack. This game has always been a great and popular Galaga-style airplane shooter. Battle of Midway has a nice stable frame rate and the controls are actually rather convenient. You can tap Square to shoot your guns, or you can simply hold R1 to turbo fire your weapons. I actually think that for a game like Battle of Midway it was really important to incorporate a turbo fire button on the pad. Having to manually tap the fire button over and over could probably kill your arm after an hour of playing! Battle of Midway can be extremely challenging if you limit/turn off your continues, but I actually feel that this provides the best experience. By not being able to simply “Press Start” to continue the game, the player avoids “auto-piloting” while playing (no pun intended). If you have infinite lives there is no danger. If there is no danger, then a game like 1943: Battle of Midway is severely hindered.
Black Tiger was actually a game that I had not played before trying Game Pack 1, and it actually is probably my favorite game on the pack. Although the game is technically a spiritual successor to Ghosts’ n Goblins, it actually reminded me a bit of Castlevania. It features great 8 way directional mobility and awesome attacks with ranges that vary based on your health/armor status. Be warned though, the game is also extremely unforgiving. If you are not careful you will die almost instantly in battle. One thing I really liked was that it features slight RPG elements in the form of purchasing items and saving non-playable characters. The only gripe I really had with it was that the soundtrack was relatively repetitive.
Overall, Game Pack 1 is a really good taste of things to come with Capcom Arcade Cabinet. The price of the game is also a great deal. For $4.99/400 Microsoft Points you get two really great games, 1943: Battle of Midway and Black Tiger. Unfortunately, I feel that Avenger is the weak link in this pack. Regardless, Game Pack 1 is definitely worth trying out, and has made me very excited for future packs that are on the way.
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