King of the Arcade Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of King of the Arcade (Xbox One)

Monday, April 3, 2023.
by Adam Dileva

I’m thankful to have grown up in the era I did, and while I might date myself here, playing games at the local arcade are some of my fondest gaming memories. I would be given a few quarters each day before school and allowed to stop at the arcade on the way home, using the quarters I was given to get a new high score or play one of my favorites. While there are a few places that have a similar setup and idea, like the arcade corner of a big movie theater or somewhere you can win tickets for playing, it really isn’t quite the same as it was back then.

You see, “back in the day” there were buildings you went to that housed dozens of different arcade cabinets and pinball machines that were usually only found there. Home consoles like the Atari, NES and other classics did exist of course, but it’s not like it was now where it was much more common. Games in the arcade were built to be played one quarter at a time. There's something special about pulling off a Mortal Kombat fatality in front of a watching crowd because you knew the secret button combination to do so. Having to place your quarter on the screen like a line queue, waiting for your turn to probably lose to the guy on Street Fighter II that seems to be undefeatable was always an anxious and exciting time.

You are Mac McCormick, a gaming prodigy who was an arcade champion as a kid, but like all things in life, sometimes your past is just memories. Once known as a gaming champion, Mac still lives at home many years later and needs to find a job before he gets kicked out. Of course he finds himself wandering the local gaming center, Castle’s Arcade, and with that simply asks the owner for a job. He can’t just give the job to anyone though, so you need to prove that you can play games; quite the application if I say so myself.

Of course, being an arcade champion, even though he doesn’t play anymore and left that life behind him, he obliges and reaches level 5 on a game with his first try. This impresses the owner and now you’re a working employee at Castle’s Arcade. The landlord of the place though is ruthless and wants to take over the arcade to turn it into a NFT (because that’s totally how it works). This landlord, Jimmy Joysticks, does what anyone would do; initiate a hostile takeover by sending members of his arcade gang to prove they are the best players around. So it’s up to you to defeat them in their game of choice and once again become the King of The Arcade once more. This of course starts with a training montage that any classic gamer will recognize hilarious nods to.

It’s a silly and asinine premise but still put a smile on my face. You simply only need to defeat each goon at their game of choice, and once all have been defeated, you ‘win’ and save the arcade. The campaign/story won’t take very long, maybe a half hour at most depending on your random arcade gaming skills, but being able to play the 40 or so games afterwards is what will entice you to keep playing.

Setup just like a classic arcade back in the 80’s, you can roam around the different rooms that are filled with different gaming cabinets to freeplay play as you wish. With about 40 games to play, you can expect class inspired games from all different genres and eras. Now I say “classic inspired” purposely, as you aren’t playing the actual and official games, but instead a nostalgic indie attempt at recreating some of the classics. For example, you must first reach level 5 at Retro Invaders to get the job at the arcade, clearly a remaking of Space Invaders. Nearly every game seems to be a parody or recreation of a classic title, so don’t expect anywhere near the same quality or polish, but that’s where some of the charm comes from.

To play any of the games you simply walk up to it and hold ‘X’ to start the machine. A quick moment of loading later and you can play as much as you want. While not explained initially, you need to press the menu button to pause and then can exit from there to get back to the arcade and wander as Mac. You can play a variety of games from all different genres, from classics like Space Invaders, to racing games, pinball, Frogger and even Whack-A-Mole. Standing in front of a machine will tell you if it’s 1 or 2 players and if there’s an online leaderboard as well. Sometimes you need to be standing at just the right angle to get the prompt to appear, but you get used to it quickly.

With about 40 games to play, I won’t list them all, but there’s a handful of standouts that I enjoyed playing more than a few times:

- After School Beatdown (Streets of Rage). 2 players.
- Scary Clown Pinball. 1 player.
- Retro Invaders (Space Invaders). 2 players and Leaderboards.
- Tire King (The original Donkey Kong). 1 player.
- Goal (Pong, but a soccer template). 2 players.
- Chatter Man (Pac-Man but you’re a pair of chattering teeth). 1 player.
- High Speed Racing (Gran Turismo but with Porches, 2 laps and terrible physics) 1 player.
- Button Masher (Whack-A-Mole). 1 player and Leaderboards.
- Space Ravager (Space Harrier). 1 player and Leaderboards.
- Virtual Enforcement (Virtua Cop/Lethal Enforcers). 2 players.
- Sidewalk Fighter 2 (Street Fighter 2 but with horrible controls). 2 players.
- Retro Driver (Outrun with terrible controls too). 1 player.
- Music Game (Dance Dance Revolution yet has a Pump It Up pad and only 1 song). 1 player.
- City Brawler (Classic Tiger Electronics handheld). 1 player.

There’s a number of other games, as I don’t want to spoil all of the surprises given how short the experience is. There’s a Claw Machine, a Jukebox where you can play a number of different and surprisingly decent tunes (but sadly can only play a single song at a time instead of a playlist), and even a console sitting in the back room that resembles an Xbox 360 and houses a handful of other games on there as well for a single player.

For how dated and low poly everything and everyone looks, it has a certain charm to it. I was instantly reminded of how King of The Arcade looks exactly like the music video for Dire Straits - Money For Nothing. Everything aesthetically screams ‘indie’, even each game, and that’s fine. The audio is about the same, with Mac having either a really odd monotone voice or is created with text-to-speech, it was hard to tell. You’re playing this for the nostalgic games more than the visuals and voice acting, so it can get a pass. Each of the games made me think of how they would probably look if I was to try and remake classic games from my childhood without knowing how to actually code or do so. I don’t mean that as an insult at all, I really don’t, as I find it kind of endearing if anything.

Priced at under ten bucks, it’s hard to not find some nostalgic enjoyment within, even if the knockoff games aren’t quite the exact classic games you remember playing decades ago. While the story is a very brief jaunt, you’ll no doubt want to come back now and then for one or two of your favorites, though I wish every game had the Leaderboards to entice more plays and virtual quarters.

**King of The Arcade was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 6.0 / 10
Gameplay: 6.0 / 10
Visuals: 6.0 / 10
Sound: 6.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of King of the Arcade (Xbox One)

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