"This is less fun than previously indicated."

What a difference a day makes. First things about Game Room sounded great. A place for you and your friends to hang out, BS, play some arcade games and decorate your own arcade. Well, turns out you can and can't do some of it. First off, even though you can decorate your arcade with props, the only thing you can interact with is the games. There doesn't seem to be a hub world where your avatars can hang out. So unlike Home, it just seems like a fancy interface to play your downloaded arcade games. It doesn't even sound like you can invite your friends in to play games. Sure, they have the real sounds of the game in the background to make it feel like your in a real arcade, but where's the community aspect? If I want to hear background noise of an arcade I'll buy one of those CD's that has the ambiance already there.

The price is the real kick in the pants. All of the games range between two and five dollars for unlimited use and fifty cents for a credit, but you can try out a game once for free. This wouldn't be a big deal, but the games they've listed as the first 30 of "1000 Games" are pretty lackluster. First of all, many of them require a trackball or spinner to play them with, and everybody already knows how great the 360's D-Pad is with 2-D games. If this this is supposed to be an arcade, why do they have Intellivision and Atari 2600 games? For the same price of a digital download of one of them, you could try your luck at a thrift store, convention or even eBay and get more games then you can think of. 2 bucks for a digital version of Pitfall, or how about 50 cents for the real thing?

Now I know I had already thought of this. What about the rest of the Xbox Live Arcade games that are already on the system as is? Well...it turns out that you won't be able to play them either.

XBLA Games Won't Work from Joystick Division

So even though you might have already downloaded Asteroids and Tempest on Live Arcade, that won't mean anything because these games are considered "100 percent arcade accurate" and that the games already on Live Arcade are enhanced versions of the originals. So I guess for everybody hoping for some classic beat em' ups or 90's fighting games that haven't been on Live yet are going to be really pissed off when they find out they'll have to pony up even more money to play games.

I really hope they'll reconsider some of the things their doing with this. I know I sound stupid when I say this, but I wish it was more like PlayStation Home. I like being able to have friends in a virtual room to chat and to play games rather then just on the dashboard or while in a game. Being able to make your own customized virtual arcade with real games sounds like an amazing idea, but not when your overcharging for games with poor controls. Plus a big rumor is some of the multiplayer games would be local only. I would consider getting a live supported version of Combat, but if it's local only, I'll just get my real 2600 out and play that.

What are your thoughts on Game Room? Drop a comment below. 2600's been really busy with work and finishing up the new comic for Video Game Trader Magazine so there won't be a video for a bit. I've also been feeling tired and been busy so I haven't fooled around with my video stuff in a while. But I hope to have a new home port review done soon.

Till next time, take care.