If like me you were born in the early 80's then you will remember the acrade scene. I remember going to mine after school, my small village actually had two arcacdes and no game ever overlapped so if you wanted to play Street Fighter 2 you went to one acrade while if you wanted to play Double Dragon you went to the other.

Here's the one that was right beside where I grew up.

So that's all that's left of it a brown door and a step, the other arcade has been completly demolished and is now a Spar Store (like a 7/11 in the US).

The reason I am walking down memory lane is I was thinking the other day:

Is the arcade scene alive and well, but in a new form?

Well what I'm trying to say is that the acrade has moved from the place down the the street to your own home. As much I want the old aracde type to return, I have even considered building my own one for years, I do think that with the advent of online and downloadable games the acrade is alive and well inside the PS3 and Xbox360, hell they even call it Xbox Live Arcade.

So what I want to do is go through some of my favouite games that have come out on the new acrade.

When XBLA first game out it was just ports of old arcade games, like Pac-man, Frogger, TMNT (the 4 player one). Some has enhanced graphics, which didn't always work or please hardcore fans of the series *cough* Double Dragon. While other games were promoted with the option to play online, but really poor net code rendered these games to online slideshows as the frame rate would drop to single figures and would be completly unplayable *cough* Street Fighter Hyper Fighting.

The biggest XBLA game at the time of launch was Geometry Wars, and the reason why? There was nothing else to play on the console, the launch titles were poor to average, COD2 was good and Perfect Dark Zero was an overrated piece of shit *cough* Ché Chou.

The real change or evolution of the arcade came when they decided to re-envision old games for a new market. The first one that springs to mind for me is Pac-Man Championship Edition which was one of the best XBLA games I've ever played and I have done nothing but recommand it to every I know. It took an old game turned it on it's head and it worked.

Some games have receieved a HD upgrade and has really added new life to the game, like Rez HD. Which is a game I never heard of until I read this article about it. When it came out on XBLA they added an small but excellent addition, the ability to use your other controlers as trance vibrators. So you could place one at your feet, and then the small of yuour back and then the back of your neck, and once you hit level 4 and the music really kicked in, it added a total immersion to a level I never experienced before.

What has really impressed me over the last few years is the amount of new acrade games that have come out and have really made their mark on video game culture.

But lets stop the history lesson and start what this blog post was meant to be about, games on XBLA or PSN that I love to play.

Braid

Ok, I will admit that this is an obvious choice, but this is a game that on it's basic level is simple and fun to play, it's bascly mario with a time mechanic, but unlike most games it's goes far deeper and if you let it draw you in it will be a rewarding experience for the player. What drew me in the opening stage, simple, green and had a beautiful piece of music.

How could you not have that opening piece of music in your head for the rest of the day.

Geometry Wars 2

I will admit that I never played the first Geometry Wars, at the time I had a 360 but I hadn't had it online, but I remember people talking about it, either on podcasts or boards. So when Geometry Wars 2 came out I knew I wanted to try it, so I bought and played it for about 30 mins, and thought: you know what I can see why this game is so addicitable, it's short bursts of fun and what really makes it so great is that when you die ( and you will) it only takes two pushes of the A button to start a new game, how perfect is that. So if you are killed it takes less then 2 seconds to start the next go.

The mode I love the most is Pacifism: The player has only one life and cannot shoot. The player must fly through gates to destroy nearby enemies while avoiding the dangerous edges of the gates, and earns bonus points by flying through gates in rapid succession. What I love to do is put on my head phones, turn on a podcast and just play and listen at the same time.

Mega Man 9

What can I say, I think it's the best mega man game since Mega Man 2. It's in it's original 8-bit glory and is tougher then a coffin nail to play, but that's what makes Mega Man - Mega Man.

If you haven't played this then stop reading this and go play it.

I also love how they made the achievments for the Xbox for the hardcore player.

• Jitterbug (20) Clear the game in 60 minutes or less.
• Invincible (30) Clear the game without dying.
• Almost Invincible (20) Clear the game without continuing.
• No Coffee Break (10) Clear the game without using any Energy or Mystery Tanks.
• Peacekeeper (20) Clear the game by defeating the fewest number of enemies possible.
• Conservationist (20) Clear the game by using the least amount of Weapon Energy possible.
• Gamer's Day (20) Clear the game 5 times in 1 day.
• Whomp Wily! (5) Clear the game once.
• Destroyer (20) Defeat your 1000th enemy.
• World Warrior (5) Defeat every type of enemy.
• Trusty Sidearm (20) Defeat the 8 Bosses with the Mega Buster.
• Blue Bomber (10) Defeat a Boss without getting damaged.

So far I have unlocked none of these. Pity they don't add these to the PS3 version as trophies.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed

I play the orginal game on the C64 and not the NES, so I was used to playing this with a joystick and with terrible graphics (even for the time) and a weird creaky soundtrack. So when the remake was announced I wasn't truly into it, I thought it looked nice (most things do these days) and from what I 've heard was shaping up to be a decent remake. I read previews and reviews of this and was still sitting on the fence about getting it. So I thought, why the hell not, you have to live a little these days. So I bought it on PSN and played it for about a week, and loved it.

This is not an every person game, you kinda need to be in the right frame of mind to play this. It's hard and very unforgiving and when you pass a level or defeat a boss, you do feel a sense of achievement.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix

To put it simply this is perfect and a must purchase. It's Street Fighter 2, what more can I say.

I will admit a small bit of annoyence though, this game was launched in the US on the 360 and PS3 at the same time, November 08, and the 360 in Europe in had it marked for a November release too. Since my birthday is in November I was thinking this will be the perfect present from me to me (which are always the best presents). I wanted the PS3 version because of the controller, I hate playing 2D fighting games on the 360 the D-Pad is terrible. So I waited and waited and finally in March 09 it was released and I played the shit out of this game.

So that brings me to the end of my small trip. I was gonna do a small mention for Super Stardust HD on the PS3, but since it's a twin stick shooter like Geometry Wars 2 and i think GW2 is a far better game I do think that SSDHD is worth a small mention for those people who don't have a 360. It's a great game and the playes just like a classic aracde game from the late 70's/early 80's.

I know they're other games I could have mentioned but I'll leave that up to you to do in the comments. 

Here's my closing thought and my hope for the future:

Will an Acrade game ever will Game Of The Year??????