Capcom Arcade Cabinet: Pack 2 PS3 Game Review

Capcom Arcade Cabinet: Pack 2 PS3 Game Review

Released by Capcom
Platform: PS3

There's a school of thought which says that the old ways are still the best ways.

This could be the case with Capcom, who celebrate their 30th anniversary this year. Rather than resting on their laurels, the company is moving forward and giving us a nostalgic look back at how so many of us so tragically lost so much of our money in our younger days - on their arcade machines...

The Capcom Arcade Cabinet is out now to download from the PlayStation network store and every couple of months, we get a retro blast from the past with a batch of some of the old school games.

One of the latest to be unveiled for a relative pittance is Pack 2, which includes a game which decimated my savings and destroyed my gaming prowess - Ghosts'n'Goblins. (Also released in the pack are Gunsmoke and Section Z)

The thing with these releases is that basically they transport you back to that fevered time when an arcade hall was a heady mix of fizzy drinks, bags of lollies and freshly minted body odour. While these games (thankfully) do not offer that experience, they are extremely faithful ports of the originals - right down to their game play.

From the moment G'n'G began, I was taken back and could remember the places I'd died as I tried to kill zombies and rescue the princess. Graphically they accurately recreate the games and don't stray from the original format. Initially that'd be a frustration given that you are still prone to dying in the exact same spots, but given they come with a casual mode (ie easier) and don't require any cash, endless play is a joy.

It's perhaps frustrating there is no midway save in the middle and each time you turn off you have to start all over again, but this is to be expected, given how faithful they are. And when could you ever save anything on the arcades when you were out there?

If you're after a nostalgic blast from the past and some side scrolling action, then the Capcom Arcade Cabinet is a fun way to relive your past. Essentially bubblegum gaming and one that's more fun for now than fun for a long, long time, the one real saving grace is that you pay once only for the game, rather than pumping aeons of loose change into a machine as you did back in the 1980s.

With the likes of 1942 and Commando due in further DLC releases, you've pretty much got the whole Capcom back catalogue wrapped up - and that's no bad thing at all.

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