Been enjoying some of Hamster's Arcade Archives releases on Switch of late — particularly some older stuff like Irem's Moon Patrol and Namco's Rally-X. Those games work particularly well with the built-in "High Score Mode", which actually reminds me very much of Microsoft's old Game Room service (may it rest in peace).
The High Score modes challenge you to set as high a score as possible under set conditions: usually a single credit. (Most of them also have a timed "Caravan" mode, too, but this doesn't really work for quite a few games where you inevitably end up dying well before your five minutes are up!) At the side of the screen, there's a leaderboard showing your best score and the surrounding scores — sadly, this doesn't update in real time like the Game Room ones did (fond memories of gradually working my way to the top of the River Raid scoreboard) but it does give you an idea of how much you're improving with each go.
There are so many of those Arcade Archives releases now, and I want, like, all of them. I'm going to have to restrain myself, though; £6 a pop isn't super-expensive but it could mount up pretty quickly! Maybe one or two a month. Then I can gradually build up a delightful library of arcade classics to keep on my Switch at all times; that would be nice.
The other nice thing about the Arcade Archives releases is that they bring back quite a few titles we haven't seen for many years — stuff like Taito games that haven't been rereleased since the PS2 Taito Legends collections, or Jaleco's Rod-Land, one of my favourite games of all time. It's not just the "big name" stuff; there's lots of interesting, obscure titles in there too, making it a really cool collection to explore in detail. And I think I'll be doing a bit more of just that as time goes on!
For now, I'm kind of hooked on Moon Patrol in particular. Playing it with the triggers on the controller is oddly satisfying. I still suck, though; have never yet made it to the end of the Beginner course, though I am improving somewhat!
Discover more from I'm Not Doctor Who
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
