GamerArc: Konami Live! Konami Arcade Collection

My wife recently picked up one of these from a Goodwill for $4. She reasoned that she'd seen them in Wal-Mart and similar places for around $20, so what a deal! It offered the 'classic Konami Arcade' games Gyruss, Contra, Scramble, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Time Pilot, and a bonus feature - 'coming soon 1 additional classic Konami Arcade game can be downloaded from the Internet, for a total of 6 games to play!'

Initial Impressions:
Upon initial observation, the gamepad is a simplistic form of a USB joypad; it has directional controls and four buttons that handle its basic functions. When you connect it to the USB port, it starts an installation routine and connects to Konami's website. (Get used to this, as it needs to connect to Konami every time you play a game, even after the game is downloaded to your computer.) The interface, activated thenceforth when you plug in the controller or run the installed program, then allows you to download and play the six games the controller grants you access to.

One thing that should probably be noted is that when they say 'Online Game Controller', they basically mean that you have to connect to the Internet to play these games. Frankly, for $20, you're basically buying the goofy peripheral, and access to their site; I'm not sure what that means for dialup users, but it probably isn't good. Furthermore, they do not plan on making this controller work for all of their upcoming online games; apparently, the idea is to get people to purchase one of these controllers for every six or so repackaged games Konami shovels out.

Each game has a basic level of configurability: you can either use the original arcade graphics or 'enhanced' graphics (essentially, prettier sprites, same gameplay) and either use original arcade screens or full-screen mode (which essentially just stretches the gamescreen out to fit, and looks goofy on some of the games.) The biggest flaw I could determine, incidentally, is simply that the B button is used to open the menu in every game. This is probably just my whining, but I've grown used to that function being relegated to some sort of button that isn't right next to the button used to shoot things...

Ah well. Anyhow, let's get to work looking at the games themselves, shall we?

Contra:
Ah, Contra. This legendary game, published in 1987, is best known for being mindbendingly hard. And boy, has it not changed at all. The object? To get your heroic gunslinger to shoot his way through all obstacles ... I think there's aliens involved somewhere, but this being the 80s arcade era, it's hard to tell.

The game is basically designed to kill people and get them to insert their quarters; unfortunately, you have a limited number of continues (and the game doesn't tell you how any you have left), so if you're unfamiliar with this game, and haven't figured out the controls, expect to go through all of your continues by the time you get through the second stage. In fact, unless you have a lot of patience, expect to give up in frustration after the third or fourth time you see 'The End' unexpectedly. You get three 'lives' per continue, and as is standard for old arcade games, one hit will kill you.

Perhaps I'm just seriously out of practice, but I also had a seriously bad time trying to get the diagonals to work properly, often leading to me leaping into enemy fire when all I'd been trying to do was to shoot someone, or crouching on the ground when I just wanted to shoot a turret below me. Between that and Contra's already legendary difficulty level, I'm afraid I'm just not going to be making it much farther in this game.

In short, the only way you'll get better at this game is to get familiar with where the enemies come from, what you can shoot to stop it from hitting you, and what you're better off avoiding. For this alone, if you know someone who can't resist playing a game, no matter how bad, and can't rest until they beat it, this game will get them to leave you alone for a while.

Scramble:
I'd never heard of Scramble, which was apparently made in 1981, and playing through it, I can see why. It could politely be called a precursor to the space shooters yet to come - a ship travelling from left to right, shooting forward-launching cannons and 'missles' that fly ahead a short distance, then drop like bombs on the ground.

A trend emerges; there are no continues in this game, only three lives, and you can be destroyed by missles launching from the ground, flying ships, crashing against the ground or ceiling, or just running out of fuel. And let me tell you, you'll want to play the enhanced version, because the original hasn't aged well at all. The color scheme is abysmal, and changes constantly as you travel. At least with the enhanced version it doesn't feel quite like you're on a bad acid trip.

This is supposedly Konami's first successful video game breakthrough, and at the time, it was truly innovative. Unfortunately, it hasn't really weathered the test of time (and personal tolerance) well. I'm sure this has its own niche group of hardcore players... and if you're one of them, this game is a perfect adaptation and improvement. If not, though, the novelty of playing a video game on your computer is probably starting to wear thin.

Time Pilot:
Now for a slight change of pace. Time Pilot is a game in which you basically fly around in an advanced spaceship and shoot down flying vehicles from various time periods. After you have caused enough aerial devastation, a 'boss' vehicle shows up that you must also find and destroy.

Again, you have three lives and no way to continue; however, I did enjoy this game, even if I wasn't always the best pilot. The planes you encounter do attempt to follow you and shoot you down, but the biggest actual problem I had was in crashing into the very things I was attempting to shoot; the game speed is such that if you are flying directly at an enemy, you have a split second between when you see it and when you crash into it, so you'll basically spend much of your time flying about in circles trying not to ram into things, ramming into things, ramming into things that you were trying to shoot, and shooting blindly. It's fun, and I did get farther along in this game than in the others. I can at least get halfway through the game (not saying much; it's a five-stage game and I can reach stage three), so this is probably the game to try if you don't want to get roundly trounced by this controller.

Yie Ar Kung Fu:
This game (made in 1985) is... special. In short, take any fighting game you've ever played, and then imagine what it might be like if someone tried to get it to work in the eighties, and you'll have some vague idea of what this game is. Your goal is to fight your way through a tournament ladder of eleven opponents. Unfortunately, your jump (whenever you hit 'up') sends you catapulting across the screen like a maniac without any ability to attack until you land, and your ability to pull off special attacks while your opponents are busy pounding you with weaponry is dubious at best.

Although it is something that you can get used to over time (with some practice, I managed to reach stage 10 out of 11), I frankly am unamused by the fact that while your enemies get projectiles, swords, and shields, you're trying frantically to tag them and generally not doing nearly as well. If you know someone who claims to be the ultimate fighting game champion, hand them this for a while and see how well they really hold up.

I will admit, though, the enhanced-version graphics really are beautiful, and in this case denote a certain anime elegance that almost puts them on par with some modern games. Until you actually try to play it, anyhow, and realize that the hit collision detection system isn't very good; I've had several occasions where I was standing right next to the enemy, punching away without hitting, and they then proceeded to hit me repeatedly after presumably laughing at my inability to use the one special directional move that might have hit them in that circumstance.

Gyruss:
Made in 1983, this simple, yet somehow addictive game has you flying from the edges of the solar system towards the sun, shooting everything that gets in your way. Instead of a normal top-down view, your ship rotates along a cylinder, with your enemies flying along that cylinder to and from the other end of it. Like almost all of the other Konami games, you get three lives and no continues to work with - so expect to do a lot of practicing if you hope to get far.

That said, the graphics are actually tolerable even in original mode, and very good in enhanced mode; the only real problem is that it's incredibly difficult to see where your enemies are shooting from while you're zipping around attempting to pulverize them all, which means that enemy shots are likely to sneak up on you if you stay still for any length of time. Furthermore, as the game continues, enemies become more likely to rain fire and devastation on you the moment they appear on the screen, when you have much less time to react.

It's really a good game, though, and unlike certain others available with this controller (*cough* Contra *cough*), you do get the feeling that this is a game you could really develop skill in and someday be good at.

Track and Field:
And now it's time for the 'bonus' game - the game so negligible in its value that it had to be unlisted on the package to make the package look worth getting. Made in 1983, this game was supposedly very popular when it came out, even among actual athletes. The game has you competing in a series of Olympic events by pressing one button really, really quickly, then pressing another button at a specific time, then releasing it at another specific time. The better you are at that, the more stages you'll make it through.

The game has six events, although I only managed to get through the first three. In short, the events are the 100 Meter Dash, the Long Jump, the Javelin Throw, the 110 Meter Hurdles, the Hammer Throw, and the High Jump. You get three tries to qualify on each event, and if you fail to qualify, you lose.

Frankly, if you're the type of person that's particularly good at buttonmashers and timing, you'd still be better off playing a game that isn't this one.

Overall Summary:
Of the six games, I only really liked Gyruss and Time Pilot; the others, while they may have been popular when they were made, have not maintained the enjoyment-to-difficulty ratio they had back then, and at least for me, aren't particularly enthralling.

This game has a niche market, but it's really a much smaller one than you'd think. All of the games available with this controller are also available for XBox 360 Live downloading, so people who are extremely hardcore about 'beating them all' have a better-than-even chance of playing these games there instead. The emulator scene has been around so long that many people who want to play these games will buy a USB joypad (also $20, or sometimes less), download the emulators and games they want, and have access to as many games as they want, instead of shelling out $20 per game pack.

The real target market for this product probably isn't even parents who want to buy little Billy a simple game, because they already have 'controller-based games' on the market that just plug directly into your TV, and thus are likely easier for people who don't know too much about computers to set up.

No, this game's target market is the clueless relative. The clueless relative will be dimly aware that little Billy owns a computer, and has little to no idea about computer games in general. The $20 pricetag for five games (plus a bonus game!) will seem like a very reasonable deal, considering that most video games in stores cost between $20 and $50. And it says right there on the back that it allows you to 'experience console-style gaming on your home computer' as well as the 'power of online gaming!' To the clueless relative, this looks like a far better investment than a console system that might run $100 or more, or that next-gen $500 behemoth that Billy keeps jabbering about.

Final Recommendation:
Clueless relatives, take heed; your nephew or niece probably does not want a $20 bundle of five old games in a controller that requires an Internet connection to even function. I will concede that most of these games are entertaining, if only in that 'ha ha, the game kicked your ass again' sort of way. It might almost be good enough to give to a young teenager who doesn't happen to own his own console system or know how to download freeware games from the Internet, or a child who's too young to justify that kind of expense and wants to play on Daddy's computer. If you're buying for nearly anyone else, though, don't be surprised if this controller is played for about a week by the person you bought it for, at best, and then discarded among other unloved toys.

Seriously. Don't buy this for your kids unless you really have no idea what else to get them, but know that they have both a computer and reliable Internet access. Otherwise, consider one of the many $20 game packs that plugs directly into the television, or just ask your would-be recipient if there happens to be a $20 game that they DO want. It'll save a lot of disappointment later.

This game was worth the four dollars - it was briefly entertaining, and gave me something interesting to write about - but I really wouldn't ever spend twenty dollars on it, and neither should you.