Review: Double Dragon (XBLA)
In the vast continuation of our childhood, and the feeding of our insatiable retro hunger, Double Dragon was unleashed upon the Xbox Live Arcade last week and it's one of those titles that makes you stop and think "oh man, we were really dumb little kids". Maybe it's just that there is so much better out now, but the Xbox Live Arcade version of Double Dragon certainly doesn't make me pine for the days of yesteryear.
Now, I grew up playing the NES version (pictured) and not the arcade flavor, but I can accept the differences and give an adequate review based on my experiences. The XBLA version shows a complete lack of effort on the developers part, and doesn't inspire confidence in any way. It offers two options for the graphics: original and enhanced. The enhanced version looks akin to a Flash version of Double Dragon, which is not to say it looks bad but it certainly doesn't look good. Switching between the two is a breeze and can be done on the fly in the pause menu, so essentially it's just a new skin. Unfortunately they didn't give the same enhanced treatment to the soundtrack. For all your effort setting up the best, most kick ass HDTV living room, you are still going to have to suffer the worse-than-midi style soundtrack. I am not exaggerating, it's completely awful. Even if they had to do this remake on the cheap, at the very least get one of the kids from OCRemix to come up with different versions of the FOUR SONGS you have in the game!
Even worse than the "original score" is the fact that there is slowdown during co-op and even during single player. If any more than 3 enemies appear on the screen at once, it starts to bog down. I don't find this in any way charming in its authenticity. I have a very high powered gaming console, I would like my 20 year old games to work with accuracy and efficiency.
At least the achievements make it a bit more interesting to play through the game, and you have to give props to Double Dragon for paving the way for other mindless brawlers to come. But for all of it's difficult play control, boggy slowdown, ear piercing soundtrack and kind of shoddy art - it's something that is best left alone. At least it's only 400 Microsoft points. Pick it up if you want to. I guess. It's not a must have killer app for the XBLA, but if you really enjoyed the original - say you have fond memories o f meeting your first girlfriend at the arcade and you played the game for hours and hours and hours.... check it out.
Score: 2/5 Download the demo
What say you?!