REVIEW: Arcade Paradise on Xbox

Review by Jon Donnis

When I was first asked to review Arcade Paradise, just looking at the press material I assumed this would be something similar to the recent Capcom Arcade Stadium releases, but although sharing elements with that game, this does things a little different.

You play as Ashley, and your job is to run the tedious day to day business of a launderette after your father Gerald, has gone to the Riviera.

Now what has any of this got to do with Arcade games I hear you ask, well in the back of the launderette is a room full of Arcade games. General gameplay starts with you entering the launderette, you will clean up rubbish from the floor, pull chewing gum from seats and when your rubbish bag is full you will take it outside and put in the large trash. Back inside you will pick up dirty clothes, put in washing machines, and then in the dryer. Do this all in quick time and you will get a score based on that.

Doing these tedious tasks earn you money, which in turn you can use on the computer in the office to unlock new arcade games.

The arcade games themselves are the kind of games you would literally have found in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

The ultimate aim of the game is to upgrade and buy better machines and create your "Arcade Paradise".

The management part of the game, the picking up rubbish, unclogging the toilet, washing clothes etc, is fine, but what you are most interested in are the actual arcade games, unfortunately these are not actual classic games, but instead "clones" or variations on classic games, There are about 30 games to unlock. And they all look the part, they play the part and could easily have been made in the past. Obviously to licence real games and their trademarks would be expensive for an independent developer to do, so they had to make their own versions. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it also isn't the perfect experience you might expect.

At times the game feels like too much of a chore, when in reality you just want to play some retro style games, and I wonder if the game would have been better if it just offered up a straightforward experience like the Capcom Arcade Stadium, but then if they did that, people would moan that the games are just the same as freeware games or browser games you can play online.

The Good

It is an interesting and original idea, and some of the Arcade Games I did enjoy playing.

The Bad

Sometimes the game feels too much like actually doing chores in a launderette.

Overall

I appreciate any attempt at an original idea, and there are some fun retro style arcade games to play.

I score Arcade Paradise a fair 6/10

Out now on Xbox

https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/arcade-paradise/9n2fqcgwh32d