Review: Capcom Cabinet Pack 2 (PSN, XBLA)

Ghouls and Ghosts

Capcom has been making games skilled at eating up your quarters for decades. So there's nothing more satisfying than being able to re-visit some of the classics that we remember, this time with unlimited quarters! You aren't taking my entire allowance in one sitting this time, Capcom!

Groups of games are being released in batches – last month we got Black Tiger, 1943, and Avenger and this batch we get the amazing Ghouls and Ghosts, Section Z and Gun.Smoke.

Ghouls and Ghosts hardly needs a blurb about it. If you played video games in the late eighties and early nineties you've probably broken a controller while swearing at the television while playing this game. Ghouls and Ghosts is hard… almost impossibly hard, but I've beaten that bastard a handful of times before. Replaying it, I can't even fathom how in the hell I used to be able to do it, all I can recall is dying… frequently. For those unfamiliar – you control Arthur in his quest to get back the Princess, and his path to hell is paved with innumerable enemies (usually ones hanging around pitfalls and lava baths ready to knock you into them). The different weapons will give you a fighting chance against the hordes of monsters, but odds are you'll become a statistic. A downright classic!

Section Z is a side-scrolling shooter that jams a lot into using a joystick and two buttons: one button shoots and the other turns you around. So when the enemies start coming from behind you can now turn to face them. Your goal is to fight your way alphabetically through the different sections of the station until you can defeat the L-Brain in Section Z. While it was certainly neat for its time, it's not my favorite of the throwback games, especially when held up against other side-shooters of that era.

Gun.Smoke will raise a fury in the calmest of players. You play as Billy Bob a bounty hunter out to clean out the worst villains of the west. Although you never seem to run out of bullets for your six-shooters or need to reload, that doesn't mean you aren't horribly outnumbered and on the losing side of an arms' race. The combat in Gun.Smoke is fast and furious and you'll die almost as frequently as you would in Ghouls and Ghosts.

All in all, the Capcom Cabinet Pack 2 is pretty darn fun – and I'm looking forward to future packs.

- Tazman

The Good:
- Ghouls and Ghosts… you need more than this???
           
The Bad:
- Why were the packs released with one month gaps between them?
- I want the whole collection at once, not the individual packs as they come

Score: 8.0 / 10