Monday, January 6, 2014

Game Center Love Plus Pengo for Xbox 360

The graphical quality is not gonna be that great as the graphics still look like they're based on the NAOMI graphics engine with some required enhancements. Sure, there may be overhauls but not too much and some of the stages from Shmups Skills Test are replaced in Game Center Love Plus Pengo with the new ones. Okay, so the background graphics and objects are updated but it's not the same for the sprites. It may appear that Triangle Service itself is still a small company but it could have been better if they collaborated with other companies to help out like G.Rev already did with Treasure back then.
So, it may seem that the game itself doesn't use the full power of the Ringedge 2 arcade hardware that it can be somewhat ported back to Xbox 360 as the results. The gameplay may still feel old-school and the Action Game Skills Test mode isn't that great either. The first disadvantage of the game is that in Action Game Skills Test mode thing, some of the stages involve moving the joystick in left-right or up-down directions which can be damaging to it in the first place. Secondly, in Combatzeal, there may be some overlapping of the playfield but that is more of a minor issue. Third disadvantage is that the graphics don't seem to be going next-generation at all. Forth disadvantage, Combatzeal is nothing but another mini-game in the compilation.
Overall, the game itself may be okay but I don't know if the Xbox 360 port is going to improve or not. The Xbox 360 version will be out sometime in March and you may be better off playing this on the console than in the arcades. There may be better current-gen shmup games out there in the arcade on Sega Ringedge 2 and Taito Type X2. The most fun games in the compilation will probably be Pengo HD and Shmups Skills Test. If you already have the previous Triangle Service games on the Xbox 360, this compilation should be quite affordable as well.