Back in January I wrote an article about the games I'd like to see on Xbox Live Arcade. Some of those games have been announced, mainly from Konami, but there are still a bunch of games that are missing. The games we have seen aren't really all that either. Despite what my colleague, Chris Buffa, may think, I'm sorely disappointed in Xbox Live Arcade. Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect the top 50 arcade titles from the 80s and 90s to suddenly hit XBLA at the same time. In fact, I would be happy with a simple announcement that good things are coming. For the time being, I will once again tell all of these companies what they're doing wrong. Maybe this time they'll pay attention so I don't have to write another one of these in six months.

Konami

I have to hand it to the house that Metal Gear built; Konami is pretty much the only company that's on point when it comes to Xbox Live Arcade. Frogger has already arrived, and we've got Contra, Super Contra and Track & Field on the way. To top things off, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is coming. I don't even care that it's the watered down PlayStation version instead of the Saturn version that had all of the extras. I'm just wondering how they're going to fit the game under 50MB or if it will be an exception to the rule.

So while Konami is doing okay, there are still a few things to note here. Frogger wasn't all that impressive. You would think it would be pretty hard to mess up Frogger, but somehow it's been done. The graphics are fine, the game plays fine, and even the online multiplayer is a nice addition (although it doesn't run all that smoothly). My issue with Frogger is the soundtrack. That's great that you want to update the soundtrack a bit, but at least give me an option to use the original track if I so desire. If you do this with any of your other games, especially Symphony of the Night, there's going to be an issue.

I talked to Konami representatives a little while ago, and I specifically asked them where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games were. I was told that the company was well aware of the demand and the Turtles will hopefully be coming in the future. From my understanding it's a licensing issue that Konami is dealing with that's holding up progress on the Turtles. At least Konami is working on the issue so hopefully we'll have some online TMNT games in the future.

Capcom

You piss me off sometimes Capcom. How is it that you can put your classics on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable over and over again, and even put them on mobile phones, but you can't do a proper port for Xbox Live Arcade? It's bad enough that we got Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting instead of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, but the more I play Hyper Fighting, the less I like it. The ranking system is pathetic, simply pathetic. It takes me upwards of 10 minutes to get into a ranking match, then I can't even see who I'm playing until the match is over (unless I want to take extra time to look at my recent players list via the dashboard), and on top of all that, I can't even setup a rematch with the person. It's great that Quarter Match is included, but why is there no ranking version of Quarter Match? Why is the only option I have in searching for ranking matches voice support on or off? Why doesn't the cursor default to the best available connection?

I could go on and on about the issues with Hyper Fighting, but instead I'll make one simple request. Capcom, when you release Super Street Fighter II, fix all of the things that are wrong with Hyper Fighting. You made everyone wait months for Hyper Fighting and the game is extremely poor in terms of performance. On top of that, where are all the rest of your classics? Give me some Mega Man, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (this game is on the Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation, Dreamcast and mobile phones, but you can't make an XBLA version?!), Ghosts 'n Goblins, Final Fight, Saturday Night Slam Masters, 19XX (I don't care which one), Bionic Commando... the list goes on and on. Hyper Fighting is the fastest selling XBLA game to date, now get off your asses and get us some more games... or at least some announcements.

Continue...