Fact: Double Dragon on XBLA is a complete and abject failure.

Written by Dan Zuccarelli

Friday, 11 May 2007 05:31

This picture to the right perfectly illustrates the look on my face after 23 seconds of playing Double Dragon on the Xbox Live Arcade.

To put it plainly and simply, Double Dragon is the biggest ripoff that Microsoft has ever had on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and I am taking into account the horse armor and the COG tag location videos. Charging $5 dollars for this game is $5.25 too much.

Remember way way way back in the old days, when you get a game that had a ton of enemies on screen at once how the game would slow down at some points? Well it's back!

Whoever's responsible for this mess was unable to make a 20 year old game run smoothly on a brand new cutting edge game system. It'd be comical if it weren't true. Somehow I can play Dead Rising with a few hundred zombies moving around at once, but Double Dragon slows to a crawl when there's 4 characters or more onscreen. It's a fucking travesty and how this ever got out of testing is beyond me.

I've seen some quick cash grabs in my time but this one takes the cake. Trying to play online with a friend is nearly impossible what with the slow-down and all. It ruins anything nice I might have had to say about this game. Sure the improved graphics look good, but it don't matter 2 whips if you can't play the damn thing. If you want to play Double Dragon, looks elsewere.

It earns a half point merely for being Double Dragon, and another .5 for keeping the intro where your girlfriend gets slugged in the gut and carried off by the bad guys.

This Game Sucks!

Comments (7) Add Comment

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written by Jim Squires, May 11, 2007

I'll never forget your eagerness the other night. It made my week.

"Did you get Double Dragon yet?? Get it !! Get it now so we can play together!!"

"Dan - did you even play the trial version?"

"I want my 5 dollars back."

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written by Miles Moore, May 11, 2007

I don't know if you guys took this into account or not, but the same thing happens on the original game.

I don't know if they rebuilt the whole game or not, but the reason for the slow down is because of all the sprites on screen at the same time. The hardware back in the day could not handle it. Same thing happens in most NES games, like Mario Bros. 3 when you had a bunch of goombas on screen.

If they did rebuild the whole game, and then this thing still happens. Then that is stupid and no one should buy this ever.

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written by The bits bytes pixels sprites , May 14, 2007

[...] What we’ve been playing (What’s wrong with Double Dragon and Calling All Cars) [...]

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written by Frank, June 12, 2007

Its because its being emulated. All they did was build an interface and give it some updated graphics but the game play is still running threw an arcade emulator.

I tried the trial a little bit and had some fun, been thinking about getting it, but i never had it were it had more then 3 players yet... Ill try it again and see if the trial gives me more then 3 guys just to see if its really as bad as you say it is, but i did love it in the arcade back in the day.

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written by Paul Acevedo, July 01, 2007

This article is ridiculous. The slowdown was present in the arcade and the author doesn't even know that? I'm quite happy with an arcade-perfect Double Dragon. It's a shame that some "fans" aren't.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, July 01, 2007

I actually did know that...

"Remember way way way back in the old days, when you get a game that had a ton of enemies on screen at once how the game would slow down at some points? Well itâ€™s back!"

And if you're happy with it, rock on. Everyone can dig whatever they like... diff'rent strokes make the world go round.

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written by Yonah, December 20, 2007

The game is slow in the arcade too, I'm not sure why they released a game with such underpowered hardware. For the home version, they should have given you the option to play at the original "Arcade Speed" and an "Improved Speed". Again, I wonder sometimes if they ever beta test games... ever. However, this is another case where it's better to emulate it on a PC with Mame, because at least then you can overclock the game to 200% and it plays pretty decent.