The campus game room is a solace to students, which is understandable with the few great games available, but the lack of variety hurts any potential for it to be a popular scene.
It is probably the cleanest location on campus due to the strongly enforced rule against food and drink, the game room isn’t a place you need to avoid.
People that aren’t video game enthusiasts still come in to play the more socially-recognized game of billiards, but that could be changed if some conscious decisions were made about the library of games offered.
There are 12 arcade cabinets in the game room, seven of which are fighting games. That wouldn’t be so bad if all the fighters were actually enjoyable.
“Marvel vs. Capcom 2” is a fan favorite and general staple for any arcade, despite its broken game mechanics and balance. Seeing it in the game room is no surprise.
“X-Men vs. Street Fighter” was a solid game, but it has lost its relevance as a fighter and draws no players on a daily basis. A much better last-generation game would be “King of Fighters ’99.”
“SNK Vs. Capcom” is a great fighter with airtight gameplay, but the learning curve is too steep for the average casual. It’d be best to remove it for the sake of serving a wider demographic.
The “Guilty Gear” franchise is amazing, but our game room carries “Guilty Gear Isuka,” objectively the worst installment in the series. Replacing it with the first Guilty Gear game would be infinitely better than struggling to play around Isuka’s horrid controls.
“Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike” is, hands-down, the most played game besides pool, but not everyone enjoys the competition of fighting games.
While the game room also features other genres of games, like “Initial D Stage 3” for racing and “Time Crisis II” for rail shooters, there isn’t enough variety.
