a disc so as to claim some delicious, delicious retail shelf space. It’s a good way to get

caught up on a wide swath of the downloadable gaming scene... and, depending on when and

how you obtain the disc, can save you a healthy bit of coin. It might be a three-pack, like

Qubed; it might be closer to a half-dozen, like Microsoft’s own XBLA compilations.

But Capcom looks to up the ante by jamming together eight - count ‘em, eight - titles

onto one scrawny piece of plastic. That’s a piece of plastic full of hopes, dreams,

gems, airplanes, bullets, extendy-arm-thingies, garbage can burgers, sheep, bad acting, and

T.Hawk. You’ve been warned.

You’ve got your iconic heavy-hitters: the HD remakes of Super Street Fighter II Turbo

and Super Puzzle Fighter II, pretty much the epitome of two-player combat (and/or puzzlery).

Up near those is the beautiful 1942: Joint Strike, a slap in the face to the emergent

bullet-hell sensibility and a hearkening back to when “arcade” meant a place with weird

smells and a change machine. You’ve got Wolf of the Battlefield AKA Commando 3, a

rebuild of the classic walk-and-gun shooter and, to this day, the closest we’ve got

to a true sequel to Gun.Smoke. I’m sorry, Gun(period)Smoke. And, if you’re like me,

just mentioning that game has the music playing in your head. Also on the higher end of the

disc is the epithetically-named Flock!, a delightful little number about scaring the

bejeezus out of livestock before abducting them on your gumdrop-shaped flagship named,

of course, the Motherflocker.

But not every segment of this polymer round is a winner. Though I know plenty of folks

love Final Fight, I can’t help but feel that the HD remake is little more than busywork.

Microachievements within microachievements, and no attempt to address the balance issues

of the original... This one’s turkeys all the way down. I’m also not much a fan of

Bionic Commando Rearmed, much as I appreciate the attempts to carry through some of the

jankier aspects of the original, like the weird pistol-holding. Unfortunately, one of

those janky aspects carried through as the uncomfortable platforming, made even more

obnoxious now by having various foreground/background layers and not always being sure what platforms

are real. But the real low-light is Rocketmen, a mediocre two-stick shooter based on WizKids’

thankfully short-lived strategy collectable moneymaking... thing. Details on the original

property are sparse, but I can tell you that the end result is utterly forgettable... or

it would be if not for downright awful comic-book-esque cutscenes with poor vocal timing. Not even

quoting Emerson will get you out of this one, you GLaDOS-wannabe. Still, you’re under

no obligation to play it. And the unassailably-awesome 62.5% of the disc more than makes up for the

quarter that might be considered a misstep, as well as this madness.