When I first heard of this release into the XBLA library, I was pumped.  I played this game for hours when I got the arcade equivalent for the NES.  This game’s beauty was its simplicity.  The controls were easy, and there was no real upgrades or special moves, just a good old fashioned button smashing brawler.  Upon playing this game this afternoon, I was thoroughly disappointed.  Here is the breakdown of some of the facets of Double Dragon:

Presentation and Graphics: The game looks polished and was impressed with the new graphics.  The mullets looked good as well.  The level designs were still simple and still side scrolling at that is what is expected.  The enemies as well as the “dragons” had defined outlines.  The menus were pretty standard for a Live Arcade Game as well as the in-game screen with the dragon theme around it.  4 of 5

Sound and Music: The music was classic and straight from the 80’s.  I booted up an emulated version of the NES game and it sounds almost exact, but obviously better on my surround sound system.  The in-game sounds when fighting are par for the course. Not much going on here, but there were distinct sound bytes for when getting punched, kicked, or hit with a barrel.  Nothing special, but all around very good. 3 of 5

Gameplay: This is where the game takes an absolute nose dive. First, the controls are not good.  Punch and kick are different buttons, but both attack in the same direction. WTF?  That was the coolest thing in the original games.  Enemies will get behind you, but you can’t him them with a kick like before.  You need to avoid these situations at all cost which is very very difficult.  The game really dies in the collision detection.  An enemy can be the same distance away, and one time your punch will reach and one time it will not.  Not cool.  You can get hit about 8 times before you die and losing energy because of poor collision is not what you want.  Controls feel unpolished and very buggy.  The game lost me here.  1 of 5.

Multiplayer: You can play on Live with a friend and can also team up with a buddy sitting next to you but other than that, not much else.  This was expected though. 3 of 5

Lasting Appeal: There are 12 achievements totalling 200 points.  Some are normal and some just absurd. Such as “Batter Up” which asks you to finish a stage 3 times holding a bat. All that for 10 pts!  Seems the achievements are solely there to make you play the game longer because the gameplay is so, so bad. 1.5 of 5

Final Word: This game had tons and tons of potential.  For the most part, its really decent in the way it looks and sounds, but the way it plays just is not worth the 400 points.  I really wanted this to be good, and it pains me to tell you that its just not worth it.  Unless you are an absolute Double Dragon junkie, just play the demo and you will see what I mean.

Overall: 2 of 5

1 = Not worth the bandwidth.

2= Demo is enough, not worth your money.

3= Game is good, depending on the price, seriously consider picking it up.

4= Worth your money. Should provide some good times for quite awhile.

5= Buy the game. Lock your door. Pick up a case of beer. This could take all night.