If you thought 20 years ago that there would be big business in just restoring old videogames to current generation consoles you’d probably put some money into Digital Eclipse. They’ve single-handedly owned this market outside of GameTap. Their latest creation is Scramble and we’ll let’s just say that it’s probably better to wait for the next Wednesday release of an Xbox Live Arcade game.

Scramble is another one of those old school arcade games that really hasn’t been played much since the early 80s. You see, it was one of the few licenses that the Vectrex had and if you haven’t played that console, you probably have not seen this game.

In Scramble, you control a space ship. Said space ship must endure five levels before getting to the sixth and final one, which is the main base. Your ship has two shooting options: the bomb and the traditional gun. In addition to watching out for missiles and rockets, you also have to be cognizant of your fuel level. You can replenish your fuel easily by shooting at a fuel tank (just like real life, heh), but the tanks are few and far between in later levels. Once you finish out the levels you just start the process over again until you lose all your lives.

As you progress through the levels, the game gets progressively harder. First there are rockets that shoot up at you, and then there are space ships that you have to shoot. Next there are indestructible balls of fire. Then there’s a difficult maze that you have to really move your craft around Operation-style making sure not to hit the ground.

The game itself is difficult at first, but once you figure out the nuances (hey, if I fly low to the ground, the indestructible fireballs won’t get me), you’ll be able to figure it out in no time. As with all games of the early 80s, you need to recognize the patterns in the game to succeed.

Control isn’t that tight – in fact it seems very loose. Collision detection isn’t perfect as it seems that if you just breathe near a mountain you’ll crash into it. The second level involves shooting very small spaceships, and trying to hit these teeny-tiny ships you’re your teeny-tiny bullets is very difficult. The explosions in this game in enhanced mode bear a resemblance graphically and sound-wise to Time Pilot.

The updated graphics are much, much better than the epileptic inducing graphics of the old game. For some reason in 1982, someone thought it would make sense to change the color of the screen every so often. Another point for the Vectrex, it only had one color choice. The new graphics are very clean and enjoyable. They still put the “bar graph” up at the top of the screen showing you what level you are on. It always seemed rather odd to see that, as there’s not much of a reason for it.

Achievements are the usual that we’ve come to expect with all our XBLA old school games, finish a level without crashing, get points, finish a level just using bombs, get points, etc. There’s nothing new or unique here, but it’s always worth completing the challenge to get the points.

Online play is also what we’ve come to expect from Konami. There’s the split screen online multiplayer which is either competitive in which the player with the highest score wins, or co-op where the scores are added together. All of the usual complaints still apply here – screen is small, but if you make it too big and play online, you can’t see the whole screen, and so forth.

The price is the same as any other old school title – about $5. In conclusion, if you absolutely need to have those 200 GamerPoints go ahead and purchase it. If not, the audio and graphical upgrade and the multiplayer don’t make the game any more fun than it was way back when and I’d much rather play it on my Vectrex circa 1984 if given the choice. While Digital Eclipse can only work with what they’ve got, I hope next time they have better source material.