This review is of Shaolin-Lin's Road for the Xbox 360 Game Room. Originally this game was released for Arcade. This was back in 1985. I was old enough to play video-games back in 85 already but can't remember playing this previously.
Currently Shaolin-Lin's Road is one of the better looking games on Game Room and most likely the one most approachable thanks to it's nice colourful background and sprites. This was the case at least before the third Game Pack.
Shaolin Monastery is actual location in China and it is known for it's relation to Chinese Martial Arts, popularly called Kung Fu. Your character is called Lee and your purpose is to escape from this named Monastery. This sounds awfully cliched and simple but remember this was made back in 1985.
The grand escape is done over five different levels where you fight hordes of Triads on your way out. Each level has two stages which all increase in difficulty. Also on each of the second stages there is a boss appearing. The bosses have more exotic attacks and require couple more hits. The normal goons can be taken down with one hit. Each stage has three to four different platform levels which you need to use to be able to avoid them nasty Triads. Lee can only take three hits before he loses a life.
This being originally a arcade game the controls are simple. One button for kicking, one for jumping and the directional pad for moving the hero. This might sound simple but using the cliched term: easy to learn, difficult to master is very suitable. It is possible to just kick your way through the game, but you will get more points when doing jump kicks. And you will still need to keep on moving to be able to dodge the baddies coming at you.
You either love or loath the Game Room setting with avatars, rooms with the silly themes. But you can not argue on how well Shaolin-Lin's Road and the other classics have been presented. This is no doubt one of the better games on Game Room now, being more modern type game. With the leaderboards and challenges everyone can enjoy this game and get into the same high score hunt feel of good ol' 70-80's.
Music for Shaolin-Lin's Road is the original chirpy 8-bit sid music. The overall theme has a nice catcy oriental feel. Not for everyone, but i absolutely love chiptune music.
Rating a 25 year old game that I've never played on the original hardware is not easy. To use the same format I use with all the games I play. Start from full score and deduct points according to the flaws. That is not easy because there isn't really lot to complain here. One thing I would mention has nothing to do with the original game but the Game Room generally. In my opinion Microsoft's pricing is bit high. They have done fine fan-service here but it doesn't fully justify the limited content you are getting. (Yes I am cheap)
To conclude, half point off the score because of the price. Other half off for the lack of content since game doesn't have too much variety. Still a solid game and I if you are looking for your first Game Room game this is ideal candidate.