Arcade Darts is a PSP/PS3 Mini virtual darts game. The problem with this is darts is the one sport where translating it to a system and not involving motion controls just feels not quite genuine. While a professional game of darts may have strategy involved, it goes to waste when you take away the factor of a person's throw (human factor). Arcade Darts can't solve this problem at all; the game is only able to beat you with great shots and it has no way to prevent you from scoring on the mark every single time.
The 'throwing' mechanic works by stopping the dart as it tilts left and right, then you stop the meter again as it moves up and down. The first meter determines direction and the second meter determines speed and height of the throw with the average mark being the mid point of the dart graphic itself. That right there sums up the entire experience. There is just nothing else to the game. The offerings of an Arcade mode and a Career mode are good enough, but they grow tiring when the AI has to perfect everything to counter your perfect shots.
The audio is so very mundane and nothing the game offers improves the experience or makes anything better. The most enjoyable part of the game had to be the graphics. The avatars are unintentionally hilarious looking and I'm pretty sure Ru Paul is a playable character. The characters serve little purpose and the background areas around the dart board are not distracting but so plain it doesn't matter.
It becomes a pissing contest that ends in the flip of the coin of whether the AI makes a screw up or you do. The game suffers as well from the most puzzling of all problems, loading times. A 30 second loading time for a dart game with very little happening seems ridiculous. This isn't a large game either at its tiny 23MB size. An easily breakable game with suffering load times isn't worth anyone's dollar, much less 4.
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