I played this today with Mr. Singh.
The graphics are better than the arcade, definitely. The stage was one from Model 3 Spike Out Final Edition, the one where you fight in the street with the big bridge to the right and the truck blocking your way. Character modeling is big and burly and the dudes have a lot of "weight" to them. The guys are slightly different, I don't think Spike and Linda are in the game
We played a 4-player LIVE game. It was pretty okay, but there were two problems:
1.) The bad guys are dumb in Live mode. REAL dumb. I played 1-player and got my ass handed to me, but in Live mode we all managed to finish the demo without losing a single life, or even 10% of our health bars. The bosses in Spikeout were always a bitch, but now they're pathetically easy. I don't know if this is lag compensation or what, but it sucks.
2.) THERE WERE NO WEAPONS IN THIS BUILD! In Spikeout there is usually lots of shit lying around to beat the hell out of people with, and there were NONE in this one! I hope they just haven't implemented in this build, because a Spikeout without weapons would be RETARDED.
Oh, in other Amusement Vision News, I played Monkey Ball for Xbox and it was virtually indistinguishable from the GC version and stuff.