Midway Arcade Treasures 3

"3...2...1...RUSH!= Fun! Fun! Fun!"

The third game in the ever popular Midway Arcade Treasures series, this time focusing on pure racing. Perfect ports/emulations? Or totally trashed slapped together cash-in? Here is my review for the GCN version of MAT3:

Gameplay: (9.6, rounded to 10) 10/10

I'm going to make an exception here and start with the Gameplay, which has usually been the last part I mention in my reviews. Games included in MAT3 are: Rush 2049, Hydro Thunder, Rush: The Rock, Off-Road Thunder, Race Drivin', S.T.U.N Runner, Badlands, Super Off-Road and Super Off-Road Bonus Tracks Pak. As you can see, unlike past MAT collections, this one is pure racing and nothing else.

Rush 2049: 10/10

The best, most popular and featured game in this collection. Rush 2049 delivers the same gameplay as previous Rush games with fast moving cars and loads of jumps and hidden shortcuts. However, the game happens in the future and you get a plethora of vehicles, options, and tracks. You get six cars at the beginning, with many unlockable ones you get later. Cars are fully customizable: you can change tires, transmissions, engines, rims, paint jobs, etc. You can also choose how many drones (racers) appear and add fog to the tracks and make them more difficult. The game is also packed with modes like Single races, Stunt mode, battle mode, Ghost mode, Circuit, etc. Most support up to 4-players and feature multiple tracks. Great fun, easily my favorite game in MAT3.

Hydro Thunder 9/10

A 3-D boat racing game. You start with 3 easy mode tracks, and your goal is to place in the top 3 at the finish line in all 3 tracks to unlock more tracks. You do the same thing until all tracks are unlocked, only it gets more difficult thanks to computer AI AI getting increased in later tracks and the fact that you need to place second or first.

Rush: The Rock: 9/10

Sequel or enhanced? I don't know. Some sources say Rush: The Rock is the sequel to the original Rush (Rush: Extreme Racing), while other sources say it's an improved version of the original game with more tracks and more music. Whatever it is, sequel or enhanced version, Rock is a pretty cool game. A total of seven tracks with loops, shortcuts, and jumps are included. It's cool, but a problem with Rock in MAT3 is 1.The framerate dips more than the Arcade version and 2.It's not possible to play with 2 players (In the Arcade version you can)...meh, not a huge loss but the game is not as fun as it was in the Arcade.

Off-Road Thunder: 10/10

Off-Road Thunder is still a pretty recent game. The game was released in 2000. Like the Rush games and pretty much all games in this collection, the game is loaded with jumps. However, sometimes it can be even more insane than Rush 2049. In one track, you'll make a huge jump like 50 feet in the air over the audience and onto another half of the track. The game is part of Midway's "Thunder" series, so it plays alot like Hydro Thunder. You will be collecting two different kinds of Nitro: one that lasts for 3 seconds and another that doubles to 6 seconds. It's basically Hydro Thunder, but happening on dirt tracks and the jumps are alot more insane.

Race Drivin': 9/10

A classic 3-D racer released in 1990. Like Rock, I'm not sure if this is just an improved game or a sequel. Race Drivin' has the same graphics, sound, gameplay and animation as an Arcade game called Hard Drivin'. It also contains the same track that was in Hard Drivin', but adds quite a few new things: the new Autocross track where you try and complete laps as fast as possible and enter the Race Drivin' Championship races, and the Super Stunt track, which includes ramps, jump loops, corkscrew loops, a full pipe, etc. Unfortunately, the game is not quite as fun as it was in the Arcade. Race Drivin' featured a steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, clutch, drivers seat, gear shift, start up key, etc. and felt like real driving. However, here you just use your controller (Well, yeah, of course) and it's a bit more simplified thanks to the lack of hardware that was featured on the games' cabinet. You have a selection of three cars. The car selection screen shows 4 cars (2 new ones not in Hard Drivin'), but 2 of them are really the same two cars just with different transmissions.

S.T.U.N Runner: 9/10

S.T.U.N Runner is a pretty cool game. First you choose a difficulty setting, and then you drive through more than 30 tracks. Your goal is to make it to each tracks finish line, of course. But you need to shoot a bunch of other machines that cut you off, shoot at you, and slow you down. There's also green stars on the tracks that you can run over. Run over a certain amount, and you get a shockwave weapon that you can use once that is as large as the TV screen and clears anything in your path (Except the track and it's ramps, of course). Fun.

Badlands: 8/10

Alot like Super Sprint (An Arcade game released in 1986). You race on 2-D tracks against a couple of computer controlled cars, and need to win in first place. However, a nice addition here is that you can use weapons making sort of a combination of the best of Super Sprint and R.C. Pro Am.

Super Off-Road/Bonus tracks Pak: 10/10

I always enjoyed Super Off-Road on my SNES (For 16 tracks), and on my NES (For four player multiplayer). Aside from the lack of an Ivan "Ironman" Stewart (Champion Off-Road driver) license, Super Off-Road looks, sounds and plays like it always has in the Arcades and on consoles. Before starting races you can tune up your truck by purchasing tires, shocks, engines, top speed, etc. Then you begin a race against 3 racers. There are 8 different tracks, though you will also drive in the other direction in the tracks sometimes. "Bonus Tracks Pak" is actually the other half of Super Off-Road, not an entire game itself. It's not a sequel or remake of Super Off-Road: It plays exactly the same and has the same quality graphics, but has 8 new tracks, new music and gives you the choice of the original truck or a Dune Buggy. Super Off-Road is very fun, and is worth trying at least once.

Graphics: 8/10

Most of the games included are recent Arcade games with full 3-D tracks.

Rush 2049

Rush 2049 still looks good today. It uses the same aliasing support as the DC version which results in ultra smooth graphics with no sign of any pixels, and little polygon tearing. An almost constant 60 FPS, car reflections, explosions, realistic lighting effects, etc. resulted in jaw-dropping graphics at the time (1999) and are still impressive today. There's also very little pop-up and the draw-in distance is maxed out with nearly no fade-in/fog. Graphically, 2049 is probably the most realistic in this collection.

Hydro Thunder

Hydro Thunder is basically the same quality, though since it's a boat racing game it's mostly water. The water looks nice. It changes a little depending on where you are and you can see reflections, waves, and sometimes see what's under the water (Such as cars or the bottom of some buildings, as seen in the games' New York Disaster track). The boats themselves don't have reflections, but have impressive lighting effects and shading that changes when you enter caves which brings the boats and tracks to life. For those who're wondering, the version of Hydro Thunder in MAT3 is also the Dreamcast version, not the Arcade or N64 versions.

Rush: The Rock

Rush: The Rock is (Graphically) an N64 quality game. The tracks are in full 3-D, have aliasing support and is also somewhat glitchy. It's all pretty much what you would see in an N64 game. The most impressive is the cars themselves, which have very realistic reflections and shading.

Off-Road Thunder

Off-Road Thunder is only a 5 year old game, and obviously the graphics are going to be at least Dreamcast quality. Weather effects (Rain, snow flakes, etc.), shading and anti-aliasing enhance the realism and generally the game looks good. Reflections would've been nice, but I am in no way expecting it. After all, it's an Arcade game and is really focused on the gameplay.

Race Drivin'

One of the first 3-D Arcade and racing games. Race Drivin' has flat shaded 3-D graphics that had extreme realism for it's time. Signs, barns, bridges, everything is all in 3-D and is clear and sharp. They're outdated now, of course, and you won't find any reflections and lighting effects here. The graphics really show that they're outdated, because the game is full of jagged edges, pixels and occasionally you'll see the track you're on disappear for a second! Not a problem though, this was released in 1990 after all.

S.T.U.N Runner

S.T.U.N Runner also has flat shaded 3-D graphics and polygon models. Almost as good as Race Drivin', but S.T.U.N Runner had and still does have a choppy framerate making it slightly less stunning. Certainly good at the time, certainly outdated now of course. What I like is, though, that the tracks in the game almost always change colors. The games' full of different colors for the tracks, and that's quite a feat for a 3-D game released in 1989 that has a ton of tracks.

Badlands

Not too impressive. Badlands is mostly about the gameplay, just like all the games in this compilation. The game appears to be similar to Super Sprint (which was in MAT1), and has 2-D cars and tracks.

Super Off-Road/Bonus Tracks Pak:

Like Badlands, Super Off-Road is a 2-D racer. It looks like a Super Nintendo quality game.

Controls: 7/10

All the games have basically the same controls. Your R button is the Gas pedal (Except for in S.T.U.N Runner), L is brake and Control Stick and (In some games) Control Pad steer. It took me about 1/2 an hour to get used to the controls. Sadly, there's no controller configuration for any of the games. However, it does make sense for some of the games. Super Off-Road, Badlands and Race Drivin' had Gas and Brake pedals with Analog control, and the L and R buttons are fully analog and preserve the analog Gas and Brake controls for those games. It's a little odd that Midway decided to keep the pics of the steering wheel and gas pedal (You see these on the track selection screens) for Rock and Off-Road Thunder when they were ported, not emulated.

Extras: 8/10

When I saw a press release for MAT3 on Midways site, I was a bit disappointed that there was no mentioning of any extras. Collecting 8.5 games on one disc is good and the GCN disc is pretty much full, but I was still hoping for at least a couple extras...ads, sketches, history, etc. So I checked the game out, and every game has some bonus DVD content just like all of Midway's past GCN games. Included are some advertisements, tech spec info, history, etc. Also, available from the main menu is extra MAT3 content (Not content for the games contained in this disc). Nothing exciting, but other content includes an Ed, Edd and Eddy trailer and the MAT3 credits. There's also a never before seen MAT3 trailer that plays if you just hang around and do nothing on the games' main menu. There's also options for changing the screen size, game difficulty, etc. and more.

Overall: 9/10

If you have and liked the other MAT games, like the Rush games, Super Off-Road or racing games in general, MAT3 is a must have for your GCN collection. Otherwise, at least rent it for a day or two.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/17/05, Updated 12/19/05