Midway Arcade Treasures

"A VERY hit & miss compilation of various oldschool classics that is at least a good rental despite the low price."

Ladies & gentlemen this is one of the latest attempts at a modern disc-based console making a compilation game featuring a lot of games from about a decade or two ago. This is quite possibly the biggest of the compliation titles, but is it the best? Not really...

But it certainly can be a good one, this well-intentioned above average title has 26 titles and these ghosts of arcade past in this proverbial cemetary are...

Spy Hunter, Defender, Gauntlet, Joust, Paperboy, Rampage, Marble Madness, Robotron: 2084, Smash TV, Joust 2, Bubbles, RoadBlasters, Defender II (A.K.A Stargate), Blaster, Rampart, Sinistar, Super Sprint, 720, Toobin', Klax, Satan's Hollow, Vindicators, Splat! and Root Beer Tapper

This game is quite the double-edged sword, when it comes to shooters, puzzles and the more unique action titles (such as Bubbles and Marble Madness) generally work well while racing games have HORRID controls while driving games generally have awfully mediocre control (Paperboy and Spy Hunter). The variety in this game is great even with lesser known titles such as Joust 2.

Unfortunately some of the ports are truly awful which is why I am giving this a 7 despite some good ports. If your more into racing & driving titles you'd want to lower the score down 3 or 4 numbers. I may not be a big racing fan but the way the control and gameplay went in these ports are still awful and frustrating. And while most people probably don't care too much about most of these racing titles unfortunately the classic that is Spy Hunter got a awfully sub-par port as well. While if your really into more action type games such as Joust, Gauntlet and Smash TV and Robotron 2064 then you might want to increase it by a number or two. The amount of puzzle games here are awfully small but the titles Klax and Rampart are nicely unique and fun to play games that'll most likely please genre fans. Even though the price is a VERY nice & low price of 19.99 it still might be more of a rental towards various certain gamers.

One REALLY nice other feature (which actually makes me wonder if I am being a little too harsh on this one) is the History lesson features it gives on all the games. They are very nice & informative which serves its purpose quite nicely which makes the game more worthwhile. Its not perfectly made but its certainly good nevertheless. However some games such as Satan's Hollow and Splat! do feel & play like they were well ported but they weren't all that great games by themselves. (They're not ATROCIOUS games just not great.) One thing to remember is that all these games are VERY directly ported from the arcades so some titles indirectly let you cheat by continuing as often as you like. (Though its mainly on Toobin' and Gauntlet.)

Its a flawed hit & miss title that can still be quite fun. However for the most part the REALLY famous titles (aside from Spy Hunter) such as Joust, Robotron 2084, Gauntlet, Marble Madness, Smash TV, Defender, Sinistar, Klax, Bubbles and Rampart. (Though some games such as Toobin', Joust 2, 760, Defender 2, Vindicators and Root Beer Tapper were alright as well). The rest were either weakly ported or weren't all that great in the first place.

Overall its not a bad game its just something to be a bit cautious on. (It could be the Playstation2's fault since I have played games on the Gamecube that have considerably better control than the PS2 versions and this title is probably not a exception.) So its just basically another one of the MANY examples of that age old descriptor of ''Good but could've been better'' kind of video games.

+ It has a HUGE amount of games from Arcade past with quite a nice variety
+ It has some VERY rare titles such as Joust 2
+ There were some games on which the control was still good.
+ Its selection on History, Interviews and even Trivia is a very nice touch
+ All the games were very direct ports from their arcade counterparts which means certain games such as Gauntlet and Toobin' have indirectly infinte continues and such.
- The control on a good amount of these games are HORRIBLE (ESPECIALLY the driving/racing games for the most part)
- Some of the games such as ''Satan's Hollow'' weren't all that great by themselves...
- The game comes through with a large list of direct arcade ports but only about half of them are really above average. (Whether it be the port work or the game itself)
- There were some games that might've been better choices for a title such as this.
- Even though its at a very nice & low price of 19.99 it still might be a rental for some people

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/03, Updated 02/16/04