Though video games have steadily become more and more graphically intensive, complicated, and popular over the years, anyone who spent any amount of time in an arcade during the early to mid '80s cannot deny that Midway and Atari produced some of their best work to date during that period. Since the video arcade as we know it has been dying a slow death for the past decade, fewer and fewer of these classic games are available to play in the original form, and a vast number of gamers have never had the chance to play some of the greatest games of all time. On one hand, Midway Arcade Treasures is a godsend, as it features no fewer than 24 incredible games that are practically unavailable in their native format. On the other hand, some of the games featured just don't play the way they should, marring an otherwise stellar compilation. If you have any interest in classic gaming, this collection is worth a look, provided you can get used to its quirks.
The world's first vandalism/entrepreneurial sim, Paperboy.
Midway Arcade Treasures includes 24 games: Spy Hunter, Defender, Gauntlet, Joust, Paperboy, Rampage, Marble Madness, Robotron: 2084, Smash TV, Joust 2, Bubbles, RoadBlasters, Stargate (called Defender II in this and most other classic game packages for some mysterious reason), Splat!, Blaster, Rampart, Sinistar, Super Sprint, 720, Toobin', Klax, Satan's Hollow, Vindicators, and Root Beer Tapper.
Given that a large portion of the 24 games in Midway Arcade Treasures feature some sort of nonstandard controller, be it a trackball for Marble Madness, a set of handlebars for Paperboy, a 49-position joystick (as opposed to the standard eight) for Sinistar, or the obligatory steering yoke for driving games like RoadBlasters or Spy Hunter, the developers had to make a few changes to make the games playable on a standard controller. For the most part, every game is laid out as logically as possible and can simply be picked up and played. However, games that feature analog input feel very loose and are hard to control, especially when compared to the original games. While you can expect that some sacrifices have to be made when adapting an existing game to play on an entirely different set of controls, it feels as if the developers paid very little attention when it came to making sure the games played accurately. In spite of that, almost every game in Midway Arcade Treasures is completely and totally enjoyable once you get a handle on how they play.
