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Classic Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Midway Arcade Treasures Released, Rated 38

Posted by simoniker from the walking-in-a-retro-wonderland dept.
Thanks to GamerFeed for their news that Midway Arcade Treasures for the PlayStation 2 has shipped, with the "next-generation console offering of more than 20 classic arcade games" also due on November 24th for Xbox and December 17th for GameCube. This budget-priced compilation, previously mentioned on Slashdot and including Gauntlet, Paperboy, Marble Madness and Robotron: 2084 among many others, is basically well-received by IGN PS2, who suggests that "many of the games on the disc retain their fun and addictiveness, even to today's standards", but GameSpot is somewhat less impressed, commenting: "Games that feature analog input feel very loose and are hard to control", although noting that "...almost every game... is completely and totally enjoyable once you get a handle on how they play."
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Midway Arcade Treasures Released, Rated More

Midway Arcade Treasures Released, Rated

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  • A game I was never able to beat on my NES. Perhaps this time around I'll fare a bit better with analog controls.

  • Blatant linkola (Score:3, Informative)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @08:38AM (#7510089) Homepage
    Interview with Jeff Vavasour, one of the developers of Midway Arcade Treasures, in three parts:
    Part 1 [curmudgeongamer.com] on technical questions about emulation
    Part 2 [curmudgeongamer.com] on the business of emulation
    Part 3 [curmudgeongamer.com] on personal questions and the future of emulation
  • Eh...

    These guys often differ on things by quite a large margin...

    IGN raved about FF X-2, while Gamespot seemed only slightly impressed by it.

    Go figure.
  • Though MAME is free and ROMs are cheap, this is a good collection of games for $20.

    I suppose you lose the satisfaction of building your own MAME box, but if access to your old favorite games is the goal, this provides them with little effort or cash.
    • This collection is legal though. Possessing a rom without accually owning it is still illegal. Even if the company that made the rom is no longer in buisness.

      • Re:Competitor to MAME? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Ahhh, there's a company out there LEGALLY selling licensed ROMs for download. This was reported on /. last month. Where have you been?
        • Been right here. The company is StarROMs [starroms.com]. They have have quite a few Atari ROMs, but none from Midway. The point still stands - not only is this collection a bargain at $20, it's the only legal way to play these games on your PS2.

  • Gamecube Release Date? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Saige ( 53303 )
    GameFaqs [gamefaqs.com] still has the Gamecube release of Midway Arcade Treasures listed as Dec. 1st, unlike the 17th listed here - anyone know of any statements by Midway or whoever that can confirm the release date for it?

    I am planning on getting it the day it comes out - regardless of the fact that I already have all of these games for MAME on my PC - and not only do I have all of them, for many of them I have mutliple different romsets. Gauntlet, for example, seems to have as many as 15-20 romsets, with various rele
    • It's not easy, but it's possible to use analog sticks to give the same kind of fine-degree control of trackballs.

      Gauntlet II: I guess they've got to give people at least *one* reason to buy a sequel?
    • You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.

      +1 Informative for the MAR link too, had I the points; but the tagline is outstanding! (-:

      I wonder, do you happen to have another tagline kicking around on the topic of man-unmade gods?

  • Problem w/ marble madness? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @10:52AM (#7511081) Homepage
    I wonder how Marble Madness translates given the fact that interfaces are so different-- the arcade version had a single trackball for movement as opposed to the control pads of today. Part of the difficulty of the arcade game was overcoming the intracacies of the control mechanism. To a lesser extent the same goes for paperboy.

    • I just hope I can get a custom controller when the next compilation features Tapper [basementarcade.com].
    • Part of the difficulty of the arcade game was overcoming the intracacies of the control mechanism.

      The trackball was the most sensible control that could have existed for that game. You had a direct relationship to direction and speed with your marble.

      Digital controls are awful for this because they're always 100% at certain direction. Analog sticks are better because you can have varying pressure, but even then it's possible to do things like quick reverses with the stick that just don't make sense with
  • Can anyone tell me why they're not bringing this out for the Playstation 1? Doing that will open it up to a much larger audience. I hardly think the games require the power of the PS2!?! Strange.
    • I believe Midway have already released a bunch of these retro-styled titles for PS1 - one of them is Arcade Party Pak [gamefaqs.com], and there are a few others.

      As for why they've targeted PS2, I think people like the idea of buying a new PS2 game with the content, even if it could theoretically be done on a PS1. Also, Xbox and GameCube don't have such decent backwards-compatible options, heh.
    • Actually, many of the games on the collection have been released before on the PS1 on one of the following collections:

      William's Arcade's Greatest Hits
      Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1
      Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 1
      Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2
      Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2
      Arcade Party Pak
      Atari Anniversary Edition Redux
      and there's also Konami Arcade Classics

      FYI A few of the games also don't work on the PS2

  • About the Gamespot review. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mogomra ( 654796 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @12:00PM (#7511674) Homepage Journal
    1. From the article: Stargate (called Defender II in this and most other classic game packages for some mysterious reason). There's no mystery about it. Stargate's name was changed to Defender II for home versions because of legal issues. The KLOV entry is here [klov.com], but I believe this was even in the notes of previous compilations.
    2. The reviewer gripes about the quality of the interview videos that were carried over from previous releases. I wonder if he would complain more or less if the videos weren't included.
    3. Overall, I think the whole review is a little too harsh, considering you're getting more than twenty cames for $20! Come on...
  • I have the classic collections for my GBA and this one looks like a keeper as well.
    Maybe more game companies will see there is still some $$$ in their classic games, and release them again, for the cube, gba, PS2, etc.
    I, for one, would love to see Rampage, N.A.R.C. and other arcade classics comeback.

  • The games, rated (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) * <johnwh AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @02:44PM (#7513145) Homepage
    Spy Hunter: Cool, but I consider it overrated.

    Defender: *EXTREMELY* cool, but very, very hard. Can you believe people have gotten over 10 million points on this game? I can't break 50k, and I know what I'm doing dammit!

    Gauntlet: There are no words for how cool this is. Unless you count the pretty-cool (yet misguided) home versions of Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy, this is the first home version of "real" Gauntlet since the Genesis. Why are home versions of G:L and G:DL misguided? BECAUSE THEY LEFT OUT TIMED HEALTH LOSS! That broke the design in so many ways, and slowed down their pace tremendously.

    Joust: Extremely cool, though not the first emulated commercial version. (The Dreamcast has the best, I think.) Excellent learning curve, I can get past ten waves without much difficulty, and is less frantic than, oh, Defender or Robotron.

    Paperboy: A nifty game, but there have been many home versions. I've never had the chance to go up against the arcade version.

    Rampage: One of the biggest draws on the disc, this is a game I never really got into. Three-player play, however, you can't fault that.

    Marble Madness: Very hard, but very cool. This is one of my favorite arcade games of all time, but these days I feel like I'm in the minority here. Maybe it's because I spent so many hours on the Commodore 64(!) port.

    Robotron: 2084: The coolest game on the disc! Hard but fair. This is probably the most classic arcade game in existence. Dual joystick controls will make this almost the same experience as in the arcade, for the first time at home.

    Smash TV: This is basically a reprise of Robotron with much better graphics, power-ups and two-player co-op play. This makes it very cool. But the game lost a little of the purity of the original design. Also, collecting keys is kinda annoying. There is a lesser-known sequel to this,
    Total Carnage, with much more varied gameplay that was heavily influenced by the first Gulf War. Maybe for the sequel, though it may strike some as horrendously politically-incorrect.

    Joust 2: The little-known sequel to Joust, this is probably the first time most gamers will see it outside of MAME. Not bad, but I like the original much better.

    Bubbles: A severely underrated Williams game, I got well-acquainted with it on the Dreamcast compilation. I'd say it's impossible to play this one indefinitely, but what do I know, I've never finished eight waves of Defender.

    RoadBlasters: I know very little about this, except that it was originally made by Atari.

    Stargate (aka Defender II): Defender's more complicated cousin, an upgrade in almost every respect. I'm actually better at this than Defender, because the player has an extra weapon (Inviso), and because with more enemies the player can earn more points, which means more extra lives. I've finished ten waves of this before, but never fifteen, again, very cool but very hard.

    Moon Patrol: Memorize the patterns and you can play forever. Very cool music and sound effects, and they say there's no sound on the moon (check Overclocked Remix for a great take on it). This is actually an Irem game, I believe, that Williams licensed.

    Blaster: I know absolutely nothing about this?!

    Rampart: THE best multiplayer arcade game, hands down, in my opinion. Three players trying to kill each other in this wonderful action-strategy-puzzle-war game is an unequaled experience. If Atari kept putting out games like Rampart maybe they'd still be around. I dearly love this game, and I personally rank it above Robotron, but I've already ranted about it on Slashdot enough times already, I think. Fun fact: This is the *TENTH* home version of Rampart, and every single ever-lovin' one of them, it seems, has had slightly different rules. Especially the freaky Japan-only Konami port for the Famicom, yowza.

    Sinistar: Another game I can't play well for the life of me, but still enjoy. Like rubber Asteroids with a malevolent planet cha
    • IIRC: Satan's Hollow was like Galaga/Space Invaders, but the object was to build a bridge to escape to the next level while you shot down the flying insects that carried the bridge parts.

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