Midway Arcade Treasures 2 PS2 Review

The original Midway Arcade Treasures was quite a success, we were surprised and Midway probably was as well. It just goes to show that old games still appeal to those who can get past the rather ugly forefronts, which – as the sales of the original seem to suggest – is quite a lot of people. Midway was bound to follow up with a new collection of old games.

It’s good to see that each of the games have their own bonus content and some even boast interview material, although it’s just a shame that a lot of these interviews are poor in sound quality. On the brighter side, at least every single one of the games on the disc has some part in slotting into gaming history, even if they do happen to be some obscure title, which wouldn’t sell a copy in this day and age.

Ok lets talk games, lots and lots of games – starting with the good ones. We were glad to see the inclusion of Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, which are quite simply the best two titles in the series. The original was omitted and the scraps were left for the upcoming release of Mortal Kombat Deception, but we don’t care about its absence, as it wasn’t very good anyway. The first 3D racing game, Hard Drivin is also present and still is pretty decent and enjoyable stuff, how we love that stunt course. APB is also a fun and comical little title, which paved the way for titles such as the GTA series. Then there’s NARC and Total Carnage, which are both fast and frantic shooters, one being the first 16-bit coin op and the other the sequel to Smash TV, whilst the first ever third person shooter, Xybots is still pretty good fun, even if time has had an obvious impact. Championship Sprint has some well-designed tracks and a rapid pace. Prehistoric brawler, Primal Rage is brutally reminiscent of Mortal Kombat but with dinosaurs instead of people, a recipe for success and quite good with it too. Timber has you chopping trees down and avoiding obstacles, which works better than we thought it would as a game. Kozmik Kroozr and Wacko share the same character, but are both very different titles, one is a lot like Space Invaders and the other is like a game of snap, but with aliens. Finally for the decent to good games, there’s Gauntlet II, which is relentless and class.

Average to terrible games include Spy Hunter II which is a poor relation to the excellent original title and Rampage World II has you tearing down buildings with big dinosaurs and monkeys, which becomes stale after the second level, notable though is the fact that the game is the newest title on the disc, from 1997 to be precise. Xenophobe and Wizard of Wor are really quite average, but in comparison to the abominable Pit Fighter they’re absolute classics. Arch Rivals is one of the first over the top basketball titles and Cyberball is a take on American football but with robots, and we still don’t understand the rules.

So it’s a fantastic collection that has a lot of goodness and little to call terrible. It’s just a shame that the included interviews have to be so poor in quality, at least all the rest of the disc is presented respectably and the best thing about it, is that there are many hours of gaming waiting to be revisited or explored for the very first time.

8/10