Midway Arcade Treasures (PS2)

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

A Huge Selection of in My view Some of the best games to hit the arcades all those years ago,
and now for your playstation 2.
If retro gaming is your thing, this is for you, Not all the sounds and controls are the same as the
original Arcade Versions, but with a little practice, and effort, you should master these Classics
in no time, Amongst these titles, must be one that you remember playing, but this time you dont
need a pocket full of change for your credits.

Nostalgic Game Play at its Best, hours of fun, This should be in every games collection, invite
your friends round and have a Retro Games Party, These games are the Front runners of what we
have today.

Even My Children Like playing these, and if they are hooked, that should tell you
something, because they are the worst critics, and the hardest to please, instead of being board in
minutes, or saying these are "Rubbish", They Love them, you even get a bonus DVD with loads
of facts and other things all game related......

Midway Arcade Treasures deserves a try, see for yourself

What you do get is a lazy conversion job of a mixed bag of old games. One or two of them are pretty good, Gauntlet springs to mind, although Gauntlet has been made a touch too easy with the ability to keep topping up your health (like having unlimited credits) Defender looks and plays pretty much like it did back in the day in the arcades, and Sinistar is still rock hard.

On the other hand the rest of the bunch seem a little lacklustre at best, and downright stinking at worst. Super Sprint suffers really badly and is almost impossible to control with a joypad (you just keep crashing into the walls) which gets really annoying very quickly.

As for the 'bonus' stuff on the disk, a few interviews which are exactly the same footage, at exactly the same (poor quality) resolution as Midway's 'Arcade Party Pak' for the PS1, and some 'trivia' which is just kinda 'blah, why bother?' The worst sin here is that there isn't even an interview with the Gauntlet team, and Gauntlet was by far the 'biggest' game to be included on the disc, so you really are just going to be buying this for the games.

The egyptian pyramid theme that acts as an interface between the games is not exactly helpful either, makes the whole thing harder to navigate than it needs to be, and it looks pretty shabby too.

Now I know this is fairly cheap as PS2 discs go, but it really shouldn't be on sale for anything more than five pounds, anything more just makes it bad value for money (and yes I do feel a bit of a mug for buying it) When you compare it with the emulators that are available for the PC then it comes way down the list.

So why have I given it two stars and not one? Because even if it is a pretty lazy conversion job there are bound to be a few games on it that you will be able to play and enjoy, for a short while anyway. At least you will if you don't come at it with high expectations. Overall then, better to give it a miss unless you really have to have one of the games on here (and you better hope that the game you want has reasonable controls for the PS2!)