by:	November 02, 2004

The Midway Arcade Treasures 2 collection is definitely one of the best game collections we have ever seen with twenty titles. It is difficult to review a game collection though, especially with today’s newer titles making short work of them. So instead of tearing into the games’ age I base my review from the titles’ playability and how well of an arcade port each title is.

Obviously the two titles that will get everyone excited are Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3. These are both fantastic titles but, so many improvements were made on the two classic games in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy that, it is even easier to see their age. They are though after all arcade ports, complete with their arcade intros, moves, fatalities, and every last secret. Each of these two titles (along with all the collections titles) has special features such as promotional images used for both, commentary videos from the developers, and more. These videos help to bring you back to that time period and appreciate the titles even more. The titles aren’t without their flaws though. You will notice when you play the game the computer opponents are extremely hard to counter even when you set the difficulty lower on the game selection screen. Strangely the computer opponents also seem to do the same special moves over and over again, something I do not remember in home or arcade versions of MKII. They are sometimes to the point were you cannot even use special moves such as Scorpion’s spear move or Reptile’s sliding kick. Another naissance is that the game will screw up a few animations (being a MKII/3 veteran they are easy to pick out), along with a lot of the sound effects taking away from the arcade experience a little bit.

Mortal Kombat II and 3 may be the bulk of the game but there is no denying that there are some other interesting titles to play on here. All of the titles have little extras to give you more insight on what the games were running on, what year they came out, and so on. Most of the games also have online score boards so you can see how you stack up against other people playing the same title. Arch Rivals is one of the only basket titles other than NBA Street I have ever enjoyed. It could be considered the prequel to the NBA Jam games that made Midway very popular in the mid 90s. Timber is a totally obscure and whacky game, and the entire purpose is to chop down trees by wiggling the analog stick to chop it down. While you are doing this you have to dodge birds, dogs, and other obstacles. Narc which is basically the Grand Theft Auto of the arcades back in the day has you pretty much killing everything in sight, mostly coke heads, and crazy druggies with rocket launchers. Primal Rage is titles where you are a bunch of prehistoric animals such as huge apes and big lizards. The title seemed very cool at the time it was created but now it’s zaniness is very apparent. Total Carnage is definitely one of those twitch games that bring you back to the arcade experience, and is very fun to play with a friend. You basically go through hoards and hoards of monsters, people, and communist with flamethrowers, rocket launchers and more in a great shooter. All of the titles sort of lose their challenge in the end though because while some times the screen may display, “insert quarters” all you have to do is press the start button for an infinite number of continues. This is also a good thing though and you will finally be able to complete some of the titles you never had the skills or the cash to complete.

There are a few other things that might bother you about the collection. Sometimes it takes a while for the games to load despite you could probably fit some of these titles onto a cell phone. Another complaint besides the mentioned strange selection of less known titles is, no online play. Strangely Midway opted to not even really suggest on the game’s boxart that there was any sort of Xbox Live component other than Xbox Live Aware when it also has the ability to show your scores online matched with others. The real problem though is no Xbox Live gaming at all when it would have been so great to play against others in titles like Total Carnage and the Mortal Kombat titles. I think it sends the wrong message to make Mortal Kombat Deception online, but to do something as simple as making their classics online compatible not was a bad idea, and it could have added to the arcade experience. Still, Midway Arcade Treasures is definitely one of the best compilation titles to date displaying Midway’s former arcade glory, and oozing in nostalgia.