Compilation discs are interesting to review. When you go back and play games from a long time ago, you have to put yourself in the right mindset. You can't expect to be blown away by nice graphics or sound. Sometimes the gameplay you loved in the past, is just annoying and not enjoyable today. And since most developers have been making games that are very easy for years now, most people are not used to the level of difficulty that the classic games provide. I, however, love classic gameplay. And for $20, I couldn't help but pick up this game. Arcade Treasures is filled with classic games from yesteryear. Spy Hunter, Defender 1 & 2, Gauntlet, Joust 1 & 2, Paperboy, Rampage, Robotron, & Smash TV are the big draws here. The rest of the games are nice, but I found them to be not as fun as they used to be. 720 is a great example of that. There are a few annoying problems with this disc. First off, most of these games had very unconventional controllers in the arcade. Using an Xbox controller is sometimes a chore, even with the analog sticks. The presentation is dreadful. The menus and just about everything in the game is ugly. The games are supposed to be ugly, but the lack of a quality presentation for these classics is just pure laziness. Lastly, you will notice some key games are missing, which tells you there will be a Vol. 2. I think they could have got them all out of the way in one nice package, but hey....they want to make $$$, right? After all the complaints I have, the game is still worth it at it's bargain price. I never liked Defender, and I still don't today. But, the other key games are still fun to this day. I actually had more fun with Joust today than I did in the past. There is the nice little addition of interviews with some of the developers and classic info on some of the bigger games. The video on the interviews is quite grainy, but it's still fun to watch them. This actually was another area they could have raised the presentation values, but they didn't. Antoher nice touch is the fact that you can upload your scores online to see how you rank against the rest of the world. It's a nice touch and I wish more games had this feature. If you like classic gaming, I think you should pick this up. Sure, it's not a perfect compilation, but it's a blast to play most of the games and it's only $20.
Midway Arcade Treasures is a Retro-Compilation featuring 24 arcade games, including Defender, Defender II, Joust, Spy Hunter, Gauntlet, Paper Boy, Robotron: 2084, and Smash TV. The controls are different for each game (a... Read Full Review
Midway Arcade Treasures is a retro compilation containing 24 retro games. It is odd that it is called Midway Arcade Treasures when most of the games are made by Atari or Williams. The gameplay is great for most of the ga... Read Full Review
