Midway Arcade Treasures

Midway Arcade Treasures is a video-game compilation of 24 arcade games, emulated from the original PCBs. The overall release was developed by Digital Eclipse and issued by Midway Games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox (not compatible with Xbox 360), GameCube, and Microsoft Windows.

Midway Arcade Treasures
Original cover art.
Developer(s)Digital Eclipse
Publisher(s)Midway Games
Platform(s)PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Microsoft Windows
ReleasePlayStation 2
  • NA: November 17, 2003
  • EU: February 6, 2004
Xbox
  • NA: December 2, 2003
  • EU: February 6, 2004
GameCube
  • NA: December 17, 2003
Microsoft Windows
  • NA: August 31, 2004
  • EU: October 22, 2004
Genre(s)Compilation
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Midway followed up the Arcade Treasures with successive compilations featuring different games: Midway Arcade Treasures 2 in 2004, Midway Arcade Treasures 3 in 2005, the portable Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play, and the Windows-exclusive Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition in 2006.

After Midway's bankruptcy, Warner Bros. owns the rights and released another arcade compilation called Midway Arcade Origins in 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which includes 29 select games from MAT 1 and 2 plus Super Off Road from 3. It also contains Vindicators Part II which replaced the original Vindicators from Midway Arcade Treasures.

The compilation was later re-released as Midway Arcade Treasures 1, the title and packaging being changed slightly to match the succeeding volumes. However, the lineup of games remained the same.

A similar collection of Midway arcade games was also released exclusively in Japan by Success under the title Game Center USA: Midway Arcade Treasures, which compiled 32 select games from Midway Arcade Treasures 1 and 2 and was released for the PlayStation 2 on September 21, 2006.[1]

Features

The compilation plays similarly on all three consoles; however, the Xbox version has the extra ability to upload scores to an online scoreboard. The special features on each version of the game are the same. These include game histories, developer interviews and other documents. This compilation is a combination of the games included in Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits, Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits, and Arcade Party Pak for the original PlayStation and PC and each contain exactly the same extras from those collections. Additionally, there are eleven more games included that are not found in those collections.

While the PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions can be played on the earliest models of the PlayStation 3 and Wii respectively (due to their backwards compatibility), the Xbox version is not Xbox 360 compatible.

Games
Re-release cover art, designed to match that of the later volumes in the series.

The collection consists of the following 24 arcade games:

Titles in the series
Title Released
720°1986
Blaster1983
Bubbles1983
Defender1980
Defender II (a.k.a. StarGate)1981
Gauntlet1985
Joust1982
Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest1986
Klax1989
Marble Madness1984
Paperboy1984
Rampage1986
Rampart1990
RoadBlasters1987
Robotron: 20841982
Root Beer Tapper1983
Satan's Hollow1982
Sinistar1982
Smash TV1990
SPLAT!1982
Spy Hunter1983
Super Sprint1986
Toobin'1988
Vindicators1988

Reception

Midway Arcade Treasures received mixed, but generally positive reviews from reviewers at GameRankings with a 75.31% of the GameCube version, 73.86% of the PlayStation 2 version, and 75.02% of the Xbox version. Criticisms are the poor menu layout, slowdown in Smash TV, for the documentaries and interviews having video quality that is grainy and unrestored, as well as the documentaries and interviews being rehashed from previous Midway collections.

Midway Arcade Treasures also received mixed and positive reviews from review aggregator Metacritic, with a score of 76 for the PlayStation 2 version, a score of 74 for the Xbox version, and the lowest being a score of 72 for the GameCube version. The reviews were mostly the same as GameRankings, stating the games positive and negative points. Many of the complaints were based on the DVD content having poor, and stuttering quality, the menu being not pleasant to look at, and some of the games being difficult to control (with Vindicators as the main point of focus). Reviewers did say the collection was worth getting, even if the games didn't entice you at first.

Remake

In 2012, a remake of the collection was released: an application called Midway Arcade. Available for iOS, it is the first of the series to be published by Warner Bros. which acquired all the assets due to Midway's bankruptcy. The iOS version does not include all games released on this disk.

See also

References
  1. "The Game Center of USA: Midway Arcade Treasures". Play-Asia.com. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  2. "GR_NGC". GameRankings. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  3. "GR_PS2". GameRankings. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  4. "GR_XBOX". GameRankings. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  5. "MC_NGC". Metacritic. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  6. "MC_PS2". Metacritic. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  7. "MC_XBOX". Metacritic. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
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