Midway Arcade Treasures 2

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 E3 2004 Preshow Hands-On Impressions

Midway has released plenty of classic game collections over the years--and with good reason. The company, now better known for its quality over-the-top sports games and grisly, M-rated fare, is also responsible for some of the greatest arcade games of the '80s and '90s. Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is coming later this year, and it will again bring many of Midway's most famous games under one roof at a budget price.

Previous compilations from Midway have focused on the obvious classics of the early '80s. Games like Defender, Stargate, Robotron: 2084, Sinistar, and more have already been brought back to modern consoles. Treasures 2 moves forward in time a bit and mostly delivers Midway and Atari games from the mid-'80s and early '90s. The collection will contain APB, Arch Rivals, Championship Sprint, Cyberball 2072, Gauntlet 2, Hard Drivin', Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, NARC, Pit-Fighter, Primal Rage, Rampage World Tour, Spy Hunter 2, Steel Talons, STUN Runner, Timber, Total Carnage, Wizard of Wor, Xenophobe, and Xybots.

The Xbox version shown just prior to E3 only contained three playable games, but they definitely gave off a good impression. The three games--NARC, Mortal Kombat, and Total Carnage--all used fairly different hardware in the arcades, but with the exception of some slight hiccups that will surely be ironed out prior to release, the games ran every bit as smoothly and controlled--just about as well as their arcade counterparts.

In an interesting twist, not all of the games in this collection will be emulated; some will be ported to the modern platforms, instead. This will likely be how Midway will be able to bring versions of Hard Drivin' and STUN Runner, which would require a lot of processor power to properly emulate, to modern systems at full speed.

The collection will be rounded out by interviews and other interesting factoids from the era. Midway talked a bit about a "making of Mortal Kombat 3" video, but specifics on the supplemental features are currently being decided. The Xbox version will contain Xbox Live support, but unfortunately that will only be used to keep track of scores, and it won't actually allow players to play against one another. The game is scheduled to hit the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube in October.