User Reviews (1 - 11 of 12)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

The price makes this collection of almost-perfect games even better.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

THE SHORT: The ridiculously cheap price is worth spending on some of these games on their own, let alone in a double digit package. But while most of the games run great, there are some slight issues here and there that make some of these games not quite arcade-perfect.

THE LONG: I love Mortal Kombat II. Adore it. I always have, and though the SNES version was great in 1994, no console has ever had an accurate version of it. That's why this was an exciting release- it promised arcade accurate versions of this game as well as a bunch of other good ones. And if you're just thinking about getting this now, then you didn't have to go through the debacle of having the original Mortal Kombat removed from the package and thrown onto the more cost-prohibitive MK: Deception.

So I checked out message boards and waited for the game, and once it came out and I chatted with others, I noticed a disturbing trend: no one console had a release of this collection that was entirely flawless. The PS2 supposedly had trouble with, I believe, Hard Drivin', and the Gamecube had sound problems or something. The Xbox version was supposed to be flawed in some way too, but I honestly can't remember what that was supposed to have been. All I know is that I was a devoted MKII fan to notice some fanboyish inaccuracies. I won't go into them all here, and while there aren't a lot they are noticeable: stuff like flickering shadows when a character jumps, and screams that go on past death when a character lands in the Pit, etc.

But for every thing the programmers somehow messed up, there are ten it gets right. MKII, as with all others on the disc except for the somewhat muffled MK3, has sound so crisp I'd forgotten how much better it was than past console offerings. The graphics are sharp and the colors bold, and the animation is fluid and correct to how I recall it. Nothing is left out, not even something that a great deal of players never knew about MKII: The computer fights more lazily and gets worked into patterns more easily when using controller 2. This strange, small trick, as well as others such as Shang Tsung's Sub Zero freeze/ fatality skin glitch, were emulated perfectly.

But that's the thing- there are still disappointments despite these best intentions. In making the game, someone neglected to re-map the start button. In MKII, pressing start was part of two tricks- selecting a random fighter and accessing hidden character Smoke, but since pressing start in this collection brings up the main pause menu, start is rendered obsolete in-game so apparently these details are inaccessible. That's probably the biggest mistake, and while it doesn't make the package suck, it'd definitely worth mentioning.

Otherwise, the collection is pretty fine. Most of these games are well suited to the Xbox or PS2 controller's simple layout (The GC controller is absurd for the fighting games) and more importantly, the rest of the games seem about the same as I remember them in the arcade. Like with me and MKII, it would take a devoted veteran to notice any changed details that aren't egregious. More so than the original Midway Treasures, this disc has some great titles- 90's classics such as Narc, Primal Rage, Total Carnage, and of course MKII and 3 are on a disc that by this point costs less than twenty bucks. At that price, imperfections and all, it's hard to pass up on such a modern collection of proven greats.

Finally, the reason MK 1 is not in this compendium

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Actually, I'm just writing this to give this game(s) a higher rating because some idiot gave it a one star because it was missing a few games. THIS DOES NOT HAVE MORTAL KOMBAT ONE IN IT BECAUSE IT'S IN MK DECEPTION!!! It's just a tactic that Midway is using to improve the image of Deception. I guarantee someone is going to buy Deception because of the 'perfect arcade MK 1' (or whatever it's called) it boasts. If they put it in both games, MKD's sales rank would drop. It's just common economics, and I give Midway props for thinking about it. I'm buying MKD because of that feature. I mean, needless to say the actual game and the chess, and the tetris thingy is without a doubt included in the purchase decision making process, but the MK1 sealed a purchase from me. Anyway, this games is still packed with awesome games, like Primal Rage, one of my personal fav fighter games... and Gauntlet 2. I'm sick of playing that game on my NES with my cartridge. Alos, please consider the fact that this is not labled as 'A Kid's Review' which means that I'm old enough to say that when these games first came out I was there, quarters for the machine and all. This is the perfect arcade collection for the fans of back-in-the-day.

Great collection of old favorites

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: October 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This collection of Midway arcade games includes a lot of classics that haven't seen the light of day for over a decade.

Midway's website lists the following games as appearing on the collection:

A. P. B.™
Arch Rivals™
Championship Sprint™
Cyberball 2072™
Gauntlet® II
Hard Drivin'®
Kozmik Krooz'r™
Mortal Kombat® II
Mortal Kombat® 3
NARC®
Pit Fighter™
Primal Rage®
Rampage World Tour®
Spy Hunter® II
Timber™
Total Carnage™
Wacko™
Wizard of Wor™
Xenophobe®
Xybots™

I was a little disappointed not to see the original spy hunter, or the original mortal kombat. I was also disappointed that Joust is missing from the lineup. The collection remains pretty outstanding - I haven't played NARC since back in the day. So if you're old enough to be playing for nostalgia's sake, this looks to be a pretty good buy.

Nostalgic and fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: October 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I picked up this title in the store and knew I had to have it. The games ranged from titles as old as wacko (a game I remembered playing at Chuck E Cheese in my youth back in the 80s) to as recent as Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 (for those of us who could not wait to get these titles for SNES). Some of the games are disappointing, some are not.

The most disappointing game for me is APB. Unfortunately, the interface for this game was a steering wheel and gas pedal and this game becomes very unwieldy with the control system.

Despite this, there are many strong selling points. Some games have translations that are actually pretty good. Xenophobe was a complex game in the arcade, yet the interface is very workable with the X-Box. MK2 and 3 are just as enjoyable as they always have been (although there seems to be too little time to execute fatalities, friendships, and babalities.) Gauntlet 2 is fine by me, though I wish they had random levels (so far the order was static after playing it twice).

In reading some of the other reviews, many were very frustrated. I suppose my stance is that at this price, you are roughly paying $1.00 per game for a pretty near translation of the games (again, even if the audio is choppy or the playability is not perfect.)

So invite your friends over, turn on some music from the late 80s, and enjoy the nostalgia. You will be wanting a McDLT and renting the movie "Big" before the night is over.

Old School Games At Its Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is a sweet collection of old school arcade hit titles. The collection of arcade hits are at a very low, low cost and worth a buy for those missing games of yesterday. May people are grippin' over the loss of Mortal Kombat 1 (who cares, its packed with MKD Kollectors Edition). There are other sweet games included in this package like MK2 (my favorite 2D fighter to Street Fighter 2), MK 3, Pit Fighter and Rampage World Tour. I hope in the next collection Midway adds MK3 Ultimate and MK4, so gamers can complete the Mortal Kombat collection on there xbox's. So, get toasted and play this game at parties, happy gamin...

Rotten Audio, Hard Drivin' has shaky control

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: October 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

So the visuals are crisp, but there is another aspect to experiencing these classic games, and it's called Audio!

Actually it's only Gauntlet II and the video clips provided for certain games that I'm writing about, because the other games seem to be pretty fair. I was excited to get this title for both of these things, and was quickly disappointed with the muffled and scratchy sounding audio coming from it. The video clips are terrible, you can understand about half of what they are saying. You'd certainly expect a little more from a Dolby Digital audio output. It simply shouldn't have been released until the audio was up to par.

So once again, I'm limited to playing Gauntlet II through MAME on PC, where the audio is flowing crystal clear like it was intended to be. Gauntlet II really does have some incredible sound effects, and it's a shame that it is hampered by this half-assed effort.

Also, Hard Drivin' is extremely shaky, still playable, but not as enjoyable as it could be. A company released Race Drivin', the sequel, which includes the single track from this game and many more to the Sega Saturn in Japan nearly 10 years ago and I have it, and can tell you it is alot better port than this one, it also included a "remixed" version with interesting music and more in depth graphical backgrounds such as waterfalls and mountains to see.

P.S. Why did they once again skip Moon Patrol & Burgertime? These games are essential where many on this compilation are unheard of...

Nostalgia - not all it's cracked up to be...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this arcade collection at the same time as the Atari Anthology. I fancied a bit of nostalgia going over some of the 80s and 90s classics having done the 70s+ with Asteroids etc on the Atari collection.

I've got to say I'm disappointed with this one. There's not much content and so you're left with the games - a lot of them seem unplayable with the stock XBox controller. I can't pinpoint why but they seem awkward and clumsy. Perhaps they always were, but I got such a kick from Asteroids, Centipede from Atari I was surprised to see that games 10 years later were somehow worse. The gameplay isn't there and the conversion feels sluggish. This is especially apparent on Hard Drivin' which shakes and shudders when you turn and has a terrible frame rate problem. I recently played the arcade and whilst it wasn't photorealistic it certainly didn't cause spasms in my eyes. This leads me to believe that the other conversions are probably equally as rushed. The best game on the collection is Gauntlet and I actually played that one for hours getting up to level 105 before quitting.

So if you have a favorite game it may be worth it but check it out before buying if you can - it may not be as good as you remember... but that's possibly because these versions aren't as good as they could be.

If...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This was a great compilation, all together it was very enjoyable and made me remember the good ol' days of hours upon hours of narc and Hard Drivin.

The question most people will ask themselves is this: Do you want to play great games like MK, Primal Rage, and gauntlet...for 20 dollars?

This game contains plenty of classics, and even though I bought it used for 14.99, I would have graciously paid the extra 5 dollars.
As for the performance, the Xbox version seems to work just fine...
This game contains plenty of classic...and hey, if it ain't broke, dont fix it!

A Slight Disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While it was great to play some of these old games, I was very disappointed with the fact that some of the games didn't work. Also, some of them were supposed to be 2 - 4 player games, but only the 1 player version was available. It made for a quite frustrating experience. If the games would work as advertised, it would be great.

Don't bother

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: October 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Unfortunately, the programmers didn't feel like compensating for the faster clock speed of the PSII, so the games are sped up rediculously rendering most of them (especially the older ones) completely and totally unplayable.

Review Page: 1 2 Next 

Actions