Midway Arcade Treasures 2

Just like the first Midway Arcade Treasures, MAT 2 features 20 old-school arcade games from Midway. I say “old-school” rather than “classics” because most of the games included are far from being classics. Midway Arcade Treasures 2 pulls the wool of nostalgia over your eyes in an attempt to cover up the fact that most of these games haven’t aged very well. MAT2 will only set you back $20 and for that price I think you still can get your money’s worth even though a lot of the games suck.

20 Games for the Price of One

The 20 games in Midway Arcade Treasures 2 cover fighting, shooting, racing, sports, and more. APB is a police themed driving game. Arch Rivals is a basketball game that eventually inspired NBA Jam. Championship Sprint is a top-down racing game. Cyberball 2072 is a football game with robots. Gauntlet II is the sequel to the popular hack and slash dungeon crawl. Hard Drivin is a polygonal driving game. Kozmik Kroozer is a shooter. Mortal Kombat II and 3 are fighters, duh. NARC is a violent side-scrolling shooter where you shoot drug dealers. Pit Fighter is another fighter. Primal Rage is yet another fighter, but this time with dinosaurs. Rampage World Tour is the follow-up to the city destroying action of Rampage. Spy Hunter II is the sequel to Spy Hunter. Timber is a wood chopping game. Total Carnage is the follow up to Smash TV and is perhaps the best game in the set. Wacko is an alien matching game. Wizard of Wor is a combination of a maze and a shooter. Xenophobe is a 3 player alien blasting game. And Xybots is a cool 3D maze game where you also get to shoot stuff.

Multiplayer Saves the Day

That all sounds great, but the sad fact is that these games simply haven’t aged very well, and it is likely that even the games you thought you loved won’t be nearly as fun as you remember them. There are some good games that are still fun to play such as Mortal Kombat II and 3 and Total Carnage, but most of the rest of the selection is just abysmal. Primal Rage and Pit Fighter straight up suck and aren’t fun at all. MAT2 is a good example of where the whole “old school gaming was so much better than what we have now” sentiment is horribly flawed. Sure, there has been a lot of great games over the years, but there has also been 20 times as many crappy ones. It is stupid to love them simply because they are “old-school”.

There is a silver lining on all of these turds, though. All of the games except APB and Hard Drivin have multiplayer components with some games allowing up to 3 and 4 people to play at once. Every single one of these games is a hell of a lot more fun if you have someone else to play with. Even the really bad ones like Pit Fighter and Timber are fun when you play with a friend. Buy MAT2 if you have someone to play with and definitely avoid it if you’ll be playing alone.

Features and Arcade Accuracy

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is also fairly feature-rich in addition to the games themselves. Most of the games allow you to look at the artwork and sell sheets from the arcade originals. All of the games have descriptions that give you little insights into the games development. And many of the games also feature videos which consist of developer interviews, making of footage, and launch kit videos that were used to promote the games to arcade owners.

MAT2 also has some limited Xbox Live support. It isn’t what you are likely hoping for however, as it is merely scoreboards. It would have been amazing to be able to play MKII, 3, and Total Carnage online. That didn’t happen, though, and it is very noticeable in its absence.

The graphics and sound vary from game to game, of course, but they are all pretty much true to the arcade originals. There are some hiccups here and there, but unless you devoted hours and hours into these games back in the day you won’t even notice. The overall presentation has improved tremendously over the first MAT and the clunky Egyptian motif has been replaced by much sharper looking menus.

Bottom Line

Even though it has its fair share of problems, Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is still worth taking out for a spin. The bonus material for each game is interesting and worth a look for fans. Most of the 20 arcade games included are sub-par by today’s standards, but they all still shine in multiplayer so if you have friends to play with MAT2 can be really fun. A great feature is that you can adjust things like difficulty and number of continues for each game to make them as challenging or as easy as you like. Overall, Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is worth picking up for a couple of reasons. Some of the games are actually worth your time and playing with friends makes them even better. And, most importantly, the game is only $20. If it was any more it would be worth it, but for $20 it is a sold purchase.