Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is the second collection of classic arcade games published by Midway

Midway Games

Midway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...

 for the GameCube

Nintendo GameCube

The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...

, PlayStation 2

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

, and Xbox

Xbox

The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...

. This compilation includes 20 games that were not in the 2003 release of Midway Arcade Treasures

Midway Arcade Treasures

Midway Arcade Treasures is a collection of 24 arcade games developed by Digital Eclipse and released by Midway for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC....

 or the 2005 release of Midway Arcade Treasures 3

Midway Arcade Treasures 3

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is a compilation of arcade and racing games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. It is the third and final installment following Midway Arcade Treasures and Midway Arcade Treasures 2.-Games:...

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The game plays similar on all three consoles; however, the Xbox version has the exclusive 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.

Games

The collection consists of the following 20 arcade games:

A.P.B. Arch Rivals Arch Rivals Arch Rivals is a basketball arcade game created by Midway in 1989. The game billed itself as "A Basket Brawl." It was also included on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube and Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition for the PC... Championship Sprint Championship Sprint Championship Sprint is an arcade game that was released in 1986 and was the sequel to Super Sprint. It was later ported to ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64... Cyberball 2072 Cyberball Cyberball is an Atari Games arcade game of 7-man American football, using robotic avatars of different speeds, sizes, and skill sets. The game replaced the standard downs system with an explosive ball that progresses from "cool" to "warm", "hot", and "critical" status as it is used... Gauntlet II Gauntlet II Gauntlet II is a 1986 arcade game, the first sequel to the game Gauntlet, released the previous year. Gauntlet II, like its predecessor, is a fantasy-themed hack and slash.-Overview:... Hard Drivin' Hard Drivin' Hard Drivin is an arcade game that invites players to test drive a high-powered sports car on stunt and speed courses. The game featured the first 3D polygon driving environment via a simulator cabinet, rendered with a custom architecture... Kozmik Krooz'r Mortal Kombat II Mortal Kombat II Mortal Kombat II is a competitive fighting game originally produced by Midway Games for the arcades in . It is the second game in the Mortal Kombat series. Like its predecessor, various home versions were produced... Mortal Kombat 3 Mortal Kombat 3 Mortal Kombat 3 is a fighting game developed by Midway and released in 1995, first as an arcade game. It is the third game in the Mortal Kombat series... NARC NARC (video game) NARC is originally a 1988 arcade game designed by Eugene Jarvis for Williams Electronics and programmed by George Petro. It was one of the first ultra-violent video games and a frequent target of parental criticism of the arcade game industry. The object is to arrest and kill drug offenders,... Pit-Fighter Pit-Fighter Pit-Fighter is a 1990 arcade game by Atari Games, notable for its early use of digitized live actors. The Japanese arcade release was published by Konami. The graphic animation for the player character and opponents were created through a bluescreen process, where the various poses & moves of the... Primal Rage Primal Rage Primal Rage is a versus fighting game developed and published by Atari Games in 1994 as an arcade video game. Toys, comics, a novel and other merchandise tie-ins were also produced.-Storyline:... Rampage World Tour Rampage World Tour Rampage World Tour is a video game released in 1997 and is the second game in the Rampage series.Up to three simultaneous players control the monsters George , Lizzie , or Ralph , created from humans who were mutated by experiments conducted at Scumlabs... Spy Hunter II Spy Hunter II Spy Hunter II is an arcade game released by Bally Midway in 1987 as a sequel to Spy Hunter.... Timber Timber (arcade game) Timber is an arcade game that was manufactured by Midway Games in 1984. The object of the game is to amass points by chopping down trees or by balancing atop a floating, rotating log.... Total Carnage Total Carnage Total Carnage is an arcade shooter, developed by Mark Turmell for Midway in 1991. The game was released for the SNES in 1993 and the Amiga CD32, Amiga, and DOS in 1994. Later the game was re-released in 2004, as part of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube... Wacko Wacko Wacko is a 1983 arcade game by Bally Midway. It debuted during the "Golden Age of Arcade Games". It featured a unique angled, or "sloped" cabinet design and a combination of trackball and joystick controls.-Description:... Wizard of Wor Wizard Of Wor Wizard of Wor is an arcade game from 1981 , developed by Midway. Other systems it was ported to include the Atari 800, Commodore 64, the Atari 2600, Atari 5200 and the Bally Astrocade as "The Incredible Wizard". The title of the game is often misspelled as "Wizard of War"... Xenophobe Xenophobe (video game) Xenophobe is a 1987 arcade game published by Bally Midway. Starbases, moons, ships, and space cities are infested with aliens, and the players have to kill the aliens before each is completely overrun.-Description:... Xybots Xybots Xybots was developed by Atari Games in 1987 as an arcade video game, then later released on other platforms. In Xybots, the players must travel through a 3D maze and fight against a series of robots known as the Xybots whose mission is to destroy all mankind.-Arcade:Released worldwide 1987* Game...

This collection was given an "M"-rating largely because of Mortal Kombat II and 3, Primal Rage, and NARC. With all the other games, the compilation would have received a rating of a "T" (for teen) or lower. Rampage World Tour is also featured as a bonus game in Rampage Total Destruction on GameCube and Wii, which is rated "E10+".

The compilation was planned to include all three Mortal Kombat titles, Steel Talons

Steel Talons

Steel Talons was originally an arcade video game by Atari Games, and was released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, the Atari Lynx handheld, Atari ST, Atari Falcon and SNES...

 and S.T.U.N. Runner

S.T.U.N. Runner

S.T.U.N. Runner is a fast-paced, racing/shooter arcade game released by Atari Games in 1989. The player pilots a futuristic "speed bike" at speeds of up to and even exceeding 900 mph through various tunnels and courses, with changing environments, hazards and enemies...

. The first Mortal Kombat game was moved to the extras disc in the limited edition version of Mortal Kombat: Deception

Mortal Kombat: Deception

Mortal Kombat: Deception is a fighting game developed and published by Midway as the sixth installment for the Mortal Kombat series. It was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in October 2004, while a Nintendo GameCube version was published in March 2005. Mortal Kombat: Deception follows the...

, while the other two games were omitted entirely because of developmental problems. Kozmik Krooz'r and Wacko were added instead.

The first Mortal Kombat later appeared in other compilations from the Midway Arcade Treasures series: Extended Play

Midway Arcade Treasures Extended Play

Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play is a video game compilation of 21 classic Midway, Atari and Williams arcade games released in 2005 for the PlayStation Portable. Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play was re-released for the PlayStation Store on June 28, 2010 by Warner Bros. Interactive...

 for the PSP

PlayStation Portable

The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

, and Deluxe Edition

Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition

Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition is an arcade compilation released exclusively for the PC on February 17, 2006 in North America, and on March 17, 2006 in PAL regions. It is a compilation of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 and Midway Arcade Treasures 3, which had both been previously released on...

 for the PC; while S.T.U.N. Runner appeared in Midway Arcade Treasures 3

Midway Arcade Treasures 3

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is a compilation of arcade and racing games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. It is the third and final installment following Midway Arcade Treasures and Midway Arcade Treasures 2.-Games:...

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Reception

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 was given average to favorable reviews from game critics. On the review aggregator Game Rankings

Game Rankings

GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...

, the compilation has an average score of 73%, while the average score is 74 out of 100 on Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. Criticisms are the weaker selection of titles when compared to the previous volume, minor and major emulation glitches, the omission of the original Mortal Kombat and for some of the interviews and documentaries for being grainy and unrestored. GameSpot

GameSpot

GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...

 also criticized the inclusion of the original Mortal Kombat 3, as opposed to the superior Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is a fighting game in the Mortal Kombat series, released in arcades in 1995. It is an update of Mortal Kombat 3 and was later updated again into Mortal Kombat Trilogy...

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Emulation problems

Many of the games featured in this collection are emulated versions of the arcade games and not actually ports. It may be extremely difficult to emulate video games from one system fully accurate on another. As a result, some of the games (Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Pit-Fighter and NARC in particular) have some obvious sound and graphical glitches.

There are also certain other emulation issues in the PS2 and GameCube versions of the collection. The PS2 version contains a slower running Hard Drivin, a crackled sounding Mortal Kombat 3, and a faster running Pit-Fighter. These emulation problems are not present in the GameCube version. However, this version contains a few emulation issues in Wizard of Wor (which is the oldest game in the collection): every sound effect plays at the wrong times (for example the original shooting sound effect has become the original "enemy defeated" sound effect, and vice versa), and the game has a very inconsistent framerate, slowing down at almost all times. The game, Rampage: World Tour had missing voice samples from Dr. Betty Veronica when it comes to her talking to the phone on some scenes between levels. The Xbox version is often considered by critics to be the best version, as it has the fewest emulation problems and the ability to post scores on the Xbox Live

Xbox Live

Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...

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Button mapping issues

The "start button" in this game has 2 functions: Starting a game or pausing a game. So unless the player has to start or continue a game, the "start button" will also work as a "pause button". This is where the problems come in for the Following two Mortal Kombat games:

• Mortal Kombat II and 3 utilized the "start button" to perform "random select" by pressing Up+Start at the character select screen. As a result the Arcade Start button combination was changed to X for PS2 version, and A for the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube versions for Mortal Kombat 3 only, allowing for the ramdom select cheat in that game but not in Mortal Kombat II.
• In Mortal Kombat II, in order to fight the hidden character Smoke, the player had to press Down+Start at the Portal stage while getting a Dan Forden shouting out the: "Toasty!" message. As a result, Smoke cannot be accessed at all.