Xbox

Midway Arcade Treasures 3

Bitchin' fun, dude! Takes you right back to the roaring road-rage days of the arcade.

For me, the inclusion of Rush 2049 was enough of a selling point of the third installment of Midway’s classic compilation. But once they have your attention with this fan favorite, they drop a handful of other great games your way. Sure, it doesn’t have 20 games like last year, but the quality of the ones included is considerably better. I can once again sit here and tell you that Midway does this sort of thing best; they should lend Tecmo and Collecovision a few pointers next time around. For your money, Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is one of the best values I’ve seen in a few months. My suggestion: pick this one up, and remember the good times.

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is a very clever, themed compilation. The $20 would definitely be worth it just for the Rush and Thunder games, though it is nice to see a bit of the company’s origins.

An occasional bug and the clunky menu system are each real issues with this collection, but the games are a blast worth remembering. Old racing is the new hotness.

Rush 2049 is the headliner of this year's pack, and even if it was released by itself it would still be worth the budget price that the Midway Arcade Treasures is known for. Because the version included is the brilliantly fantastic Dreamcast edition, even six years later this racing game holds up extraordinarily well with some of the most exciting single and multiplayer racing challenges ever created. The rest of the pack supplements Rush 2049 with a decent variety of racing games of both 2D and 3D designs, some more playable and addictive than others. The San Francisco Rush: The Rock and Hydro Thunder ports are still timeless and fun, but it's Rush 2049 that will keep you coming back to this compilation.

Midway Arcade Treasure 3 once again has a good number of games to choose from in this compilation, and although it may have been nice to have more games on the list, for twenty dollars you really can’t complain. If you are a fan of SF Rush 2049, that may be reason enough to go run out and purchase this game. If not, there are seven other solid games that make this compilation a very worthwhile purchase.

Racing fans will find a lot to like about Midway Arcade Treasures 3 but then again a few of these gaming gems are mixed in with games that just don’t feel right at home on the Xbox. Having said that, though, for those who haven’t experienced these games you shouldn’t miss out on them so minimally rent this collection right away.

If you are a retro addict, this is easily one of the better collections out there, provided you dig racing games. With the chance to post your scores on the net, this one has a lot of playability if you are one who thrives on those bragging rights. I am just happy to see Rush 2049 and Hydro Thunder back home once again.

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 with its eight arcade racers is a fun drive down memory lane, but the controls make them just a shadow of what they were in the arcades. At $19.99, it is still well worth taking the trip. The fact that Midway has pared down the number of games from previous offerings does not worry me nearly as much as how much they pared down the historical extras. It’s still a must-buy for arcade enthusiasts, but let us hope this is not a sign of the future.

Those nostalgic for the old days (or not-so-old days) or racing aficionados might be interested in picking up Midway Arcade Treasures 3, especially when its $20 price point is taken into consideration. For younger gamers weaned on more current games such as Burnout, a rental may be all you need to sate your curiosity of how things were before bump mapping and light bloom.

Over the years, Midway has released a number of great games and arcade classics, many of which they’ve revisited to give a sense of nostalgia to older gamers. While the other Midway Arcade Treasures were strong anthologies of their titles, the reduced number and limited play experience conveyed by Midway Arcade Treasures 3 makes this set for rabid fans only. You’re not really going to find the arcade experience here, nor are you going to find the full presentation that you may remember putting quarters in so many years ago.

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is a fun conglomeration of some of the arcade favorites that younger gamers grew up with. The highlights of the compilation are Rush 2049, Hydro Thunder despite its lack of depth, and Badlands for its loveable devotion to the top-down two-dimensional look and surprisingly fun gameplay. Sadly this classic set of games is overshadowed by Capcom’s assortment of titles in lots of different ways; so much so that the only folks who have any reason to purchase Midway Arcade Treasures 3 are those with some kind of allegiance to the company. For a superior gameplay experience stick to Capcom Classic Collection.

Choosing to highlight a specific genre within a classic games compilation is a fine idea, but the folly of Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is its choice of genres. So many of the games included here relied so heavily on custom arcade hardware that they lose much of their appeal in the translation.

The rest of the collection, from Super Off Road to S.T.U.N. Runner to Badlands, are solid ports. They don’t have as many frame rate problems or sound issues, but I chose to highlight the other games because I think those are more the reason people want to buy this package. It’s just disappointing that there are so many issues with the three main games that people are going to be interested in, but do note that the other games in this package are worth picking up, even if Hydro Thunder is essentially unplayable multiplayer and the sound issues in the two Rush games are going to have you scrambling for your remotes “mute” button. All in all, this is still probably worth the admission price since it’s so cheap to begin with, but I think a lot of fans with vivid arcade memories are going to be disappointed with what they get.

Only those trying to elicit an emotional attachment to these games are likely to get anything out of all them. The rest of us will just have a mediocre time and will have to hunt down a few cases of Pepsi and chips to fill that emotional void.

If you’re a long time fan of racing games, then you’ll no doubt remember most of these games, and might want to pick this one up. Midway Arcade Treasures 3 offers up a decent amount of value for the twenty dollar sticker price, but not enough to make it very easily recommendable to everyone. If this collection had more games and a much better presentation to go along with it, it would have been much more attractive and easily-recommended.

Slowly these titles are becoming just average compilations. Midway really need to take a break from this series; it is evident from this title that they are running out of ideas for titles.

Moins old-school que ses deux prédécesseurs, Midway Arcade Treasures 3 propose un éventail de titres beaucoup plus récents, ce qui n'est pas forcément ce que recherchent les nostalgiques. Moins nombreux, ces derniers sont aussi d'une qualité franchement inégale, et aucun ne retiendra vraiment votre attention. Même au prix auquel il est proposé, cet opus ne constitue pas vraiment une priorité.

For Midway and other publishers who might consider imitating the single-genre format of Treasures 3, it's worth noting that "genre" shares a common root with "generic." And it's hard to think of a more generic compilation than this. The venerability of these selections combined with the substandard interface (exiting out of a given game is performed inconsistently and tends to be very confusing) and paltry selection of titles makes this one you can skip over without losing any sleep.