Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits
Score: 75% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Midway Developer: Midway Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 Genre: Arcade/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: I remember learning that Midway was hosting Shockwave versions of old arcade classics on their Web site and rushing over to play them. Joust, Defender...I was in retro heaven! So, when I saw that these hits were coming to the smallest, baddest handheld console around, I was ecstatic. These are really some of the first 'modern' arcade games I can remember, along with Centipede, Tron and some others that ate hundreds of dollars of my parents' money. 'Modern' meaning not Asteroids or Space Invaders, and circa 1980 instead of 1970. Four classics are reproduced faithfully on the GBA for Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits, complete with title screens. Robotron is almost ridiculously small, but still true to the version I played in the arcade and later on my Commodore64. And of course, the sound plays true, with all the 'sheik-your-booty' charm of Joust and the plip-plop effects we remember from the arcade. Visually, there's nothing stunning here by today's standards, but put into context, these games were amazing for their time. And, for pure retro appeal, the GBA has all four of these Midway classics pegged. Plus, the screen where you choose the game to play shows some of the original cabinet art, which is cool.
Gameplay: The four games included on this compilation are Joust, Defender, Robotron 2084 and Sinistar. I have to admit that I never played a lot of Sinistar, probably because it had a twist on gameplay that wasn't as immediately fulfilling for my shoot-em-up juvenile mentality. The idea behind Sinistar is that an evil force is forming and you have to gather bombs out of material around the asteroid belt to defeat it before it destroys everything. You can't really beat Sinistar by attacking it directly, but you'll tackle its minions as you hurry to gather Sinibombs. Joust is very cool, and has you riding a giant bird, trying to knock other riders off above pits of bubbling lava. Defender pits you against aliens in a side-scrolling shooter where you also have to rescue humans as the aliens kidnap them. Robotron is screen after screen of shooting frenzy, with a mix of enemies you can destroy, some you can't and humans you can rescue. The mix of styles gives everyone something to love, in that you have Joust with the flying bird thing, Defender and Sinistar with two very different takes on the flying spaceship shooter, and Robotron as a fast-paced futuristic shooter. Each offers a very different type of gameplay, and many people may not realize that Defender was the first game to feature a game 'world' where things were happening outside your field of view as you played.
Difficulty: Unlike the Namco retro compilation that gave you options to modify settings for some of the games, like adding more continues or changing bonus levels, Midway's Greatest is just what you see. I think adding some options or extras helps adjust difficulty for these games to accommodate learning curves or younger players.
Game Mechanics: Joust is a fairly pure port of the original arcade game, from a control perspective. The simple controls to move around and fly translated well to the GBA. I can't say that I love the translations of the other games as much, especially Robotron. See, the cool thing about Robotron was how you had two sticks, one to move and one to shoot, and that sensation was mostly what made the game more than your standard arcade shoot-em-up. Here, you just move and shoot in the direction you happen to be facing. Also, with Defender, the button layout has been simplified and IMHO hurt the gameplay somewhat. Sinistar still feels very playable, and all these games preserve their look on-screen without losing any impact. I enjoyed playing all the games, but I'm probably just like most people in that I have my favorites and could take or leave 1 or 2 of the games in any compilation. My favorite here is Joust, and I would have loved Robotron except for the changes in the control scheme. But, I'm sure there are enough hardcore fans of Defender and Sinistar out there to give Midway's Greatest strong support. GBA is a great platform for retro, and if any of these games strike your fancy you're better off sinking the money into this cart than trying to search out old arcade cabinets that may or may not work and pumping in even more quarters. It's a little irritating to find that Midway chose games like Defender and Robotron and then didn't try to emulate the control scheme more closely, especially since fans of the game will really notice the changes. But, for the overall experience, Midway's Greatest gets high marks as a solid compilation.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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