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Like the return of old friends
Jan. 4th, 2006 09:02 amMy copy of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 arrived yesterday.
It is so lovely.
I'd forgotten just how wonderful so many of these older games are.
There were plenty of great experiences, but the best one for me was the one I started with: Xybots. I can't tell you how much fun this game was when I first encountered in the arcades. I must have pumped dozens of quarters into it. Xybots was a very early 3-D style shooter, with a unique joystick that also allowed you to rotate your character (on the PS2, the shoulder buttons are used for rotation). The game allowed for two-player simultaneous play, as each player looks over the shoulder of their character, shooting at the enemy robots. Basically, imagine Berserk played with a Tomb Raider visual angle. You can pick up energy (for healing) and gun pods, and between levels, you can use the gold coins you find to buy upgrades. So damned good, and just as much fun to play now as it was back in 1987.
And then there were the other games. Cyberball 2072, featuring robotic football, is still way more fun than any iteration of Madden has been. Xenophobe (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phantom_wolfboy's favorite) is just insanely fucking hard and strange (especially with just one player). Total Carnage was so clearly designed as a quarter-suck, that it's silly. Still, it's a blast to play. Gauntlet 2 and Spy Hunter 2 may not be as good as the originals, but they're still fun. And the two Mortal Kombat games, if comparatively weak compared to the Virtua Fighter/Tekken games that soon followed (with every player having a full library of unique moves, instead of three or four special ones) are still a blast.
Still haven't played the remaining games (since we also now have the original Katamari Damacy, we're overloaded with good games in the house). But I'm already in love with this disc.
It is so lovely.
I'd forgotten just how wonderful so many of these older games are.
There were plenty of great experiences, but the best one for me was the one I started with: Xybots. I can't tell you how much fun this game was when I first encountered in the arcades. I must have pumped dozens of quarters into it. Xybots was a very early 3-D style shooter, with a unique joystick that also allowed you to rotate your character (on the PS2, the shoulder buttons are used for rotation). The game allowed for two-player simultaneous play, as each player looks over the shoulder of their character, shooting at the enemy robots. Basically, imagine Berserk played with a Tomb Raider visual angle. You can pick up energy (for healing) and gun pods, and between levels, you can use the gold coins you find to buy upgrades. So damned good, and just as much fun to play now as it was back in 1987.
And then there were the other games. Cyberball 2072, featuring robotic football, is still way more fun than any iteration of Madden has been. Xenophobe (
phantom_wolfboy's favorite) is just insanely fucking hard and strange (especially with just one player). Total Carnage was so clearly designed as a quarter-suck, that it's silly. Still, it's a blast to play. Gauntlet 2 and Spy Hunter 2 may not be as good as the originals, but they're still fun. And the two Mortal Kombat games, if comparatively weak compared to the Virtua Fighter/Tekken games that soon followed (with every player having a full library of unique moves, instead of three or four special ones) are still a blast. Still haven't played the remaining games (since we also now have the original Katamari Damacy, we're overloaded with good games in the house). But I'm already in love with this disc.