Now you can have a whole arcade in your 360 or PS3 without having to leave the house or spend a lot of quarters. Midway Arcade Origins is a collection of more than 30 of their coin-op titles, spanning over two decades from the early 80’s to mid 90’s. (360 version reviewed here)

Some of the classics on this collection include shooters like Defender and its sequel, as well as other memorable games like Joust, Gauntlet, Rampage, Marble Madness, and Robotron 2084. Also Root Beer Tapper, as seen in the recent movie Wreck-It Ralph. Others include Sinistar, Smash TV and Spy Hunter! There are tons more, but I won’t list them all here. But you can check them out in a separate blog that I wrote by clicking here.

You can play each game in Free Play mode, where you can enter in as many virtual quarters as you want and play as long as you like. Or try Score Attack mode to see how high you can score on one quarter. This is the mode where you’ll be earning all your achievements and posting your scores to the online LIVE leaderboards, too.

Some of these games in the arcade used trackballs or steering wheel devices, so sometimes the controls in some titles don’t work quite as well. But I think they did the best they could. It would’ve been nice to have some extras like viewable arcade artwork or developer interviews like other collections have. And I’m sure they could’ve squeezed more games in there. But other than that, I think it’s a pretty darn good collection and a must for fans of the classics.

Kid Factor:

Midway Arcade Origins is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Gore, Drug References, Mild Sexual Themes, and Violence. Only a select few of these games have splashes of pixelated blood, and while it seemed edgy back then, the primitive graphics really negate a lot of the realistic violence nowadays. I think one of the people you battle in Pit Fighter is a scantily clad female, so that’s where the sexual themes come in. I don’t remember any of these games having drug references, though. At any rate, I grew up with all these games, and I turned out all right, so I’d be OK with most any kid playing these. Plus, many of these titles support two to four players, so the whole family can play together. The classics are pretty easy to figure out, and it could be a good opportunity to share with your kids what playing video games was like when you were their age. Since these titles were designed to be quarter munchers, they can get a little difficult sometimes and may frustrate younger gamers and less experienced players.

Tags: Game Reviews