#Midway Arcade Treasures 2

[smbhax]

Mortal Kombat 3 development - in Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (PS2)

Session: https://youtu.be/h4WPQtwFk-w

[g4zdtechtv]

G4EVER PRESENTS: Freeplay Special - Every Arcade Compilation Ever, Part 1

Pop In Those Quarters!

(STAY PLUGGED IN)

(4GTV - STREAM WHAT YOU PLAY! WATCH NOW!)

[retrogamingloft]

Midway Treasures 2 (Playstation 2 Version ) - Arch Rivals Longplay My favorite game from this compilation of arcade gems...

[defstan480]

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (XBOX / Digital Eclipse / 2004) - Primal Rage (Atari Games / 1994)

[kylekozmikdeluxo]

Special Interest Timeline: Retro Games

I'm on a retro games special interest kick, and in my previous post on said things, I talked about how - in the mid-aughts - I really got into games made in the 1970s and 1980s... In the early 2000s.

And I got my history a little messed up when writing about it, so I shall do... a timeline!

Mostly for my sake!

I'm one of those autistics who tries to keep a whole-ass timeline about my special interests... When I got into it, what got me into it, how long it took me to take the next step and discover more things about it, etc....

My love of retro games stemmed from a childhood of playing simplistic MS-DOS shareware games in the late '90s. Games off of floppy disks, like HUGO'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, COMMANDER KEEN 2, CRYSTAL CAVES, WORD RESCUE, CD-MAN (a PAC-MAN clone), SKI FREE, and more... I also forgot to mention that I had a hand-me-down NES in the '90s as well...

Again, going off of my previous post, I mentioned that it kinda starts in the early 2000s. I want to say approximately 2002/2003?

Christmas 2002: I get a GameBoy Advance and SUPER MARIO ADVANCE 2. SMA2 contains a really good port of SUPER MARIO WORLD, originally released in 1990, and an updated version of the 1983 arcade title MARIO BROS. I don't know if this necessarily kicks off the special interest, but it definitely plays a big part in it.

Late 2002/Early 2003: This is approximate. A guess. Around this time, I went to my local swimming pool every mid-week, or something like that, with my father. Afterwards, we'd stop for a bite at a nearby diner. They have a MS. PAC-MAN machine in the vestibule. One day, I watched someone doing really really good at the game. I'm reminded of the old DOS games I loved so much. Around this time, I was obsessed with what year a piece of media came out, so upon seeing the "copyright 1980, 1981" on the attract mode of the game, I had learned something new: Arcade games like that dated back to the 1980s.

Throughout 2003: Going to arcades wherever I went (i.e. bowling alleys, restaurants, etc.) and seeing at least one retro arcade game there. A lot of the time, it was one of those MS. PAC-MAN/GALAGA "Class of 1981" cabinets that were pretty new at the time.

Christmas 2003: I'm given two plug-n-play retro games collections... This is where it all *really* takes off...

The one on the left is the Jakks Pacific Namco set, which contains PAC-MAN, BOSCONIAN, RALLY-X, DIG DUG, and GALAXIAN. Pretty solid ports, all things considered. This I got on Christmas Eve, and I remember that night trying out all the games... And I played the living daylights out of this thing after that...

The one on the right was a bootleg, a Frankenstein's monster-like controller system concoction that were sold in malls and on QVC and the like. My grandmother got that one for me, and it contained a cartridge containing 84 various Famicom and NES games. These "Famiclones" were common back then and it was a side-market that only mutated over time. Luckily, this was one of the less egregious ones, and it had an assortment of NES games I couldn't get elsewhere. The hand-me-down NES we had no longer worked, so this was a worth substitute... Take out the cartridge, there's 10 built-in games that are basically Famiclones. Weird thrown-together 8-bit games of origin I'm unaware of at the moment.

Early 2004: Near my dad's place is a warehouse selling arcade machines and cocktail tables. While they didn't allow customers to play the games, they did - somehow - make an exception for me. I visited a few times and loved it, it was like paradise to my 11-year-old self. I'm sure the guy running the place wanted us OUT, haha.

Next... This is going to sound super-nerdy, but upon doing very well in a spelling bee around February/March and winning... A $200 gift card to... Circuit City! Yes, upon a winning that gift card, what do I buy? Retro game collections!

I believe I got NAMCO MUSEUM and MIDWAY ARCADE TREASURES on one of the shopping trips, in addition to the GameBoy version of NAMCO MUSEUM, PAC-MAN COLLECTION, and KONAMI COLLECTOR'S SERIES: ARCADE ADVANCE.

I visit the website System 16 and KLOV (Killer List Of Video Games) quite frequently, too.

Also around this time, I get my hands on an Atari collection for the PC called ATARI ANNIVERSARY EDITION. I also receive a book called THE ULTIMATE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES by Steven L. Kent.

SUPER MARIO ADVANCE 2 is in regular rotation around this time.

Fall-Christmas 2004: For my birthday and Christmas, I get...

ATARI ANTHOLOGY for the XBOX, and another Jakks Pacific Namco collection, this time including MS. PAC-MAN, MAPPY, GALAGA, XEVIOUS, and POLE POSITION. I also get this fantastic coffee table book by Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson:

I'll cap it off here, but this is where it peaks, and I'm all about these kinds of things from here on out.

[everygame]

Sprint 8 (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Atari Released: 5/1977 Completed: n/a Completion: I played it for a bit. Version played: Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (Switch) Trophies / Achievements: n/a

An interesting inclusion on Atari 50 here. Now, I agree with the generally held opinion of Atari 50 that it’s a fantastic retro collection that has a lot of fantastic supplementary information, all presented in a very compelling, museum-like fashion, but I do have to complain a bit that it’s full of un-contextualised gaps that if you’re a deranged completionist like me makes it quite hard to grasp the actual history. You can quibble here that they don’t claim to be definitive, and I’m not asking them to include literally every game Atari ever put out or anything, but it seems odd to put Sprint 8 in the collection without much explanation when (as far as I can tell) it’s one in a long line of updated versions of Atari’s Gran Trak 10, which is believed to be the first arcade racing game (well, to feature cars).

That list includes a lot of confusingly similar games all called Sprint with a number at the end, with Sprint 8 I suppose what Digital Eclipse decided was the “definitive” one, because it allows the most players (8, unlike Sprint 4, or Sprint 2, or Sprint 1, which you can probably work out.) But then you’ve also got games like Indy 800 and LeMans, which basically look exactly the same. Are they different? I don’t know, Atari 50 doesn’t say anything about it.

But of course, maybe Digital Eclipse just weren’t that bothered about it because, to be honest, Sprint 8 isn’t much more than a curiosity–mildly interesting if you are following the lineage of top-down racers that will, of course, lead to Atari’s own Super Sprint, but not as something to can actually play. For one, there’s not really anything to Sprint 8 outside of competition with other players, as there’s no interaction with the “AI” cars outside of them knocking you off course if they hit you–the game doesn’t track laps or finishing position or anything, it’s just a score that ticks up per lap (there’s no score for the AI cars, meaning you couldn’t work out placement, though you can use it in multiplayer.)

And much like the other early Atari games which suffer because you don’t have a paddle controller, here you really feel the lack of a steering wheel because the game has that big, arc-y turning feeling you’ll probably already know from things like Super Off-Road, but also features tracks your car gets completely stuck on if you even slightly brush the edges (which makes playing alone miserable, as the AI cars all drive a perfect route at top speed, crashing you into the edges of the track constantly.)

Being charitable, in 1977 this is probably alright if you’ve got seven friends down the arcade with you? There’s four tracks, so there’s a bit of variety, and I can imagine without the annoyingly perfect AI cars there’s a more shambolic race experience more like what you’d expect from Super Off-Road or something (just a lot more basic.) But it’s not 1977.

Will I ever play it again? Often with these I say “oh, I’ll have a go on this if I ever see it in an arcade” but this would require me to be in an arcade with seven friends and at this point in my life I barely know seven people let alone call them friends.

Final Thought: Unfortunately, Super Sprint isn’t on Atari 50 (Nor the post-apocalyptic take, Badlands) because those are on the Midway Arcade Treasures releases, because of the way Atari was sliced up in 1985, with the coin-op and home divisions being separated–which is quite apparent in the Atari 50 collection having absolutely no arcade games after 1984. Guess I need to pick up Midway Arcade Origins as well now???

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month.

[xolta]

Games part 3

Xolta's Big old recommended games list Part 3 Windows 3-Xp

Windows 3.1/nt: Microsoft Arcade(compilation)

Windows 95: Chip's Challenge(puzzle) Microsoft Arcade(compilation) Age of Empires(Rts) Atomic Bomberman(bomber man) Carmageddon(Combat racing) Dungeon Keeper(rts) Quake II (fps) The House of the Dead (on rails shooter/light gun) Total Annihilation (rts) Warcarft 2(rts) starcraft(rts) Mine sweeper(puzzle) Daiblo 1(rpg)

Windows 98: Age of Empires II: The Conquerors(rts) Baldur's Gate (rpg) Diablo 2 (action rpg) Dungeon Keeper 2(rts) Final Fantasy VII (jrpg) Half-Life (rts) Heart Of Darkness (platformer) Jazz Jackrabbit 2(platformer) No One Lives Forever(fps/sealth) Nox(action rpg) RollerCoaster Tycoon (sim/tycoon) Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (anime fps) The Sims (sim) The Typing of the Dead (typing) Unreal(fps) Unreal Tournament (fps) Daytona us deluxe(racing)

Windows Xp: Speedy eggbert 1-2(Platformer/jank) Age of Mythology(rts) Alien Shooter (SHOOTY BANG BANG) Armed and Dangerous (run and gun) Clive Barker's Undying (fps) Call of Duty(fps) Company of Heroes(rts) Half-Life 2(fps/3 never ever em up) Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis(Tycoon) 3D space cadet pinball(pinball) Fast Food Tycoon 2(tycoon/pizza em up) Neverwinter Nights(rpg) Sega smash pack 1&2(Collection) Taito Legends 1&2(collection) Midway Arcade Treasures(collection) OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (raceing) Painkiller(fps) King kong(adventure) Serious Sam 1&2(fps) Sonic Adventure DX (platformer/use mods to fix this port) The House of the Dead 3 ( on rails shooter/light gun) Warcarft 3(rts) Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (rts) Zoo Tycoon(tycoon)

[pyramid-levels]

Gauntlet: Dark Legacy - Mystic Pyramid

Table of contents:

Overview

Objective(s)

The Pyramid Itself

Treasure, Traps, & Things to Find

Enemies

Tips & Tricks

Music

My Relationship to this Game

Overview

Gauntlet: Dark Legacy is the 7th game in Midway's classic arcade series. In it, we battle through dungeons, avoiding traps and trying to take out various enemy generators, all while making our way through each stage.

The bulk of the story is in its opening narration: "In an ancient time the evil mage Garm, using the power of the runestones, released a great evil upon the land. This evil, Skorne, broke free of Garm's control, crushing him and imprisoning his soul in the underworld. Skorne then released his minions upon the lands, and scattered the runestones across the Eight Realms so that they might never be assembled and used against him. No one has dared try... until now."

Objective(s)

The Mystic Pyramid is in The Desert Lands, one of the final realms in the game. An evil genie rules the desert from a tomb at the bottom of the Mystic Pyramid. His servants are the former people of the desert, who have been turned into zombies.

The goal is simply to fight to the end of the stage.

The Pyramid Itself

The pyramid appears to have been warped by the genre's magic. Other realms, like the Mountain Kingdom or Castle Stronghold, look more or less like real places. However this pyramid has impossible stone walkways floating off into the air, unnatural passages that wind in and out of the pyramid, and the basement floor is a cartoonish pit of lava.

The path forward is often blocked by an impassable gap or wall, forcing the player to explore for various red buttons and switches that open the way forward.

Treasure, Traps, & Things to Find

There are many items in this level, with apples and crystals lying right out in the middle of the room, with barrels stuffed full of random items filling the corners and along the walls, and all of these lovely pickups potentially distract from some hidden items.

But the big hidden item here are the Toxic Bellows. In this game, each Realm has a hidden legendary weapon that cripples the boss of another Realm. And the legendary weapon hidden in The Desert Lands is right here in The Mystic Pyramid.  The Toxic Bellows are hidden in a sarcophagus in the beginning of the level. To reach it we need to hit a series of switches sprinkled through the beginning. If we reach a wooden scaffolding that leads around the outside of the pyramid we’ve gone too far. This legendary weapon is effective against the previous Realm's Spider Queen Boss, as it temporarily shrinks and weakens her.

Keys are precious in this game, and there aren't many to pick up in this level. Here's a peek inside each chest in this level to help ration keys. 1st chest - bomb. 2nd - Lightning Shield. 3rd - an apple. 4th - random 5th - bomb 6th - bomb 7th - meat

Note: THERE IS NO RUNE STONE IN THIS LEVEL. Don’t go crazy looking for one.

Enemies

This game has 8 main enemies that get reskinned for each Realm, and typically appear in every level in one form or another. They are: Anklebiter Grunt Sniper Lobber Bomber Advanced Grunt General Golem

It is tempting to refer to these as "categories" of enemies, but there is nothing to differentiate one Sniper or Grunt from another beyond visual flair.

Also in The Mystic Pyramid, we will also encounter 2 less common foes: a Gargoyle, and Death

A few of these enemies (noted below) continuously spill into the level from monster generators, with each having their own dedicated generator. Only when each generator is attacked until reduced to rubble will they stop creating enemies.

Below I will expand upon these in the order I've presented them above.

Anklebiter

These are small enemies (so small we stomp on them instead of using our regular melee attack) that die in 1 - 2 hits. They exist mainly to annoy the player and chip away at their HP. Don't be tricked into using resources to wipe them away, they're almost never worth it. Instead, hang back and attack them from a distance. They pour out of their generators quickly, so getting into melee range quickly get overwhelming. Plus, they have so little HP that even characters with slow or weak ranged attacks can still safely manage them from a distance.

Some realms have two ankle biters, with one just being a stronger version of the other. The Desert Realms is one such area, with black cobras as the weaker version, and red cobras for the stronger counterpart.

Grunt

In The Desert Lands they look like zombified versions of the desert's former denizen. Unlike the Ankle Biters, there is always a stronger and a weaker version of this enemy.

These enemies make up the bread and butter of every level. They’re designed to be blown through.

Sniper

It looks like a Grunt with a bow, but they are as strong as a level 2 grunt.

Snipers don't come from a generator, but are placed at specific points in the level to harry us. And unlike most other monsters that just rush straight at us, Snipers will back away slowly to try and stay a set distance away.

They're often in spots where it's easy for them to attack us, but difficult for us to retaliate. If they’re not perched somewhere we can’t reach easily, they often attack us while we’re in a tight space making it hard to dodge their fast arrows.  But the reflect shield is a perfect counter to this enemy. Alternatively, they're easily dispensed with a thrown potion or our Turbo Attack.

Lobber

They are a Grunt with a bag of bombs.

Like the Sniper, they don't come from a generator, and they attack from range, backing up if approached. However, they're able to toss rocks and bombs over walls, limiting our ability to retaliate. Their bombs will knock us down, and while they can be dodged, their explosion can still catch us if we’re not fast enough.

Bomber

They are grunts with an exploding barrel strapped to their back. When they see the player, they will roar and charge, running much faster than the player can normally move. This enemy will explode if they reach a player. They'll explode when hit. And their bomb has a fuse on it, so they'll also just explode on their own a little while after they roar. (Note their explosions damage their allies too.)

Their aggro range is notably larger than the radius of our field of vision, so while they always see us first, their roar will let us know they're coming. After roaring, they only charge in a straight line. So speedy (or lucky) players can get Bombers stuck on level geography.

Additionally, there are two different barrels that Bombers can carry: a red or a green barrel. They behave exactly like the exploding red and green barrels around the level, with red ones dealing immediate damage and knocking down everyone hit, and with green ones leaving a poisonous cloud.

Advanced Grunt

They operate just like grunts, only they give/take more damage. They're resilient enough that trying to whittle down a horde will often have them respawning faster than we can drop them, so it's often wise to go for their generator first and then mop up whatever is left. Advance Grunts have a ranged attack however, so if there is too large of a swarm of them it may be impossible to dodge all incoming damage.

When we break their generator, instead of being destroyed, it'll downgrade into a Grunt generator.

General

They don't spawn from a generator, instead their thundering steps let us know when they're coming. They only know how to do two things: charge and melee, but they do them well, moving faster than the player normally can until late game, and their attacks are far stronger than ours and can knock us down.

Additionally, Generals can block strong attacks, like the last hits in a combo, strong items, and even our Turbo Attack. However, after blocking it takes them a moment before they can block again. If we can bait a block with a strong ranged attack, as soon as they drop their guard they're open to punishment.

All This aside, we can make short work of them. When we hear a general coming, look around for geography to trap them on. Like Bombers they only head for us in a straight line, so their lack of a melee leaves them very vulnerable.

Our best bet is to never square up and take them on in a battle of attrition, but if worst comes to worst: use the Thunder Hammer. Barring that, the 3 way or 5 way shot + an elemental amulet can help even the playing field.

Generals leave behind a random item when defeated.

Golem

Some enemies let us know they're coming, but Golems try to disguise themself as part of the scenery before popping out to attack, though, as the image above shows, they’re not too good at it.

They are quite similar to Generals, but much slower. They can also block, only now most of their attacks will knock us down. And when they're also far hardier than a General, battles of attrition can be quite costly. It's important to keep our distance, retreating down already cleared sections of the level to keep away. However, because they're so slow moving they're very easy to lure onto traps, especially spike or fire traps.

While cunning or patient players can lure golems down side halls and circumvent them entirely, especially if they get stuck on geography, Golems also leave behind a random item when defeated.

Gargoyle

They are the strongest non-boss enemies in the game and come in 3 varieties: acid with a serpent head, electric with a falcon head, and fire with a lion head, each dropping a different golden item needed to unlock different parts of the Summoner's castle. In The Mystic Pyramid, there is a lion gargoyle in the 2nd half of the level. We’ll suddenly come across it rounding a corner, and we fight it in a narrow area with no cover.

Their melee attack is no joke, that’s not the way to engage them. But it’s easy to stay out of melee range when they almost don’t move. However, they’re not moving because they’re busy attacking. If we’re not close enough to strike, they’ll use one of their two ranged attacks: a cone, or an orb. Fortunately, this is their great weakness. The orb doesn’t home in on the player, and moves just slowly enough that it can be dodged. And Gargoyles will still attempt to hit the player with their cone breath attack even if we stand just out of range.

Gargoyles do not block, but can take such punishment they're impossible to simply blitz down. Stay patient, don’t panic, and they’re not even worth using items on.

Death

Yes, Death himself lurks in the Mystic Pyramid, waiting behind a gate and guarding a switch we need to proceed. While there is only one Death here, another may also randomly be in the 4th treasure chest, so it’d be best to mention both kinds of Death, just in case.

The Death we’re guaranteed to find is wearing a red cloak, and will sap up to 100 health. The other kind of Death is wearing a black cloak, and will drain experience points. Very nasty, but like everything else in this game, no problem once you know how to manage it.

While Death will soak 100 attacks before going down, he can also be dispelled with a single potion. Additionally, the Anti-Death Halo will instead let us drain health or EXP from him, even letting us temporarily go over our max HP.

And if death is hiding in the 4th chest, using a potion on it before opening it will turn Death into a piece of fruit.

Tips & Tricks

About half of the chests in this level have bombs in them. Sure, we can always save the key and skip them, or lure enemies near before opening them. This late into the game the explosion will be much smaller than most characters' potions can reach, but the exploding chests are always a fun use of spare keys.

There is an easy way to glitch Shrink Enemies or Freeze Time and make them last for a whole level. Have 10-20 seconds left of the preferred buff and go into a boss fight. Activate it before the boss kills us, and upon death select “Continue.” The item will now be active until it’s used again, the game is quit, or restarted. This is a great way to collect treasure, or safely hunt for The Toxic Bellows. Each item comes with its own pros and cons, for while Shrink Enemies will simply shrink all enemies, reducing their stats by half, Freeze Time will prevent any enemies from spawning at all, making for a quicker level at the expense of enemy gold and EXP.

Music 

This game has an impressive ost. Each stage, and bonus stage has its own music, making for 63 total tracks! They average about 4 minutes a track, but with a few stages in the 7-9 minute range for some of the longer levels.

Check it out~

My Relationship to this Game

As a kid I went to Wisconsin Dells a few times. It was always tons of fun, even though their inner tubes are how I learned I have a latex allergy. Arcades weren't too common where I grew up. The closest we had was stuff like Chuck e Cheese, which didn't really have cabinets so much as stuff like Skii Ball and other games made to reward tickets. But Wisconsin Dells was the first proper Arcade I remember going to. Most of the games looked super hard, and I didn't have too many tokens to burn trying them out, but I was entranced by Gauntlet Legends. I only recently graduated from the NES to N64, so Gauntlet Legends was blowing my little mind. I couldn't even beat the first realm, I died a few levels in on a majestic hillside swarmed by orcs after being turned into Pojo the Magic Fire Breathing Chicken. But I had so much fun that as soon as I got home I hopped onto the family computer to pick up a home port.

It’s hard to go back to Gauntlet Legends now because of the jerky camera and low framerate (how did I suffer these as a kid), but the sequel, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, has actually aged pretty well, and is arguably the pinnacle of good old Gauntlet fun. I have fond memories of crowding around my tiny TV in the corner of my bedroom with my brother and some friends as we tried to unlock the Unicorn. That Cloud9 minigame was so hard! We made a line across the cloud to try and catch all the coins, and it still took us 4-5 tries because of the way the cloud bobs around! And with each failure we’d have to play the whole level again! I also loved it when we could bring a big pile of Thunder Hammers into a boss fight and watch them wither against our i-frames and global damage.

[runningwithhelicopters]

He could kill you, but he just likes swimming too much.

[soldmysoulforfandoms]

after fuckin ages of searching I found my childhood game!!

at first I thought it was sega mega drive ultimate collction but I was looking through its list of games and none of my favourites were coming up so I was like wat?

so I just remembered it was for ps2 not ps3 and I found it and I'm so happy like I just wish I could play these games again omg they were lit!! 

[smbhax]

Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3 - in Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (PS2)

Session: https://youtu.be/h4WPQtwFk-w

[g4zdtechtv]

FULL EPISODE: Cinematech - Professor Robotonic Goes to the Colonic

Neo Goes Fishing.

[jenniferisacommonname]

Bonus Level Unlocked

This week marks the release of Jason Schreier’s Press Reset, an incredibly well-researched book on catastrophic business failure in the gaming industry. Jason’s a good dude, and there’s an excerpt here if you want to check it out. Sadly, game companies going belly-up is such a common occurrence that he couldn’t possibly include them all, and one of the stories left out due to space constraints is one that I happen to be personally familiar with. So, I figured I’d tell it here.

I began working at Acclaim Studios Austin as a sound designer in January of 2000. It was a tumultuous period for the company, including a recent rebranding from their former studio name, “Iguana Entertainment,” and a related, ongoing lawsuit from the ex-founder of Iguana. There were a fair number of ghosts hanging around—the creative director’s license plate read IGUANA, which he never changed, and one of the meeting rooms held a large, empty terrarium—but the studio had actually been owned on paper by Acclaim since 1995, and I didn’t notice any conflicting loyalties. Everyone acted as if we always had been, and always would be, Acclaim employees.

Over the next few years I worked on a respectable array of triple-A titles, including Quarterback Club 2002, Turok: Evolution, and All-Star Baseball 2002 through 2005. (Should it be “All-Stars Baseball,” like attorneys general? Or perhaps a term of venery, like “a zodiac of All-Star Baseball.”) At any rate, it was a fun place to work, and a platformer of hijinks ensued.

But let’s skip to the cutscene. The truth is that none of us in the trenches suspected the end was near until it was absolutely imminent. Yes, Turok: Evolution and Vexx had underperformed, especially when stacked against the cost of development, but games flop in the retail market all the time. And, yes, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling had been hustled out the door before it was ready for reasons no one would explain, and the New York studio’s release of a BMX game featuring unlockable live-action stripper footage had been an incredibly weird marketing ploy for what should have been a straightforward racing title. (Other desperate gimmicks around this time included a £6,000 prize for UK parents who would name their baby “Turok,” an offer to pay off speeding tickets to promote Burnout 2 that quickly proved illegal, and an attempt to buy advertising space on actual tombstones for a Shadow Man sequel.)

But the baseball franchise was an annual moneymaker, and our studio had teams well into development on two major new licenses, 100 Bullets and The Red Star. Enthusiasm was on the upswing. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention when voice actors started calling me to complain that they hadn’t been paid, but at the time it seemed more like a bureaucratic failure than an actual money shortage—and frankly, it was a little naïve of them to expect net-30 in the first place. Industry standard was, like, net-90 at best. So I was told.

Then one Friday afternoon, a few department managers got word that we’d kind of maybe been skipping out on the building lease for let’s-not-admit-how-many months. By Monday morning, everyone’s key cards had been deactivated.

It's a little odd to arrive at work and find a hundred-plus people milling around outside—even odder, I suppose, if your company is not the one being evicted. Acclaim folks mostly just rolled their eyes and debated whether to cut our losses and head to lunch now, while employees of other companies would look dumbfounded and fearful before being encouraged to push their way through the crowd and demonstrate their still-valid key card to the security guard. Finally, the General Manager (hired only a few months earlier, and with a hefty relocation bonus to accommodate his houseboat) announced that we should go home for the day and await news. Several of our coworkers were veterans of the layoff process—like I said, game companies go under a lot—and one of them had already created a Yahoo group to communicate with each other on the assumption that we’d lose access to our work email. A whisper of “get on the VPN and download while you can” rippled through the crowd.

But the real shift in tone came after someone asked about a quick trip inside for personal items, and the answer was a hard, universal “no.” We may have been too busy or ignorant to glance up at any wall-writing, but the building management had not been: they were anticipating a full bankruptcy of the entire company. In that situation, all creditors have equal standing to divide up a company's assets in lengthy court battles, and most get a fraction of what they’re owed. But if the landlords had seized our office contents in lieu of rent before the bankruptcy was declared, they reasoned, then a judge might rule that they had gotten to the treasure chest first, and could lay claim to everything inside as separate from the upcoming asset liquidation.

Ultimately, their gambit failed, but the ruling took a month to settle. In the meantime, knick knacks gathered dust, delivered packages piled up, food rotted on desks, and fish tanks became graveyards. Despite raucous protest from every angle—the office pets alone generated numerous threats of animal cruelty charges—only one employee managed to get in during this time, and only under police escort. He was a British citizen on a work visa, and his paperwork happened to be sitting on his desk, due to expire. Without it, he was facing literal deportation. Fortunately, a uniformed officer took his side (or perhaps just pre-responded to what was clearly a misdemeanor assault in ovo,) and after some tense discussion, the building manager relented, on the condition that the employee touch absolutely nothing beyond the paperwork in question. The forms could go, but the photos of his children would remain.

It’s also a little odd, by the way, to arrive at the unemployment office and find every plastic chair occupied by someone you know. Even odder, I suppose, if you’re actually a former employee of Acclaim Studios Salt Lake, which had shut down only a month or two earlier, and you just uprooted your wife and kids to a whole new city on the assurance that you were one of the lucky ones who got to stay employed. Some of them hadn’t even finished unpacking.

Eventually, we were allowed to enter the old office building one at a time and box up our things under the watchful eye of a court appointee, but by then our list of grievances made the landlords’ ploy seem almost quaint by comparison (except for the animals, which remains un-fucking-forgivable.) We had learned, for example, that in the weeks prior to the bankruptcy, our primary lender had made an offer of $15 million—enough to keep us solvent through our next batch of releases, two of which had already exited playtesting and were ready to be burned and shipped. The only catch was that the head of the board, company founder Greg Fischbach, would have to step down. This was apparently too much of an insult for him to stomach, and he decided that he'd rather see everything burn to the ground. The loan was refused.

Other “way worse than we thought” details included gratuitous self-dealing to vendors owned by board members, the disappearance of expensive art from the New York offices just before closure, and the theft of our last two paychecks. For UK employees, it was even more appalling: Acclaim had, for who knows how long, been withdrawing money from UK paychecks for their government-required pension funds, but never actually putting the money into the retirement accounts. They had stolen tens of thousands of dollars directly from each worker.

Though I generally reside somewhere between mellow and complete doormat on the emotional spectrum, I did get riled enough to send out one bitter email—not to anyone in corporate, but to the creators of a popular webcomic called Penny Arcade, who, in the wake of Acclaim’s bankruptcy announcement, published a milquetoast jibe about Midway’s upcoming Area 51. I told Jerry (a.k.a. “Tycho”) that I was frankly disappointed in their lack of cruelty, and aired as much dirty laundry as I was privy to at the time.

“Surely you can find a comedic gem hidden somewhere in all of this!” I wrote. “Our inevitable mocking on PA has been a small light at the end of a very dark, very long tunnel. Please at least allow us the dignity of having a smile on our faces while we wait in line for food stamps.”

Two days later, a suitably grim comic did appear, implying the existence of a new release from Acclaim whose objective was to run your game company into the ground. In the accompanying news post, Tycho wrote:

“We couldn’t let the Acclaim bankruptcy go without comment, though we initially let it slide thinking about the ordinary gamers who lost their jobs there. They don’t have anything to do with Acclaim’s malevolent Public Relations mongrels, and it wasn’t they who hatched the Titty Bike genre either. Then, we remembered that we have absolutely zero social conscience and love to say mean things.”

Another odd experience, by the way, is digging up a 16-year-old complaint to a webcomic creator for nostalgic reference when you offer that same creator a promotional copy of the gaming memoir you just co-wrote with Sid Meier. Even odder, I suppose, to realize that the original non-Acclaim comic had been about Area 51, which you actually were hired to work on yourself soon after the Acclaim debacle.*

As is often the case in complex bankruptcies, the asset liquidation took another six years to fully stagger its way through court—but in 2010, we did, surprisingly, get the ancient paychecks we were owed, plus an extra $1,700-ish for the company’s apparent violation of the WARN Act. By then, I had two kids and a very different life, for which the money was admittedly helpful. Sadly, Acclaim’s implosion probably isn’t even the most egregious one on record. Our sins were, to my knowledge, all money-related, and at least no one was ever sexually assaulted in our office building. Again, to my knowledge. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure we remain the only historical incident of corporate pet murder. The iguana got out just in time.

*Area 51’s main character was voiced by David Duchovny, and he actually got paid—which was lucky for him, because three years later, Midway also declared bankruptcy.

[defstan480]

Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (XBOX / Digital Eclipse / 2004) - Mortal Kombat 3 (Midway / 1995) - launch kit intro

[marioclash]

if anyone cares the games i ordered legit are

pac-man world 2, the midway arcade treasures trilogy, atari anthology, burnout revenge, project gotham racing 2, simpsons road rage, dead or alive 3, halo 1, and halo 2

and these are the games im gonna put on the hard drive

[1-highscore]

New high score on Midway Arcade Treasures: Defender (Playstation 2) by RetroRob 11,000 https://ift.tt/3cHtdtC