PixlBit

 You don't need quarters for these games

I've always talked about Nintendo and other console games, but one thing I never really talked about are arcade games in general. I'm talking about the old school stuff. I don't know if I plan to write something else like this one, but today I'm going to focus on the arcade games from Williams or later known as Midway.

                                          

I remember trying a few of these at a laundromat at one point, but it wasn't till my brother got Midway Arcade Treasures that I got to play alot of the classics. I'll tell you that alot of these old arcade games had an interesting premise, they were weird, but they are pretty fun. So, for this I'll be posting about my favorites from the collection. With that out of the way, here are my favorite Midway Arcade Treasures:

Root Beer Tapper

A game that has you serve beer (or root beer) to patrons at a bar. What you do is serve these people beer or root beer in the row that they are sitting at. If the person who is thirsty reaches to you at the end where you're at, they grab and toss you and you lose a life. It's a game where you have to be quick.

Rampage

A game where you choose from one of 3 monsters and go on a rampage through various cities of the united states. It's a pretty neat game. You basically destroy building and generally anything that get's in your way. You can even eat people too. But eventually the military comes in and tries to shoot you to take you down, but you can also take them down too. I have fond memories of Rampage: World Tour on the N64 since that's the one I played as a kid, it's a much better game than this one, but World Tour is not on the collection disc. 

720

One of the games that probably predates the Tony Hawk games, and probably influenced them. The game is about being skateboarder and what you do is enter competitions. Some are locked at first and only open at a specific time. You also have to enter competitions that are already open to get money to buy new equipment and gain tickets to enter more competions. The tricks might be a bit hard to pull off. Also, if you don't do anything for a while, this voice comes out that says SKATE OR DIE and these bees come after you. It's a bit dated but this was basically Tony Hawk before Tony Hawk became a game.  

Rampart

I'm not sure, but this infact might be the grandfather of all tower defense games out there. That's what this is basically, a tower defense game. Here's how it works, when you start, you are given the option to pick out a base in the map, you have to choose carefully and each area you can select to build your base has some strategy involved. If you pick a base near the beach, you are more likely to sink boats faster, but it makes you more likely to get hit more often by boats. If you choose a base more in the middle of the land, you can hit bases belonging to enemies better, but it will take a while to hit boats. There is some strategy involved in choosing to build your base. Also you have to be careful because your enemy can tear down the walls of your base with cannonfire. You also have your own cannons too and you have to place them wisely in your base. After you take down the an enemy wave, you are then rewarded with more cannons and the option to rebuild your broken base, or you could expand it's size, or make another base. You really have to be careful, because a bigger base means a bigger target for your enemies to hit, or having more than one base might be hard to manage. It can also be played with 2 people and you both can go head to head.

Smash TV

    

It's a top down run a gun game. The plot of the game (a game with a plot, wha..?) is that you're in a game show set in the future and you compete for prizes like a brand new vcr, money, vacations, toasters and more. But the biggest prize you're competing for is your life. Yes, you're risking your life for the entertainment of others, just like every game show on tv. It's avery neat game, you advance through the game by selecting rooms, and each room either has enemies, traps, a combination of both, and prizes. There are also weapon upgrades that give you a temporary power-up for a short time. There are even bosses in this game too. It's a very cheesy game, but it's a really fun and cheesy game.

Gauntlet

                                 

I think this is a game alot of people like. I'm not sure if I'm right, but this might be a dungeon crawler game of sorts. Basically you choose a character like a wizard or whatever and travel through floors of a dungeon crawling with enemies, treasures, and traps. I played it for the first time in years last year with my neighbor and we had a blast, we even discovered a cheat that gives you infinite lives or health, don't remember but it was fun.

Joust

                                          

Alot of people like Joust, I do too. I think Balloon Fight and Joust have alot in common as the gameplay is basically the same. What you do is that you take command of a knight riding an ostrich and you have to fight your way through waves of enemies. If you rach the end of the screen on one side, you come out of the other side of the screen like in Balloon Fight. And like in Ballooon Fight, in order to take down an enemy, you have to fly higher than your opponent in order to defeat them. It's a very fun game.

Klax

It's 2015, and there's time for Klax. I'll be honest, I really don't know how to explain this one since this is a puzzle game. I'll try my best. Basically you have a conveyor belt in the top of the screen and you have these blocks coming towards you. You have this device for catching the blocks, up to 5 can be caught and any you miss will go to the playing area or you can push them back at the conveyor belt. From there you have to match the blocks in a row of 3 or 5's, this is what they call a Klax. You can match them in a vertical, horizontal, or diagnol line, and you an even chain up multiple blocks for multiple Klaxes. It's a very neat game and one of my favorite puzzle games. Did you know that when they made this game, they were marketing it as a sequel to Tetris?   

Toobin'

Toobin is a game about recreational tubing. It might seem boring but it's quite fun. You basically race through a river with obstacles in the way and it's not just a normal river you go through. There are different types of rivers you go with different obstacles along the way. You can also hit characters who are spectating and you can even hit the rival you are racing and force them to crash in an obstacle. As for the rivers, it's really crazy, you go through your traditional rivers, through a Jurassic styled one, and even one in that place, you know, THAT place (Rockos Modern Life reference).

Marble Madness

A game where you control a marble through an obstacle course. It might not seem like much but it's a very weird game. Each obstacle course has enemies and obstacles you must go through before you reach the end. It also sports some very interesting graphics and the music is just very weird, but it matches the game perfectly well.

Paperboy

This one might be the most normal one of the bunch, but it really isn't actually. The game has you play as Paperboy and you have to go through your paper route and deliver newspapers. Seems like a simple game right? Well it sounds simple but it's anything but simple. Like any kid that delivers newspapers, you have to deliver newspapers to newspaper subscribers homes, you either throw it at their front door or in their mailbox, but miss and hit a window, and you wont get points. You get points for every successful delivery, and you also get points for breaking windows of unsubscribed homes too. But it might sound easy, but you have alot of obstacles to go through along your route. From construction workers, to people fighting, even the Grim Reaper himself. At the end of your route you wind up in an obstacle course where you can earn more points. After that, you get to see how you did in your route. You get to see which houses you made a delivery on, and the ones you didn't will unsubscribe. You also see which unsubscribers homes you've vandalized, and they might eventually become subscribers. Afterwards, you move on to the next day, but as the days pass by, they get harder. It's a very neat game, and one I tend to play the most from the collection.

So those are my favorite games from Midway Arcade Treasures. I may do one for Namco Museum since my brother has it on the Gamecube. So, what are your favorite Midway/Williams games? Thanks for reading and later.