PlayStation Game Recommendations | mariteaux

[#] Arcade Party Pak (Midway, PlayStation, 1999)

A high-resolution success!

These PS1 Digital Eclipse arcade comps don't get nearly enough credit. For game selection, accuracy, and slickness of presentation, they just about outdo most editions of Namco Museum, and Arcade Party Pak is another sterling example. You get six games here, all from slightly later in Midway's run: 720°, Klax, Rampage, Smash TV, Super Sprint, and Toobin', all presented properly emulated, some even in 640x480. If you're used to pixels the size of dinner plates with the PlayStation, get a load of some of these, they're nuts to look at.

For me, 720° (an early isometric free-roam skateboarding game) and Rampage (the classic city destroying monster game) are the duds here, but I know they have their fans, so that's not a knock on them. Smash TV is Robotron's steroidal competitive cousin, throwing bosses and waves of wigged out murderers at you to gun down. Supposedly, the DualShock is supported, but I couldn't get it to work, but if it works for you (or you map your emulator properly), you have the best twin-stick shooter on the console here. Klax is always a mind-bending good time, even if this version sadly seems to have control issues in DuckStation, which is what I played it on.

That brings me to Toobin' and Super Sprint. These games are featured in the Midway Arcade Treasures pack on the PS2 I reviewed a while back, but I admittedly never gave them their due, and that was a mistake! I became especially hopelessly addicted to Super Sprint, effectively an arcade take on Micro Machines, trying for perfect laps around these twisty, overlapping single-screen race tracks. Add in some fascinating interview clips, autosaving high scores, and a ton of settings to tweak, and you've got a hell of a collection on your hands. Get this.

(This game is known to have issues running on all models of PS2. The excellent Midway Arcade Treasures features all six of these games and should fill the Super Sprint-shaped hole in your life just fine instead. Ironically, running in PCSX2, Klax seems to control just fine, despite these games not working properly on the console it's emulating.)