The Legendary Midway Games

[chenGOD]

NBA Jam ftw

 

My nukka knows what's up!

*Terrorist fist bump*

 

Also UT3 wasn't too bad.

And fucking TRON! I know that was before MK2 but y'all can't forget about that.

[Guest assegai]

NBA Jam ftw

 

My nukka knows what's up!

*Terrorist fist bump*

 

Also UT3 wasn't too bad.

And fucking TRON! I know that was before MK2 but y'all can't forget about that.

 

haha NBA JAM was awesome

what other game you can play as Bill Clinton and the Fresh Prince of Belaire

[Tessier Ashpool]

God damn - kind of a long time coming as, yeah, they haven't had a decent title in AGES. . .

 

But, what a pedigree. Friend of mine told me that TRON was the first game to use adaptive learning to change its strategy based on player input.

 

And, god, did Mortal Kombat steal many a quarter and hour during my youth.

 

R.I.P. Midway - maybe Ed Boon and John Tobias will hook back up and make another MK that doesn't involve super-heroes or T-rated Joker Fatalities

[awepittance]

[

Thank God - they haven't made a decent game since Mortal Kombat II.

what about nfl blitz and the rush series?

 

Yeah, those were decent - if you had an extra chromosome.

 

 

pshaw! those were quality titles. got old after a little while, but mindless fun nonetheless.

 

gauntlet was also great to waste a night of drinking playing.

 

gauntlet was atari :confused:

 

midway bought Atari in the late 90s, so depending on which gaunlet you mean it could very well be midway release

 

only people with shit taste in games/who never went to arcades usually hate on midway, i dont take offense when predominately the people criticizing midway only play cyber armor roided buffman first person shooters.

[Joyrex]

[

Thank God - they haven't made a decent game since Mortal Kombat II.

what about nfl blitz and the rush series?

 

Yeah, those were decent - if you had an extra chromosome.

 

 

pshaw! those were quality titles. got old after a little while, but mindless fun nonetheless.

 

gauntlet was also great to waste a night of drinking playing.

 

gauntlet was atari :confused:

 

midway bought Atari in the late 90s, so depending on which gaunlet you mean it could very well be midway release

 

only people with shit taste in games/who never went to arcades usually hate on midway, i dont take offense when predominately the people criticizing midway only play cyber armor roided buffman first person shooters.

 

No, the majority of their games were shit - I mean, Revolution X - featuring Aerosmith? fucking hell, that was terrible, even for a gun game. Smash TV was made by Williams Electronics, not Midway. Beyond MKII, they were constantly jumping the shark while there were quality arcade games from SEGA, Capcom, SNK, Taito, Konami, etc. around that timeframe. Other turds like the Crusin' series, were just shit.

 

[Guest KY]

i remember playing mortal kombat on my packard bell PC in (somewhere around) 1993 with my best friend at the time. He was totally competitive and I was comparatively terrible at video games. I could never beat Goro, and once he did, he rubbed it in my face like a handful of dog shit. I remember running off and slamming a sliding door in his face as he tried to follow me.

 

Fuck Midway, good riddance.

 

 

/bias

[Joyrex]

i remember playing mortal kombat on my packard bell PC in (somewhere around) 1993 with my best friend at the time. He was totally competitive and I was comparatively terrible at video games. I could never beat Goro, and once he did, he rubbed it in my face like a handful of dog shit. I remember running off and slamming a sliding door in his face as he tried to follow me.

 

Fuck Midway, good riddance.

 

 

/bias

 

He does look scary...

 

 

[Guest KY]

so true! my eleven(?) year old mindset was challenged by four arms, definitely.

 

but that same best friend and i ended up spending hours trying to use the six-symbol codes to unlock secrets in MK3. so it kind of evened out by then. rip midway :'(

[beneboi]

. Beyond MKII, they were constantly jumping the shark while there were quality arcade games from SEGA, Capcom, SNK, Taito, Konami, etc. around that timeframe. Other turds like the Crusin' series, were just shit.

 

hey joyorex, how were they jumping the shark lol.

also revolution x was an awesome game you douche.

[Joyrex]

. Beyond MKII, they were constantly jumping the shark while there were quality arcade games from SEGA, Capcom, SNK, Taito, Konami, etc. around that timeframe. Other turds like the Crusin' series, were just shit.

 

hey joyorex, how were they jumping the shark lol.

also revolution x was an awesome game you douche.

 

They became a parody of themselves - how many Crusin' titles did they release with little innovation in the gameplay itself?

 

T2/Revo X were horrible gun games - even early gun games like Operation Wolf and any of the early KONAMI gun games were much better. I mean, really:

 

Even for 1995, those are shitty digitized graphics, a trend (yet again jumping the shark by trying to use it in every game since MK I even if it wasn't a right fit) that they popularized back then:

 

Compared to Crypt/Corpse Killer, made by Konami, also 1995:

 

 

 

It's the best screenshot I could find...

[FLA FUR BIS FLE]

The Bally/Midway division of Bally was purchased in 1988 by the arcade and pinball game company Williams Electronics Games through its holding company WMS Industries Inc. Midway moved its headquarters from Franklin Park, Illinois to Williams's then-headquarters in Chicago, and WMS re-incorporated Midway as a Delaware corporation. Although WMS retained many of Midway's R&D employees, only two game designers were retained: Rampage designers Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman. WMS obtained the right from Bally to use the "Bally" brand for its pinball games since Bally had completely left the arcade/pinball industry to concentrate on casinos and slot machines.

 

Under WMS ownership, Midway initially continued to produce arcade games under the Bally/Midway label while producing pinball tables under the "Bally" brand. In 1991, however, Midway absorbed Williams' video game division and started making arcade games under its own name again, without the "Bally" part (pinball tables continued to be produced under the "Bally" brand until Midway discontinued this part of the business in 1999). In 1996, WMS also purchased Time-Warner Interactive, which included Atari Games, part of the former giant Atari Inc. 1996 is also when Midway changed its original corporate name Midway Manufacturing to Midway Games Inc. due to its entrance in the home console market. The original arcade division of the company became Midway Amusement Games and the newly created home division was known as Midway Home Entertainment.

 

Sounds to me like Midway and Williams were synonymous. I don't know, but it sounds like you are ripping on Midway Games for no other reason than that you personally didn't enjoy their games, other than acknowledging they released some pretty great Arcade games, as well as being part of bringing Arcade games to the masses in general for a very long time. I mean fuck, the Midway company has been involved in video games/Arcade culture since the 50s. I don't exactly care too much about it, but they were an institution, and given the economic climate, it's just a shame that things went the way they did. Sure, they probably should have stepped up their game in the market, but it is sort of fucked seeing such an old dog go out in such an undignified manner.

[beneboi]

joyrex you are wrong, the t2 and revolution x games were awesome. just because you were already 40 million years old when they came out doesnt mean you should ruin our enjoyment of them.

[Joyrex]

The Bally/Midway division of Bally was purchased in 1988 by the arcade and pinball game company Williams Electronics Games through its holding company WMS Industries Inc. Midway moved its headquarters from Franklin Park, Illinois to Williams's then-headquarters in Chicago, and WMS re-incorporated Midway as a Delaware corporation. Although WMS retained many of Midway's R&D employees, only two game designers were retained: Rampage designers Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman. WMS obtained the right from Bally to use the "Bally" brand for its pinball games since Bally had completely left the arcade/pinball industry to concentrate on casinos and slot machines.

 

Under WMS ownership, Midway initially continued to produce arcade games under the Bally/Midway label while producing pinball tables under the "Bally" brand. In 1991, however, Midway absorbed Williams' video game division and started making arcade games under its own name again, without the "Bally" part (pinball tables continued to be produced under the "Bally" brand until Midway discontinued this part of the business in 1999). In 1996, WMS also purchased Time-Warner Interactive, which included Atari Games, part of the former giant Atari Inc. 1996 is also when Midway changed its original corporate name Midway Manufacturing to Midway Games Inc. due to its entrance in the home console market. The original arcade division of the company became Midway Amusement Games and the newly created home division was known as Midway Home Entertainment.

 

Sounds to me like Midway and Williams were synonymous. I don't know, but it sounds like you are ripping on Midway Games for no other reason than that you personally didn't enjoy their games, other than acknowledging they released some pretty great Arcade games, as well as being part of bringing Arcade games to the masses in general for a very long time. I mean fuck, the Midway company has been involved in video games/Arcade culture since the 50s. I don't exactly care too much about it, but they were an institution, and given the economic climate, it's just a shame that things went the way they did. Sure, they probably should have stepped up their game in the market, but it is sort of fucked seeing such an old dog go out in such an undignified manner.

 

Well, yes, personally, I didn't enjoy most, if not all of their games - I think mostly because they were American-made games when at the time, the majority of American-made games sucked. Nowadays, the US leads the trend in making the best games, and Japan is playing catch up.

 

They went under, despite Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe selling almost 2 million copies (WTF), because the majority of their other games were poorly received by the critics and public alike. Their suckyness caused their downfall.

 

LOL @ beneboi... I was 22 in 1995. Not exactly "old"

 

[Guest KY]

sidenote: williams pinball = best? discuss?

[FLA FUR BIS FLE]

sidenote: williams pinball = best? discuss?

 

Yes. My grandfather used to have a Williams machine in his den and I would spend hours playing it. When I was about 5, I spent so much time on it that my father lost track of me and thought I went missing. Everyone was searching the neighborhood and on the verge of calling the police until they found me silently focusing on pinball in the den. I was like Tommy. Except not blind.

[Guest KY]

sidenote: williams pinball = best? discuss?

 

Yes. My grandfather used to have a Williams machine in his den and I would spend hours playing it. When I was about 5, I spent so much time on it that my father lost track of me and thought I went missing. Everyone was searching the neighborhood and on the verge of calling the police until they found me silently focusing on pinball in the den. I was like Tommy. Except not blind.

best childhood ever?

[autopilot]

I haven't stopped playing the N64 version of NFL Blitz since it came out. Best football sim ever. Fuck Madden.

[awepittance]

never beat Goro, and once he did, he rubbed it in my face like a handful of dog shit. I remember running off and slamming a sliding door in his face as he tried to follow me.

 

Fuck Midway,

 

you fail at games, goro really wasnt that hard

[awepittance]

yeh what joyrex didnt realize is most if not all the roid raged first person shooter games games he plays wouldnt exist if it wasnt for the ground that mortal kombat originally broke with videogame violence.

 

and sure we can jump onto that band wagon too that 'americans games all sucked' back in the day but its just totally fictional.

i bet you are even lying to yourself when you say this, you cannot tell me that as a child you only enjoyed japanese games.

[autopilot]

Nowadays, the US leads the trend in making the best games, and Japan is playing catch up.

 

"Playing catch up" is being quite generous, IMO. I can count the number of great Japanese games I've played this generation on one hand.

[awepittance]

No, the majority of their games were shit - I mean, Revolution X - featuring Aerosmith? fucking hell, that was terrible, even for a gun game. Smash TV was made by Williams Electronics, not Midway.

 

you can keep playing semantics to exclude certain games like Killer instinct, and Smash TV from the midway lineup in order to increase your hatred for midway but its simply inaccurate to not acknowledge Smash TV was a game created by the same team that later became Midway's main creative force.

 

makes me kind of sad that American console games these days are such ripoffs of japanese style games and or old PC gamesthat we have completely lost the creative spark that made Midway so special back in the days of MK2 and Terminator 2 arcade game

 

edit: those crypt vs revolition X shots are totally inaccurate as well, most people would agree Rev X had much superior graphics if they see it in action to the very low frame rate choppy Konami counterpart

 

and jesus christ yes who could forget that Midway was one of the only companies pumping out high tech pinball games.

[Alzado]

boy has this turned into a wopping nerd fest

[awepittance]

other than acknowledging they released some pretty great Arcade games, as well as being part of bringing Arcade games to the masses in general for a very long time. I mean fuck,

 

this is why midway is so close to my heart, i spent a great deal of my childhood in arcades and for most people here who are around my age (late twenties) remember that Mortal Kombat 2 brought more attention and populated masses to their local arcade than any other single videogame in arcade history. Sure when Tekken came out it attracted crowds, but at the peak of that it didnt even reach half the level of MK2s massive popularity.

I mean christ i sold homemade move faqs in middle school for MK2 and made a good deal of money for an 11 year old doing it, this is how much MK2 soaked into the cultural zeitgeist in america

 

boy has this turned into a wopping nerd fest

 

im just defending (one of ) my favorite videogame companies

[awepittance]

rip

 

but, they had it coming.

 

i agree, dont get me wrong from my previous postings they totally turned to shit in their later days. i think MK4 was the the final nail in the coffin, they've been struggling ever since to gain their footing.

[Joyrex]

yeh what joyrex didnt realize is most if not all the roid raged first person shooter games games he plays wouldnt exist if it wasnt for the ground that mortal kombat originally broke with videogame violence.

 

and sure we can jump onto that band wagon too that 'americans games all sucked' back in the day but its just totally fictional.

i bet you are even lying to yourself when you say this, you cannot tell me that as a child you only enjoyed japanese games.

 

LOL, I'm really not a big FPS person - sure, I like them, but I'm really not that good at them (my son is much better at them), and honestly I spend most of my time playing Hot Shots Golf, Flower (fantastic game), Lumines, and the like - and MK did NOT break ground with videogame violence, it broke ground with realistic violence, due to the digitized characters (rather than pixel models). There were more violent games than MK that were sprite-based, it was the fact that MK used digitized characters is what caused the uproar. Notice though the digitized character phase ran out of steam pretty quickly as 3D games came into being.

 

And, back in the late 80's early 90's, the vast majority of Western-developed games did suck (in arcades in consoles at least; on the PC, that's all there ever was) - it was only until the late 90's and up till today that Western developers started overtaking the game market from the Japanese.

 

And yes, when I was young, I fully enjoyed Japanese-made games over US made ones - hell, even localized Japanese games turned me off (usually due to the poor translation, or changing of Japan-centric imagery or concepts that were until recently, seen as 'unfit' for Western audiences. I was importing Japanese NEO·GEO games in the early 90's, my Sega Genesis was modded so I could play MegaDrive games from Japan (considered getting a PC Engine before the Sega Genesis since the Turbografx-16 wasn't out in the US yet, and I was glad I reconsidered on how NEC totally screwed up the majority of the localization of the PC Engine games).

 

Your hard-on for Midway's shitty games cannot excuse the fact they produced mostly turds, which is why they're dead now. MK II was their pinnacle, and they never achieved that greatness again.