Midwayis a historic game developer and publisher we don’t talk about enough anymore. Before it became one of the first major American video game companies, Midway was a well-respected pinball manufacturer known as Williams. Much of its legacy has been watered down to just the creators ofMortal Kombat, but Midway is so much more than that.
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This list will highlight some of the most important and best games the studio ever developed. However, it won’t be covering the titles Midway published because that includes over 290 games. Besides, we’d rather focus on the good the company produced, not the dying breaths of a struggling publisher, i.e. Party Pigs: Farmyard Games or Muppet Monster Adventure.
13Revolution X
I know I said we’d focus on the positive, but to really respect Midway you also have to appreciate its bad games. Revolution X was apretty standard on-rails shooterfrom 1994, unremarkable in every way, bar one thing.It starred the band Aerosmith. This was an era where Mortal Kombat was making so much money that Midway probably thought it could do no wrong.
What sounds like the pitch for a fake video game Bart gets for Christmas in The Simpsons, it somehow managed to come to be. And while it might be a terrible game, it’s also a fascinating time capsule of excess and hubris.
12War Gods
War Gods is also not an amazing game; most people would call it bad. But just as with Revolution X, it serves as an appreciation litmus test of Midway’s history. This trial for the first 3D Mortal Kombat, is also an over-the-top fighting game, that’smain selling point was its finish moves. It’s the perfect example of how Midway struggled to move away from arcade games and into the console games space.
The game doesn’t really have any new ideas of its own, instead trying to emulate the things that made MK great, and sadly, none of it really works. The company might have survived another 13 years but even in 1995, the signs of decline were there.
11Spy Hunter
Midway might have hit it big in the arcades with Space Invaders in 1978, but 1983’s Spy Hunter holds up much better. Fast, colourful, and fun, it’s the perfect arcade game and shows just why the company was so respected even before Mortal Kombat.
The less said about the 2006 rebootstarring Dwayne Johnsonthe better, and most people understandably forget that Warner Brothers tried to reboot it again on the PlayStation Vita. Instead, just go check out the original, it’s still good fun.
10Joust
People act like video games have come a long way as an art form and that feels unfair. Way back in 1982 games were asking important moral questions like, “What if you were a knight riding a flying ostrich and had to hit the heads of other knights riding vultures?”
9Ms. Pac-Man
If you are thinking to yourself, “Isn’t Pac-Man a Namco franchise? How did an American company help develop and publish the equally iconic follow-up?” Firstly, congrats on the good gaming history knowledge, and secondly, the answer is “By breaking the law.”
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What started out as a mod of a Pac-Man arcade board by some college students resulted in a decades-spanning legal dispute that still crops up today. While no one can seem to agree on who actually owns the rights to Pac-Man’s wife, their no disputing that this game is one of the best in the series.
8The Grid
The Grid is one of the best games you’ll probably never get to play. Developed by Ed Boon, John Tobias, and their team between Mortal Kombat 4 and Deadly Alliance, The Grid is a six-player, arcade-only, multiplayer shooter.
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Set in a futuristic game show, the game is more than just a comically large arcade set-up as it’s also one of the best-feeling early third-person shooters. It’s the sort of weird thing that would never get made today and if you ever see one at a convention, verify to check it out with some friends.
7NFL Blitz 2000
Speaking of games that would never get made today, NFL Blitz was a series that seemed to revel in the over-the-top violence and danger of American football. Whether it was being able to run illegal interference on the opposition or performing wrestling moves on the other team, there’s no way this game would get made now. That’s probably for the best, but the game is a lot of fun.
6NBA Jam Tournament Edition
If you don’t yell “HE’S ON FIRE!” every time you throw some paper into recycling, or a teabag into a mug, then we can’t be friends anymore. This game has given us so much, from ridiculously lopsided rubber band AI, to big head modes, and some of the best announcer lines of all time.
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Even if the game was designed specifically so that matches would be close no matter what, and the AI literally cheats to catch up, it’s impossible not to play NBA without grinning like a fool.
5John Woo Presents: Stranglehold
Stranglehold is memorable for a lot of reasons. It was one of Midway’s last big games and sits alongside the long-delayed and eventually cancelled This Is Vegas as two of the biggest money pits that led to the company’s bankruptcy. However, it’s also a wild game in its own right; part Max Payne, part Hong Kong action flick, the director of Mission Impossible 2 and Face/Off brought back the badass Inspector “Tequila” Yuen, for one last adventure 15 years later.
The game might be a little repetitive by today’s standards, but who cares! You can skate down a staircase’s handrail in a neon-lit back alley, dropping air-conditioning units onto henchmen, whileshooting them in the crouch in slow motion.
4Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Psi-Ops is the game I think of when I think of Midway; it’s a PS2-era shooter that didn’t quite have a triple-A budget, and was far from perfect, but it has a great gimmick that’s better than it has any right to be. That gimmick is some of themost satisfying telekinesispaired with some of the most ridiculous ragdolls of the era.
Psi-Ops won’t ever be at the top of anyone’s favourite games of all time list, but it’s weird, dumb, and fun in all the right ways. If you’re looking for an early 2000s underrated hidden gem, you could do a lot worse than this game.
