Time is not kind. Time is cruel. Time is a ****
As a rabid gamer who went out and bought a Dreamcast on September 9, 1999, with Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur and Hydro Thunder in tow, I figured, what the hell, Midway Arcade Treasures is only $3.99, and I LOVED Hydro Thunder back in the day, so why not? It could still be fun, right?
Not really.
1999 might as well be 1979 as far as these games go. (Quite a few of them are even older than that.) We've just come much too far for these games to be even remotely impressive or even fun anymore. We have such an amazing array of great modern racers to choose from in 2008, from jump-in-and-play arcades to ultradetailed sims, from the Need for Speeds to the Burnouts to the Tocas and everything in between. Some of the games featured in MAT3 were an absolute blast back in the day, and some of them don't look TOO bad, but it's just too damn difficult to get past the low polygonal counts (in the games that actually use that technology), the inferior audio, and "ok, but not great" control that seems to plague too many arcade compilations. It's like breaking up with your dream girl nine years ago, pining for her for all that time, then finally crossing paths with her, only to find that she's gained 30 pounds and lost half her teeth. WIth so many of today's games allowing open-world racing and exploration, and incredibly beautiful tracks and scenery to boot, it's just too jarring to be confined to single tracks that just look so depressingly primitive in 2008...and today's HDTVs don't do these games even the slightest favors. Every jiggy, sawtooth and weak effect that you no longer remember from the eternal sunshine of your spotless gaming mind will be on display to sadly remind you there's a reason why you're not really playing your Dreamcasts, Gamecubes, and PS2 as much as you once did...if at all.
This brings me to the first title I played when I popped in my MAT3 disc: Hydro Thunder. The exhiliarating "WOW!" factor I remembered from 9/9/99 was nowhere to be found. Suddenly the speedy, white-knuckled gameplay I remembered so fondly was gone. In its place was a slow, plodding, blocky relic. What happened to that beautiful, photorealistic water that blew me and my friends away? What happened to that insatiable urge to clear this track and that track and shave microseconds off my track times? And why the hell would I really want to put ANY time into this at all when Burnout Paradise and Bioshock and so many other games, lightyears ahead of the titles on this disc, await on my 360?
To quote another movie: Fred Gwynne, Pet Sematary, 1989: "Sometimes, dead is better." If you truly enjoyed these titles back in the eras when they were released, then by all means, look back on your gaming memories and smile. Just don't try to go back and relive them.