Midway Games was one of the premier developers of the ’80s and ’90s. The company got its start in the arcades, but was able to bring great games like NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat to consoles to keep the good times rolling as the industry changed. Unfortunately, those good times couldn’t last forever, and Midway sold off its best properties and closed its doors in 2010. Thankfully, those games still exist (though some of them might be hard to come by), including Midway’s many hidden gems.
Here are six Midway games you likely forgot.
6) Hydro Thunder
Midway’s Thunder series took players through several different extreme sports. Between Offroad Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, and Arctic Thunder, Midway had the market cornered on all the variations of arcade racers. Hydro Thunder was the first and is the best of the bunch.
It looked gorgeous, especially on the Dreamcast, and featured fast-paced boat races, something that many developers struggled to master. Midway considered making a second game, but instead, the team moved on to the other versions. After the studio closed its doors, Microsoft made Hydro Thunder Hurricane for Xbox Live Arcade, which finally gave fans the sequel they were craving.
5) The Suffering
The Suffering was a horror shooter from developer Surreal Software. They’d previously done some work on the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film, but are best known for their cancelled project, This Is Vegas. Before that failure, the team had some success with The Suffering, which follows the story of a death row prisoner who finds himself in the middle of a supernatural event following an earthquake.
Unlike survival horror games like Resident Evil, The Suffering features much more action. With that in mind, it’s fair to say you won’t find many actual scares inside the halls of this penitentiary. Still, there’s enough to keep you on your toes, and the gameplay will keep you engaged throughout. The sequel, Ties That Bind, is a solid follow-up, but doesn’t quite surpass the original.
4) Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Psi-Ops gives players access to several different mind powers, and it is awesome. That includes everything from telekinesis and remote viewing to mind control and pyrokinesis. You’ll need to use your powers to augment your shooting abilities and solve puzzles as you work your way through Psi-Ops‘ many challenges.
Of course, you’re not just going up against simple grunts. You’ll also have to face down several bosses that also have psychic powers, which make for a few memorable battles. Psi-Ops was a critical darling, picking up several year-end award nominations, but did not sell well. Because of that, Midway decided to skip out on a sequel, though some of the tech made its way into another game on this list.
3) NHL Hitz 20-03
Midway made some of the best arcade sports games of all time. Between NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, it’s safe to say that Midway was among the pioneers of the genre. In the 2000s, the developer started to branch out to more sports and styles. That included RedCard, SlugFest, and NBA Ballers.
All of those are fine games in their own right (and I do have a particularly soft spot for the NBA Ballers theme song), but none of them match up to NHL Hitz 20-03. That brutal, fast-paced hockey game stands next to Jam and Blitz in terms of quality, and should be as beloved as those two all-time classics. Unfortunately, it’s a hockey game, so it never got that same level of love.
2) Gauntlet Dark Legacy
Gauntlet Dark Legacy took the hack-and-slash masterpiece that Atari Games released in 1998 and made it even better. Midway handled publishing duties on the console version of the original, but took over for this expanded version. There’s so much new content packed into this one, giving players five new levels, four new classes, and a ton of secret unlocks.
It’s not just the expanded roster; Dark Legacy also added a few gameplay flourishes. Now, you have two different attack types and can use powerful combos, adding some extra strategy to combat. You can also use combo attacks with a buddy, making your attacks even more devastating. You wouldn’t call Dark Legacy a thinking man’s game, but if you’re looking for mindless fun, it doesn’t get much better than this.
1) John Wood Presents: Stranglehold
Above, I mentioned that while Psi-Ops died, it didn’t exactly go away. That’s because most of the team that made Psi-Ops moved to Stranglehold. The third-person shooter is an official sequel to John Woo’s Hard Boiled and has Chow Yun-fat reprising his role as police inspector Tequila Yuen. Thankfully, Stranglehold lives up to the fan-favorite movie, thanks in part to the excellent destructible environment technology that the team started putting together in Psi-Ops.
Stranglehold embraces the “gun ballet” aesthetic John Woo made popular in Hard Boiled and The Killer. Using slow-mo mechanics, Tequila takes opponents down in a beautiful display of bullets and blood. He can also interact with just about everything in the environment, sliding down rails, swinging from chandeliers, and taking a ride on a food cart, all while shooting bullets. It’s one of the best games of the Xbox 360 era, and a must-play game for action fans.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!