It is one thing to review an arcade game which has been ported to a home
system, but its another thing when the game is emulated.  You can't discuss
"how close" the emulated game is to the arcade counterpart or what features
are missing from the home version since it IS the exact same game. 
Therefore, if you enjoyed the coin-op games Millipede, Road Blaster,
Crystal Castles, Gauntlet, Marble Madness and Paperboy, you'll also enjoy
the AGH: Atari Collection 2.

Any negatives?  Very few, and very picky ones, but here they are.  First, I
didn't like the interface as much as I liked those for the first three AGH
collections.  You know—the rotating game cabinets (Atari 1) or the rotating
game icons (Williams and Midway 2).  Here the game names and icons scroll
by horizontally under three tube/tunnels from Marble Madness and a marble
enters the tube/tunnel when you pick the game.

Second, there are no interviews with programmers (Atari 1 and Williams) or
a quiz show with video of the programmers (Midway 2).  There is only an
archive of photos of cabinets, sell sheets, posters, etc.  Although this
does feature a few tidbits of information, I wish we could have listened to
the original programmers themselves.  

Finally, as was the case with Atari Vol. 1, these games scream out for
alternative controllers.  In the arcade, Marble Madness, Crystal Castles
and Millipede used trak-balls,  Road Blaster used a steering wheel and
Paperboy used bicycle handlebars.  Only Gauntlet was made for a joystick
and feels natural with the PlayStation controller.  An analog joystick
definitely helps with Marble Madness, Crystal Castles, and Paperboy,
although you'll definitely have to adjust the sensitivity.  Millipede is
somewhat playable with the normal controller but Road Blaster is not.
      
Still, 5 out of 6 games are definite winners.  I'd forgotten how much fun
Gauntlet could be with 4 players using the multi-tap.  I've played so many
ported versions of these games on the NES, Lynx, 2600 and old Atari
computers that I had forgotten how much better the actual arcade games were
with the original music, voice samples, etc.

Kudos to Midway for another fine collection of arcade classics.  It is
especially nice to finally see some emulated games from the more recent mid
to late 1980's.  But where will they go from here?  Have they run out of
"classics"?  Is the AGH series dead?  May it never be!  I'm hoping we will
be graced with a Midway Volume 3—Xenophobe, Rampage, Kick(man), etc.  Or an
Atari Volume 3 and 4—Road Runner, Indiana Jones, S.T.U.N. Runner, Hard
Drivin, Klax, Toobin', Rampart, Xybots, I Robot, Tetris, etc.  I'd love to
see these collections, but I'm sure it depends on how well AGH: Atari 2
does.  So, if you are a retrogaming fan, go out and buy it today!

-- 
MARK ANDROVICH
Videogame Enthusiast & Collector

2600(288); Intellivision(32); Colecovision(9); Vectrex(1); 5200(8);
7800(49);
NES(37); Atari 8-bit (36); Lynx(32); SNES(25); VirtualBoy(4); Jaguar(8);
PlayStation(40); N64(5)