Midway takes a new direction with the third installment of its Midway Arcade Treasures compilations. Where the first two compilations each featured 20 games of an eclectic mix, Midway Arcade Treasures 3 sports only eight games and all are of the arcade-racer genre from approximately the last decade of the 20th century. And while the control of the games leaves a little to be desired, for the money, there is a lot of fun to be had here.

Over the years Midway has absorbed other arcade companies into its operations. So what you have here are games from Midway itself, Atari Games and Leland. The oldest is from 1989 and the newest from 2000. Looking at this short span of time, it is amazing just how much the arcade racer has evolved.

Three games come from 1989. Badlands is the sequel to Super Sprint and is a top-down-view racer from Atari Games that has the player racing in a post-apocalyptic word against two other competitors. Also from Atari Games is S.T.U.N. Runner (if you’re wondering, it stands for Spread Tunnel Underground Network), a third-person-view, tunnel-racing game that claims you’ll feel the 900 mph speed as you race through enemy-filled tunnels to victory. Super Off Road (originally called Ironman Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road until I guess the license lapsed) is by the seldom-recognized Leland arcade company. Very similar to Badlands, in that it is a top-down-view racer, Super Off Road added a fourth player and took the action to mud arenas. Also included is the Track Pack for Super Off Road that added eight new tracks to the game.

From 1990 comes Atari Games’ Race Drivin’. Groundbreaking for its time for its polygonal first-person view of the action, Race Drivin’ was the follow-on to the 1989 game Hard Drivin’ that appeared on Midway Arcade Treasures 2.

Now the games take a seven-year jump with the Atari Games title San Francisco Rush: The Rock Alcatraz Edition. Second of the San Francisco Rush series that Atari Games launched in 1996, 1997’s Rush: The Rock featured seven tracks and numerous shortcuts for players to find.

1999's San Francisco Rush 2049 by Atari Games moved the action to the future with faster cars that could even deploy wings as they caught some air. Also from the class of ’99 came Midway’s own Hydro Thunder: a traditional arcade racer with the one small change of being moved into the water with boats for some wet ‘n’ wild fun.

Seeing that they had the beginnings of a good franchise in Hydro Thunder, Midway quickly followed it with Offroad Thunder in 2000, employing many of the same elements that had made Hydro a hit while moving the action back to the dry land with off-road vehicles.

As a group of arcade racing games goes, these are some of the best. The selection is great and many even hold up in 2005. Hydro Thunder has always been a favorite of mine while Super Off Road can still not be beat as a four-player racing party game. San Francisco Rush 2049 is probably the pinnacle of the arcade racer genre development.

All of the games are well emulated by the talented folks at developer Digital Eclipse. The graphics look like I remember them from the arcades (though memory is beginning to fail me a little more these days) and the sound is full and rich.

The game selection menu is a little bland with only a list of the games to choose from. No period music or extraneous stuff has been added. It is serviceable, but very barebones.