Blizzard Arcade Collection

This collection brings together three old-school titles from Blizzard's archive, but as far as collections go, this feels a little on the thin side. The Blizzard Arcade Collection includes The Lost Vikings, Rock N Roll Racing, and Blackthorne, each of which has previously been available on its own as a free download through the Battle.net service. But these were only the original versions and only on the PC. The collection bring these games to consoles while adding a few more modern features for each "Definitive" version, as well as a library of behind-the-scenes features, such as developer interviews, digital game manuals, and original design artwork. It's interesting to dip into the mindset of the studio's early days, but it still feels more like fluff than anything really substantial.

The platform versions of the games are faithful to their original releases on the SNES, Sega 32X, etc. It's about as close to playing the originals as you're likely to get without actually having those old systems. That should be good enough to satisfy any nostalgic urges, but there are extra items here to improve the experience. These include new Save/Load options and a Rewind feature to correct mistakes on the fly. In the case of Blackthorne and The Lost Vikings, there's a unique playthrough feature that allows players to watch an autoplay of the game and to jump in to take over the controls at any point. Meanwhile, the Definitive versions add even more features. For example, Rock N Roll Racing gains the most benefits, with full 16:9 screen resolution, new dialogue and music, and a four-player split-screen versus mode. Though the collection stops short of creating fully remastered versions of any of these games, it's these extra tweaks that at least give fans a fresh reason to revisit this otherwise forgotten chapter of Blizzard's legacy.