Gauntlet has been in my top-ten arcade games for as long as I remember. It was with a great deal of pleasure and anticipation, then, that I went out and bought Midway Arcade Treasures on the PS2.

Having played it for 2 evenings solid, two-player mode, I now realise that Gauntlet is less a game, and more a form of entertainment. There is, like many other games of its time, no real objective, and no end. The difference with this and its peers is that there is unlimited life, as long as you had the money to buy extra health. Nearly all the other classics had a “10p for three lives” premise, which meant that you had to be good to progress and get the high-score. It was not important to be good at Gauntlet : being rich was good enough.

The console incarnation allows you to add extra health by a simple click of a button, which, for most people, is far too tempting to ignore.

And so, because of the relative simplicity of the game, after the initial retro-rush, I was left suitably unimpressed. There was not enough development in the game to warrant my interest. 100 levels was more than enough (and I only played this much because I was unaware there was no end).

I still have a fondness for Gauntlet, and will still feature high on my list as an arcade-game. I don’t think I’ll be playing the console version again (until I get Gauntlet 2 on Midway Arcade Treasures vol.2).