http://chuckyg.com/lists/images/arcade.png

I came up with a list of my favorite pre-1990 coin-op arcade games. a few months ago and thought it might make a good topic here on the 80s board.  I'm talking strictly games that were in arcades.  I know most of them made it to the home console at some point, but that's beside the point.  I'm talking the games you really went to an arcade and plunked down cold hard quarters and tokens to play.

http://chuckyg.com/lists/snap/elevator.png
I've got Neal playing "Elevator Action" with my copy of Mame, but I'm hoping to get a free weekend to drive up to Funspot in New Hampshire so he can play the real thing.  He's played a few games of PacMan at the local pizza place, but there aren't many real-life arcades around anymore.  Most of them are just filled with ticket redemption games that are frankly lacking in the fun department if you ask me.

Turbo.  I loved sitting in the "car" trying to race. 

Elevator Action is a great game.
I've got an Xarcade stick hooked up to an old PC running MAME and play it often.
I'm not sure I could pick one favorite game. There were soooo many from the 80's that I loved.

A few that blew my kid mind back in the 80's

Mr Do Castles
Crossbow
Star Wars
Dragons Lair
Congo Bongo (Never really liked playing the game, but I thought it LOOKED amazing for it's time)
Popeye

I really could go on and on and on and.....

I see Double Dragon.  Best Arcade game ever !!

Here's 5 that I used to play all the time in the arcades ...

Sega OutRun (1986)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiWiTXq4yYY

Superman (1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpVchrw0VzI

Twin Eagle: Revenge of Joe's Brother (1988)
First ever arcade game to use digitized graphics.  Still my favourite arcade shooter ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLkZWolvslE

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdLQ5x5yZDE

Midnight Resistance (1989)
This game was similar to Contra, but it was so much better:  If you spun the joystick, your character could aim his gun in a 360 degrees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beoHC4KCq4I

I spent hours playing Elevator action after school....and this one



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P6kAeQ_m1Q

I spent hours playing Elevator action after school....and this one


I love Paperboy.  I've been trying to locate a Papaerboy arcade controller so I can try interfacing it with my computer and play it the right way.

I love Paperboy.  I've been trying to locate a Papaerboy arcade controller so I can try interfacing it with my computer and play it the right way.


that'd be fun!

I spent hours playing Elevator action after school....and this one



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P6kAeQ_m1Q


this was a good game but it was difficult getting the bike on the sidewalk sometimes.

Popeye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0GVwyPrA8&feature=related

Mikie.  Impossible, but love the '80s high school mischief theme. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0GVwyPrA8&feature=related

Mikie.  Impossible, but love the '80s high school mischief theme.


How do you play that game?

Congo Bongo (Never really liked playing the game, but I thought it LOOKED amazing for it's time)


Same hardware as Zaxxon.  Which also looked amazing for its time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxxwarsJbgo

Donkey Kong Jr.

Loved Ms. PacMan and Marble Madness. I also loved pinball games, sadly, it is difficult to find these in working condition anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Na1UdjGaA

Loved Ms. PacMan and Marble Madness. I also loved pinball games, sadly, it is difficult to find these in working condition anywhere.


there's a lot of Ms Pac Man/Galga combo cabinets out there.  It's still being made and sold in small numbers.  I've come across them in the rest stops along the Mass Pike and other places with a small number of arcade machines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf3161wYpso

Popeye (1982)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf3161wYpso

Popeye (1982)


That's not the arcade version though :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkP0GjS2z9c

Centipede

If you are geek enough, I'm told you can get MAME all-in-ones (500 games and what not) all in one console.  I guess I can afford one; where the heck do I put it!  Any of you own one of those?  I am sure as heck not building the cabinet...  not my strong suit. 

If you are geek enough, I'm told you can get MAME all-in-ones (500 games and what not) all in one console.  I guess I can afford one; where the heck do I put it!  Any of you own one of those?  I am sure as heck not building the cabinet...  not my strong suit.


You're better off just buying an usb joystick and using mame on your computer for all of it.  It's what I do.  I could build a cabinet, but I have nowhere to put one.  I'm in the process of trying to get a decent trackball and spinner which, combined with a joystick and some buttons will get you to the point where you can play 90% of the games from the 80s. 

Plus those 500 n 1 boxes contain about 450 game that you never heard about or want to play.  It's one of the reasons I made that list on my website.  It's actually my mame front-end's favorites list.  I spent a couple hours running through a giant list of games and picking out just the great ones I used to like.  I'd say there is less than 100 games in total that I would really want on a typical mame install.

If you are geek enough, I'm told you can get MAME all-in-ones (500 games and what not) all in one console.  I guess I can afford one; where the heck do I put it!  Any of you own one of those?  I am sure as heck not building the cabinet...  not my strong suit.


You can also play arcades online.

If you are geek enough, I'm told you can get MAME all-in-ones (500 games and what not) all in one console.  I guess I can afford one; where the heck do I put it!  Any of you own one of those?  I am sure as heck not building the cabinet...  not my strong suit.


What Chucky Said.

A little googling for MAME (Multi-Arcade-Machine-Emulator) will get you everything you need to get started.  When you've figured out which games you really want, and have convinced yourself you want them badly enough to allocate the space for a full-size cabinet, that's when you start looking into either buying a brand-new cabinet kit from any one of multiple vendors (assembling it isn't much harder than building IKEA furniture), or you can scrounge your local Craigslist for a cheap empty arcade cabinet for $50 or so, stripping it down, and installing your MAME setup in the empty cabinet.

My setup is just an old PC I had laying around running MAME. It isn't a beefy PC so it won't run much past the early 1990, but that's fine with me. I mainly got it to play 80's game which it does like a champ. I invested in an Xarcade Tank Stick with the roller controller and it's very much like playing a video game back in the day. It only suffers on games that had special controllers, like Star Wars, or Paperboy, or the spinner games like Tempest. What I wouldn't give for a decent spinner controller!!

http://www.xgaming.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUU_F9TvXco

Who remembers Pole Position?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUU_F9TvXco

Who remembers Pole Position?


Who doesn't?  When I got my Atari 7800 for Xmas back in like 1985, it came with Pole Position II.  I still have that game

Who doesn't?  When I got my Atari 7800 for Xmas back in like 1985, it came with Pole Position II.  I still have that game


Do you still play it?  ???

My setup is just an old PC I had laying around running MAME. It isn't a beefy PC so it won't run much past the early 1990, but that's fine with me. I mainly got it to play 80's game which it does like a champ. I invested in an Xarcade Tank Stick with the roller controller and it's very much like playing a video game back in the day. It only suffers on games that had special controllers, like Star Wars, or Paperboy, or the spinner games like Tempest. What I wouldn't give for a decent spinner controller!!


I got a friend who is supposed to be hooking me up with a spinner.  I ordered a trackball off of ebay this week.  Not sure it'll work out of the box or not with MAME but I aim to find out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoR3gaAsHFY

Elevator Action (1983)

Pac-Man & Ms. Pac-Man
Galaga
Punch-Out
Donkey Kong 3
Space Ace
M.A.C.H. 3
Pole Position & Pole Position II
Tempest