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Author Topic: Favorite Unknown 80s Games  (Read 19171 times)

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Woodshop Flunky

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Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« on: February 01, 2011, 11:25:41 pm »
Hello All,

I'm putting together a MAME cabinet for my son's birthday and was talking with my coworkers about what games I was going to load for my son's machine.  We were going on about games we loved; Galaga, Pacman, etc.. and I mentioned Roc'n Rope.  All I go back were blank stares.

After asking around, I've yet to meet ANYONE who has ever played Roc'n Rope.

Anyhow, it got me to thinking I've surely missed out on some really enjoyable games simply by chance.

So, what are some of you guy's favorite games that nobody else seems to know about?

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2011, 11:26:26 pm »
*poker face*

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2011, 03:18:51 am »

Pooyan (",)




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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2011, 08:39:18 am »

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2011, 08:41:39 am »
I never liked Pooyan back in the day, but now I play it every time I power the games on.

I never played Juno First until I saw RayB's restoration efforts, but it is a great and unrecognized game.
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2011, 08:45:17 am »


Looks fun. I'll have to give it a try.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2011, 10:40:27 am »
Yeah, when I was little, by dad was a preacher in a TINY town in Georgia.  We didn't have anything that resembled an arcade, but the gas station owner had two arcade machines, Roc'n Rope and some other game that was like Asteroids except there was two ships that were tethered and each player had to work together to smash all the rocks (cooperation between a dad and an 11yr old is wicked hard  ;D)

Being a preacher, he was able to leave the office pretty frequently, and during one of my summers off, we would go to the gas station for a mini-break from the office.

...but I've never seen either game anywhere else.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2011, 10:40:54 am »
I have few games I play regularly, but Roc'n Rope is one of them.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2011, 11:26:59 am »


Space Duel?

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2011, 12:19:50 pm »
Space Duel! Yes, that's it.

Thanks for the post! :)

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2011, 02:07:33 pm »
I believe "obscure" is the word you were looking for.










etc. etc. etc. etc.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2011, 12:44:20 am »
I never liked Pooyan back in the day, but now I play it every time I power the games on.

I never played Juno First until I saw RayB's restoration efforts, but it is a great and unrecognized game.

Yeah, Juno First is excellent also (",)


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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2011, 12:52:44 am »
Don't know if it counts as obscure, or unknown, but it's definitely not a popular a game.

Silk Worm:
Pretty fun shooter. It's especially fun when played with two players: one player controls the heli, the other controls a jeep on the ground!



Free Kick: It's arkanoid with a soccer twist!
http://gamesdbase.com/gamedetail-arcade.free_kick.1987.nihon_system.breakout.nihon_system.aspx?nop=1

« Last Edit: February 03, 2011, 07:30:32 pm by opt2not »

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2011, 09:06:07 am »
Tried Roc'n Rope for the first time last night - great game! Never saw this one back in the day. Seems difficult till you get the hang of it - I bet it was a real quarter muncher.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #14 on: February 03, 2011, 01:38:37 pm »
I was gonna say silk worm till opt2not beat me to it. game was great. you could get sparkly things to protect your heli/jeep. I remember the sticks having a button on top to angle the chopper. Jeep players had it rough if the heli pilot sucked.
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #15 on: February 03, 2011, 06:52:02 pm »
Fast Freddie

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #16 on: February 03, 2011, 07:08:54 pm »
Don't know if it counts as obscure, or unknown, but it's definitely not a popular a game.

Free Kick: It's arkanoid with a soccer twist!
http://gamesdbase.com/gamedetail-arcade.free_kick.1987.nihon_system.breakout.nihon_system.aspx?nop=1



Free Kick looks pretty interesting.  I've been on the fence about including a spinner in the build, but may go ahead and do it (I loved Tempest).

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2011, 03:35:31 am »





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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #18 on: February 04, 2011, 05:30:42 am »
I believe "obscure" is the word you were looking for.




If you think Jungle King is obscure, you might want to try some other obscure games like Frogger, Asteroids and Tron.  ;D

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #19 on: February 04, 2011, 07:12:29 am »
Not unknown, but probably not too common.  Was one of my favorites at the time.  Also historic, as it was the first game with voice synthesis.

« Last Edit: February 04, 2011, 07:15:11 am by RandyT »

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #20 on: February 04, 2011, 03:17:11 pm »
Snake Pit, is that obscure?  Need a trackball and a joystick.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #21 on: February 04, 2011, 04:22:56 pm »
Lot of interesting games I've never heard of.  Thanks!  I've added several of these to my list of games to try.

I thought that coin game was going to put me to sleep when the video first came up.  By the time it was over, my eyes were fixed on the screen thinking, "No, no, no! Back to the left! ... NOT TOO FAR!" :)  I'll be adding that one for sure.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2011, 10:36:12 pm »
Roc n Rope ends after the fifth board?

I've never seen a game rip off of Joust - till Balloon Fight.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2011, 10:48:09 pm by Gray_Area »
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #23 on: February 06, 2011, 12:01:40 am »
Don't really know how 'unknown' this game is on your side of the pond but I've only ever saw one cab in Ireland. To be honest I was that young when I played it I had pretty much forgotten it existed. Then , thanks to the wonders of MAME, I randomly clicked on it, and when it loaded it, genuinely was hit with a teardrop shaped brick wall of nostalgia.

The game?

lock'n'chase

Any other fans?

By the way, not the greatest game ever, but I was 7 or so at the time so cut me some slack!

Best game when I was 7?

Star Castle.

I can still remember the adrenaline of being chased by the star fireballs as my pudgy little 7 year old sausagefingers hammered the leaf switches.

Probably why I detest idiots dissing the mamedevs. If it wasn't for them a tiny slice of my childhood would have been lost forever to me like so many swag bags.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2011, 12:06:19 am by Dexter »

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #24 on: February 06, 2011, 03:09:35 pm »
I like Sega System 16 games like Cotton, MVP, and Wonder Boy 3.  WB3 being perhaps not so obscure but woefully overlooked for its classic gameplay imo

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #25 on: February 06, 2011, 03:13:11 pm »
Lock n' Chase has a soft spot in my heart because of a childhood experience.  :cheers:
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #26 on: February 09, 2011, 09:01:25 am »
I used to play a lot of I-Robot in an arcade in Leeds (UK). Didnt realise until recently that it was a really rare cab. I think it was the first to use polygon based graphics, and had a 'drawing' mode - but who wants to waste 10p drawing in an arcade...


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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #27 on: February 10, 2011, 07:27:17 am »
allways like highway race and anteater
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #28 on: February 10, 2011, 10:15:39 am »
I believe "obscure" is the word you were looking for.




If you think Jungle King is obscure, you might want to try some other obscure games like Frogger, Asteroids and Tron.  ;D


Obscure in the sense that many games come to mind quicker than this one. But yes, i reckon that this game is not so obscure as one might think... :)

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #29 on: February 11, 2011, 01:39:31 am »
I used to play a lot of I-Robot in an arcade in Leeds (UK). Didnt realise until recently that it was a really rare cab. I think it was the first to use polygon based graphics, and had a 'drawing' mode - but who wants to waste 10p drawing in an arcade...



Girls. I remember seeing them play it more often than boys. During that early period, I don't recall 3D graphics on arcade, let alone console, hardware being appreciated by the average game player.
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #30 on: February 11, 2011, 01:40:53 am »
double post
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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #31 on: February 11, 2011, 01:52:19 pm »
I was gonna say silk worm till opt2not beat me to it. game was great. you could get sparkly things to protect your heli/jeep. I remember the sticks having a button on top to angle the chopper. Jeep players had it rough if the heli pilot sucked.

This was the first PCB I bought. I always played as the Jeep. It uses 3 buttons, fire, jump and turret flip (so you shoot to the left when held down). It has (like all Tecmo games) lot's of hidden stuff, like shooting the gray part of the bonus helicopter before it has time to assemble itself gives you 2 bonuses for each player instead of one).

My unknown great game is Darwin 4078 by Data East. The title refers to the power ups as you ship "evolves" to another shape on pickup.



Maybe the "E"s stand for Evolution? Very clever if that's the case. If you let a certain power up time out, your ship will turn onto a different "DNA path" and turn into a powerful space bird.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #32 on: February 12, 2011, 09:51:26 am »
Mission 660, Space Odyssey, Repulse/Son Of Phoenix, Thief, Wiping/Rug Rats, Armed Formation, Blast Off, Domino Man, Krull, Kram, Mad Planets, Mega Tack, Nova 2001, Tube Panic, Arc Area, Pepper II, Quantum, Reactor, Return of the Invaders, Satan's Hollow, Solar Fox, Space Fury, Space Zap, Pac and Pal, Zoo Keeper....etc

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #33 on: February 12, 2011, 05:36:13 pm »
A couple of games that I like that I don't ever remember being popular:
Nibbler - I never knew about this game until I played it on Mame.
Ladybug,
Phoenix -  This game is probably not obscure, but I used to play it at a local pizza place and none of my friends seemed to be into it.
Eyes - I used to play this at a lundromat.

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #34 on: February 13, 2011, 10:36:51 am »
Phoenix was a huge arcade hit....definitely not obscure.

Eyes was programmed for a pacman board. The production boards were quite similar to pac boards as well.

Nibbler is kind of a fun game. I have a couple of nibbler boards I need to dig out and finish repairing.....

I like Ladybug.....I think its a fun (and potentially addicting) game. The player control is a little annoying tho. I used to play it at a laundromat locally. Funny thing is, years later I ended up with that very same machine. I had to scrap it tho....it had been stored poorly and the bottom of the cabinet was so rotten it was crumbling. So I kept the boardset and monitor and took a mallet to the cab.....

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #35 on: February 13, 2011, 10:50:15 am »
Tune in Tokyo with my Girlfriend

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #36 on: February 13, 2011, 11:07:50 am »
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #37 on: February 14, 2011, 01:48:17 pm »
I attribute my love of “obscure” arcade games to the random choices of local bar owners to buy a certain cabinet.  They’re not obscure, but I was a Time Pilot ’84 addict and Rip Off early vector graphics game).  Definitely not obscure, but a local bar had Ghosts and Goblins and my friend and I got soe  good that we could finish it with 1 quarter.  Funny thing is, I can’t even get by the first stage anymore on one quarter LMAO. 

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #38 on: February 14, 2011, 06:40:27 pm »
boardunkie nailed three of my faves, LadyBug, Phoenix and Nibbler. I would only say LadyBug and to a greater degree Nibbler as rare. I always called Ladybug Pac man for smart people cause you definitely needed to multitask on that one to get the words spelled, match the colors and evade the much faster bug monsters. Always got a huge rush eating the vegetables once all the bugs were out of the pen. Sure my mom wishes I got that thrill every time she served beats...NOT!  ;D

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Re: Favorite Unknown 80s Games
« Reply #39 on: February 14, 2011, 07:06:00 pm »
I was just commenting on Ladybug, Phoenix, and Nibbler, another poster came in with those. The first 2 were common arcade hits (they were ported to the Colecovision), Nibbler was a bit rare, but made a slight dent in the arcade scene back in the day. I seem to remember it was on the national scoreboards in Electronic Games mag circa '83.

Discovering oddball games that were around when you did the arcade scene but you never got to see/play is one of teh greatest things about MAME. Otherwise, these games would be forgotten forever 'cause they were never big hits....