Top Games List...

[Louis Tully]

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[jennifer]

       Oddly enough however, Jennifer has at least 1 of most of those games on that list in dedicated cabs. (3 of them in my kitchen alone.)

[Cynicaster]

I HATE lists like this. Space Invaders is NOT the best arcade game. There are hundreds of better shooters. I HATE it when lists put games above others just because of their historical significance.

What a crappy list. Space Invaders at the top, and no Street Fighter 2? Come ON.

I've got no love for Street Fighter, but I agree in general that lists like these seem to always rehash the same old tired titles.  It's kind of like if somebody came in and said "hey everybody, I'm digging Led Zeppelin, recommend me some songs!" and everybody answered "Stairway to Heaven!  Black Dog!"  In other words, not exactly revelatory. 

To the OP, I'd recommend searching this forum for "hidden gems" and other such search terms.  I know I've seen (and posted in) multiple threads of that nature in the last few years, and have picked up some great tips on games to check out.   

If you're one of those people that holds "nostalgia" as a mandatory component for enjoying retro games, then you're probably not interested in playing anything unless you played it as a kid, in which case you can just stick with the everyday Galagas and Pac-Mans. 

But, there are lots of great discoveries to be had in MAME if you're open to going off the beaten path.   

Haze makes a good point that the original list contains a lot of games that would be questionable at best on your control panel layout.  Breakdown (some of it IMO):

Space Invaders - boring as hell, but would be playable
Asteroids - joystick controls for ship = the suck
Galaxian - OK
Lunar Lander - no good, need something to mimic the throttle lever
Battlezone - need dual sticks
Berzerk - OK
Centipede - no good without trackball
Defender - doable with some right-hand gymnastics to hit all the buttons
Missile Command - no good without trackball
Pac-Man - doable if set to 4-way, but not very good joystick position for it
Phoenix - OK
Rally-X - doable if set to 4-way, but not very good joystick position for it
Star Castle - joystick control of ship = the suck
Tempest - without spinner, don't bother
Wizard Of Wor - I'd rather eat a used band-aid than play this pile of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- 
Donkey Kong - OK if set to 4-way
Frogger - vaguely playable with U360 set to 4-way, but not very good joystick position
Scramble - OK
Galaga - OK
Ms. Pac-Man - see Pac-Man
Qix - OK if set to 4-way
BurgerTime - OK if set to 4-way
Dig Dug - OK if set to 4-way
Donkey Kong Jr. - OK if set to 4-way
Joust - OK
Moon Patrol - OK
Pole Position - no good without steering wheel
Q*bert - playable in 4-way mode, but controls will be confusing
Robotron: 2084 - no good, need dual sticks
Time Pilot - OK
Tron - no good, controls missing
Xevious - OK
Zaxxon - OK
Dragon's Lair - OK
Gyruss - OK
Mappy - OK
Mario Bros. - OK
Star Wars - doable with hack control scheme, I suppose. 
Spy Hunter - missing controls
Tapper - OK
1942 - OK
Paperboy - no good without proper analog controller, but maybe playable with U360
Punch-Out!! - OK

[UFO]

Thanks for all the input chaps.

I can only agree with the sentiments about my layout (and Player 2 button).

I guess I didn't have much fluidity with the build, and thinks have been some in "sections" over a number of years as opposed to over a number of weeks, and therefore, it became a bit disjointed I guess..

With this being my first build, I have learnt a lot along the way - its surprising that missing an additional joystick / trackball can limit choices, but I'll know for next time.

Thanks for the additional games that I hadn't thought about, and a couple in there that are an absolute must!

By the way, there is something about Gorf that I never quite got. Even when I was 15 in 1985, I didn't quite get the concept of having more than one game in a cab. Now look at us!

Thanks again chaps!

[EMDB]

[...]
Q*bert - playable in 4-way mode, but controls will be confusing
[...]

With a U360 you can map to a 45 degrees rotated 4-way making QBert perfectly playable like just the original:

[Minwah]

I can only agree with the sentiments about my layout (and Player 2 button).

The player 2 start button is useful to have for the 2 player alternate play games. I don't think realistically you will press the 2nd player start when you are playing one player (and if you do it's not the end of the world!).

I've recently made a one player small machine with with horizontal screen...I went for 5 buttons for Defender. That game aside I probably would have gone with 4 buttons to cover Neo Geo (there are a few I like that use 4 buttons). I could probably live with 3 buttons though (Bank Panic!).

But if you like the SF etc games 6 buttons is good to have. You can play them on your own if you want!

[Minwah]

PS, you should go through your full games list and try every one. That's what I do to decide what games I want / are suitable.

[Warborg]

Street Fighter 2 is the best game on the NES. Well, after Excitebike, and all the Mario brother games.

NES? You sure you don't mean SNES?

You're right. Either way, that's clearly a list of golden era games.

Although Excitebike was NES still...    Such a simple game, that I just couldn't get enough of for a while... 

[Warborg]

     Oh, BOO, HOO, HOO.... Street fighter (whatever) Blows chunks compared to Mario.

And apples blow compared to oranges...   

[UFO]

Cheers Minwah ...

I am having NO admin buttons as such on this build, and everything that I need to do will be shift-mapped - hence the "Select" and "Exit" over the P1 & P2 buttons.

I don't need "Pause" or anything, so not entirely lost I guess.

Thanks again... 

[Minwah]

I am having NO admin buttons as such on this build, and everything that I need to do will be shift-mapped - hence the "Select" and "Exit" over the P1 & P2 buttons.

Cool, I couldn't see that in your pic. I do the same, use P2 start for a shift type button (which gets used for that much more often than for starting 2 player games!).