60 game MAME gamelist - advice wanted

[specfire]

Hello all,

I have lots of category lists of games that I like for use within my frontend (MaLa) but I find that people are not willing to go through the various lists to find a game.

So, I have created a single "best-of" list to try to mimic what a 60-in-1 board achieves, which is a short list of good games that is never overwhelming for family, friends, or guests.

My control panel has: 2 x joysticks (with 4 buttons each); 2 x spinners; 1 x trackball

My gamelist (only 59 so far)

1942 (Revision B)
Arkanoid (US)
Assault (Rev B)
Asteroids (rev 4)
Battle Zone (rev 2)
Berzerk (set 2)
Bomber Man World / New Dyna Blaster - Global Quest
Bubble Bobble (US, Ver 5.1)
Burger Time (Data East set 1)
Cameltry (US, YM2610)
Centipede (revision 4)
Championship Sprint (rev 3)
Crazy Climber (US)
Defender (Red label)
Dig Dug (Atari, rev 2)
Donkey Kong (US set 1)
DonPachi (US)
Elevator Action
Frogger
Galaga '88
Galaga (Midway set 1)
Galaga 3 (GP3 rev. D)
Galaxian (Midway set 1)
Ghosts'n Goblins (World? set 1)
Golden Tee Classic (v1.00)
Gyruss
Hyper Athlete (GV021 Japan 1.00)
Joust (White/Green label)
Lemmings (US prototype)
Lode Runner (set 1)
Marble Madness (set 1)
Metal Slug 3 (NGM-2560)
Missile Command (rev 3)
Moon Patrol
Mr. Driller (US, DRI3/VER.A2)
Ms. Pac-Man
Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (GX720 EAA)
Off the Wall (2/3-player upright) (Atari)
Pac-Man (Midway)
Puzz Loop (Europe, v0.94)
Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move (Neo-Geo) (NGM-083)
Q*bert (US set 1)
Qix (Rev 2)
Rampage (Rev 3, 8/27/86)
Robotron: 2084 (Solid Blue label)
Scramble
Smash T.V. (rev 8.00)
Solomon's Key (US)
Space Invaders Part II (Taito)
Star Wars (set 1)
Super Punch-Out!! (Rev B)
Tekken 3 (US, TET3/VER.D)
Tempest (rev 3, Revised Hardware)
Tetris (set 1) (Atari)
Time Pilot
Track & Field
Tron (8/9)
Warlords
World Class Bowling Deluxe (v2.00)

All comments (including negative ones) very much appreciated. 

-Missing games?
-80-in-1 instead of 60-in-1?
-crappy games that shouldn't be in my list?
-better versions of games that are in my list?

I hope my list ends up helping someone else.  Thanks!

[Miskatonic]

I would suggest adding bombjack, juno first and mr.do. I'm biased towards older games but, still, those are 3 great games. If I had to choose one of the three I'm not sure what I'd go for. Probably bombjack as it's, perhaps, the easiest to get into.

[leapinlew]

You have to put Shuffleshot on since you have a trackball. With friends, it's a lot of fun. It's a high quality game with a lot of replayability.

I'm also a fan of Donkey Kong Jr. and maybe the only person who likes Donkey Kong 3.

[dgame]

Some classic cooperative games (with endings):
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Oceania 2 Players) - tmnt2po
The Simpsons (2 Players World, set 1) - simpsons2p
X-Men (2 Players ver EAA) - xmen2pe

[Thenasty]

you'd be surprise how many would play Golden Tee.

[WakiMiko]

Add Windjammers
DonPachi is great but DoDonPachi is better
Replace Atari Tetris with Tetris The Grand Master 

[specfire]

Thanks for all of the replies.  I think I need to go to 80 games, but I really don't want to go to 100 games.  A game list that is 100 games long takes too long to scroll through.

Overall, I tried to make sure that I covered all genres in order to maintain the broadest appeal.  The list does tend to bias slightly to the classic era.

I've always loved "game-list" threads, so I hope this one keeps on growing too.

[yotsuya]

You have to put Shuffleshot on since you have a trackball. With friends, it's a lot of fun. It's a high quality game with a lot of replayability.

I'm also a fan of Donkey Kong Jr. and maybe the only person who likes Donkey Kong 3.

I like DK3. If I could find the parts, I'd made that the theme of my MultiNinty.

[epetti]

A few more suggestions:

Gauntlet
Magical Drop III
Ninja Baseball Bat Man
Popeye
R-Type
Raiden
Rally-X
Rastan
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
X-Men
Zaxxon

[BobA]

How will you make only the listed games available in Mame or are you going to filter via a front end for Mame.  I amrying to do the same type of list on a cocktail cab with just mame but all the required files for the ROMs are hard to select properly.

[EssexMame]

You might want to remove Q*Bert due to the angled joystick setup (or do people have no problems playing it with a normal joystick?)

It's a good list but it does seem to be a mix of classic and personal favourites. That's not a problem of course but every "Nagano Winter Olympics 98" will remove a classic like R-Type for the visitors you are appealing to.

I'd say a Golden Tee too - if you've got the trackball it's perfect for them. Of course if you or none of your visitors like golf then ignore it!

Perhaps if doing a limited list, reduce the Galaga/Galaga 3 /Galaga 88 to just one (your fave, or the original) of those 3. It means Galaga is "covered" and gives you 2 games back for other choices. If your a huge Galaga fan have them all in a separate list for when your shortened list isn't needed.
 

[EssexMame]

This was a list I came up with when first planning my cab. It's changed so much since then though. If you've got everything else going then by all means work and rework your list (I think I'll do "game of the week" additions to mine to try out different games also) but I've spent too much time on changing/trying these and not working in the wood shed. This list also has different types of wheel/analogue controls and 6 buttons (Street Fighter) but the principles the same I'd say. Some are "my" memories though. We aren't all so attached to, say, Enduro Racer so ultimately it can only be your choices (and that of your close pals for suggestions). I do know I always ended up with 49 or 51 though - it's difficult to choose and sometimes those choices change day-to-day. So don't limit to a hard stop I'd suggest but to a short usable list of undetermined length.

1942
Afterburner (II)
Arkanoid
Asteroids
Bad Dudes v Dragon Ninja
Bomb Jack
Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble)
Centipede
Combat School
Commando
Defender
Donkey Kong
Double Dragon
Enduro Racer
Frogger
Galaga
Galaxian
Gauntlet
Golden Axe
Golden Tee 2000
Hyper Sports
Jackal
Kick and Run
Marble Madness
Mikie
Mortal Kombat
Operation Wolf
Out Run
Pac-Man
Paperboy
Pengo
Pole Position
R-Type
Rainbow Islands
Rampage
Robocop
Rolling Thunder
Shao Lins Road
Shinobi
Sinistar
Space Invaders
Star Wars
Street Fighter
Strider
Super Hang On
Super Sprint
Tetris
Toobin'
Track & Field
Yie Ar Kung Fu

[welash]

Am I the only person who likes Mappy?  The 3 games that I play the most are Donkey Kong, Joust and Mappy.

[Malenko]

Some of these were already suggest, I'm just re-enforcing that I agree

personal preference changes:

replace 1942 with 1943
replace  with Arkanoid with Arkanoid :Revenge of Doh
replace Bomber Man World / New Dyna Blaster - Global Quest with Neo Bomberman
replace DonPachi with DoDonPachi
Pick a Galaga : Galaga '88 Galaga (Midway set 1) Galaga 3 (GP3 rev. D)
remove Galaxian (Midway set 1) you have Galaga, you dont need this
Golden Tee Classic (v1.00)
remove Lemmings its just not fun, keep if you disagree
Pick a pac : Ms. Pac-Man or  Pac-Man  (Id prefer MsPac)
remove Q*bert controller issue
remove Space Invaders Part II (Taito) you have Galaga so unless its sentimental.......

Some of my favorite games include:
2 on 2 open Ice Challenge or NBA Jam TE or NBA Maximum Hangtime or NFL Blitz
Alien Vs Predator
Darius Gaiden - Silver Hawk Extra Version
Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara or Tower of Doom
GI Joe or Devastators (same game, different skins)
Kid Niki Radical Ninja
King Of Fighters 98
Knights of the Round
Samurai Shodown II
Saturday Night Slam Masters
Sengoku 3
Shock Troopers 2
SNK vs Capcom Chaos
Super Sidekicks 3
Tapper
TMNT / TMNT Turtles in Time / Xmen / Simpsons / Sunset Riders
WINDJAMMERS

Another thing to keep in mind, is you can set MaLa to jump 1 letter at a time with a button press. Also, I have my MaLa gamelists tacked onto this post, if you wanna look them over:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140777.msg1472934.html#msg1472934

[WakiMiko]

You might want to remove Q*Bert due to the angled joystick setup (or do people have no problems playing it with a normal joystick?)

Q*Bert is sorta playable with a regular 8 way stick with a square restrictor gate by remapping the inputs in MAME so that each diagonal direction requires 2 inputs. E.g. down-right in Q*Bert = Stick Down + Stick Right.

Definitely worse than a 4-way stick turned 45 degress, but it works!

[2600]

Remove

Assault
Battlezone
Championship Sprint
Tron

They would be hard to play on your current Control Panel.


Nice to see a list.  I was looking for sample lists people had put up for their top games and couldn't find much.

[Malenko]

He's got 2 spinners, why cant he play championship sprint?

[2600]

He's got 2 spinners, why cant he play championship sprint?

I'm not saying the games are unplayable, but if you are trying to make the list simpler avoid games with awkward controls.  A spinner and a button for the accelerator might be a bit awkward.  Keep it on another list to play instead of the main one.

[dkersten]

I did a 20 game "ultra classics" list then have a more fleshed out "classic arcade" that includes around 60-70 games similar to your list, then I have a section for each type of game (schmups, beat'em'ups, vs. fighters, trackball games, spinner games, gun games, etc.) with 10-20 games in each.  That way you can find anything easily or browse the "good games" list.  Plus since most are classified by controller type it is easier to know how to control the game.  At my middle daughter's graduation party last weekend, three teenaged girls I have never met took over the arcade and never once had to ask how to play something.. they figured it out themselves and even ended up playing time crisis with the trackball since I didn't have the guns plugged in.. I was quite amazed.

[taylormadelv]

Millipede. Two player Warlords. Pong (Misfitmame). Tempest. Get your money's worth outta those spinners!

[harveybirdman]

Not enough fight and go right for me but that would be understandable depending on your monitor orientation.

Is it vertically oriented? If so you're missing some bad ass SHMUPs.

[dmckean]

I would do one list of 50 Golden Age games and another list of 50 classics that came after that. It would be too confusing to just throw a bunch of different stuff from different time periods on one list.

[wp34]

Your list is pretty good. 

In my experience civilians do not like Defender and Bezerk.

+1 on adding Golden Tee.

Keep Galaga and remove the other two.

Perhaps if doing a limited list, reduce the Galaga/Galaga 3 /Galaga 88 to just one (your fave, or the original) of those 3. It means Galaga is "covered" and gives you 2 games back for other choices. If your a huge Galaga fan have them all in a separate list for when your shortened list isn't needed.

[Minwah]

I would add:

Exerion
Juno First
Time Pilot '84 (I know you've got the first one but I like this too)
Snake Pit
Off the Wall (Sente) - good one for 2 players as you've got 2 spinners & joysticks

[eds1275]

I have a favourites list and if people don't know what they want to play they are directed there. Here's some good stuff from my favs:

Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move
The Outfoxies
Either/both of the dungeons and dragons games
Toobin'
Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

[specfire]

How will you make only the listed games available in Mame or are you going to filter via a front end for Mame.  I amrying to do the same type of list on a cocktail cab with just mame but all the required files for the ROMs are hard to select properly.

Hi Bob,  I'm using MaLa.  MaLa is very easy to set up and configure, however, it does take some tinkering to figure out how it works as the documentation is actually split in two places online.  MaLa facilitates multiple different lists as well as ways to scroll through an individual list.  Very convenient.  I have it set up so the joystick (up-down) scrolls through a list one game at a time, the joystick (left-right) scrolls through a list one "letter" at a time (basically faster scrolling) and finally, hold one button down and joystick (left-right) scrolls through my various lists.  I don't have MaLa set up for different emulators yet but am planning on doing that too.

Other comments/observations:

-I do like two player simultaneous games (cooperative or oppositional) which is why I have Hyper Athlete and Nagano (and Track and Field of course.)
-Lots of people have suggested Golden Tee and I agree (it is actually already in the list.)  Suffleshot is probably also a good Incredible Technologies game worth adding (thanks Leapinlew).
-I definitely have too much Galaga (huge favourite of mine) don't know which ones I will delete from the list.
-My monitor is horizontal but it is a large(ish) LCD, so both orientations work well for me.

-Current Controller layout limiting games:
---Q*Bert: The suggestion to use "two inputs" for a single direction works very well for diagonal control and we love Q*Bert
---Assault, Battle Zone, Tron: I am converting one of my joysticks to a trigger stick so these will all be very playable (I might even add Mad Planets)
---Star Wars: currently use a trackball which sucks, but will be installing an analog stick (smallish but high resolution one from a synthesizer)

-Classics suggested so far:
--bombjack
--juno first (great suggestion, thanks!)
--mr.do (I never really understood the appeal of this game, isn't DigDug better?)
--Donkey Kong Jr
--Donkey Kong 3 (I'm likely with the majority in that I don't really like it.)
--Gauntlet
--Popeye
--R-Type
--Raiden
--Rally-X
--Rastan
--Zaxxon
--Mappy
--Warlords (its actually already on the list!  Great spinner game just like Off the Wall (Atari)
--Millipede (is this one worth it?  I think I prefer centipede)
--Exerion
--Time Pilot '84
--Snake Pit
--Off the Wall (Sente) :

Beat-em-ups suggested: (I must confess that with unlimited continues, I've never enjoyed these style games in MAME, liked them back in the day though)
--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Oceania 2 Players) - tmnt2po
--The Simpsons (2 Players World, set 1) - simpsons2p
--X-Men (2 Players ver EAA) - xmen2pe
--Ninja Baseball Bat Man
--Both Dungeons and Dragons games
--The Outfoxies (never heard of it, will have to check it out.)

Others:
--Windjammers (great choice)
--Magical Drop III
--The Outfoxies
--Toobin'
--Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters
--Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (really?  I just couldn't get into it when I tried a long time ago, maybe I should try it again.)

Shmups:
-there are lots of awesome ones and I have a dedicated list of shmups, but I am the only one interested so, they can't dominate this list.  I have included a few classics and DonPachi in order to try to get my friends and family into them.  I don't think I should add any more, but maybe a few other good ones to introduce those that are new the genre? 

Replacements:
--DoDonPachi (actually, I am terrible at shmups even though I really enjoy them and DonPachi is just less cluttered on screen for me.)  I find in most later shmups, there is so many colours and flashing lights that I can't see the shots to dodge them.
--Atari Tetris (love this game in head to head, it is just right for me.)
--Arkanoid with Arkanoid :Revenge of Doh (not sure if the extra complexity is an improvement here, I tend to like simple games)
--Lemmings: you're right, I like the game, but I will remove it from this list and just keep it on my "puzzle games" list.
--Space Invaders Part II (Taito): total nostalgia here, have to keep it.

Lots to consider.  I think I will make it about 80 games instead of 60.  I will update here once I decide on my 80 game list.

Please keep the comments going if you have other suggestions, I really appreciate it.

[Cynicaster]

If your “family, friends, and guests” are anything like mine, then they either mostly play modern games or don’t play video games much at all. 

People like that are never going to enjoy hard-as-nails 35 year-old games like Robotron and Defender.  Nor are they going to care much about C- and D-list titles they’ve never heard of, no matter how good the games may be (Juno First, Qix, and the like). 

Based on several years of observing the preferences of guests, if I were to make a list of 60 games geared primarily toward pleasing guests, it would be the following:

-   59 games I don’t like
-   Ms. Pac Man

Think Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, Ninja Turtles, Mortal Kombat, Puzzle Bobble, Dr. Mario, Tetris.  As well, never underestimate the allure of trackball games for the common folk: Golden Tee, Shuffleshot, World Class Bowling, and Shuuz have been perennial faves at my place, even though I’d never play any of them on my own.  I see you’ve already considered most of these.

[wp34]

Based on several years of observing the preferences of guests, if I were to make a list of 60 games geared primarily toward pleasing guests, it would be the following:

-   59 games I don’t like
-   Ms. Pac Man

 

[Yvan256]

• Crossed Swords
• Black Tiger
• Rygar
• Pulstar
• R-Type
• Raiden

[cmoses]

Most of the top 60 or so have been covered and I agree with all the good suggestions.  Each persons top "whatever" will be slightly different depending on their personal preference. 

Toobin' was mentioned and I love the game, but it does have a very distinct set of controls (5 button layout).  That being said I do play it on my machine at home and really enjoy it.

[bulbousbeard]

This is why I have a special category in my game list just for ---smurfy--- crowd pleasers. I put trash such as Dragon's Lair in there.

[Malenko]

How juvenile.

[wp34]

Not funny.

[yotsuya]

This is why I have a special category in my game list just for ---smurfy--- crowd pleasers. I put trash such as Dragon's Lair in there.

I bet when people come over to hang out and ask to listen to music, it's either vinyl or GTFO.

Who are we kidding? There's no "crowd" to "please", I'm sure, unless your little brother CabinetCop counts.

[bulbousbeard]

This is why I have a special category in my game list just for ---smurfy--- crowd pleasers. I put trash such as Dragon's Lair in there.

I bet when people come over to hang out and ask to listen to music, it's either vinyl or GTFO.

Who are we kidding? There's no "crowd" to "please", I'm sure, unless your little brother CabinetCop counts.

You know what's hilarious? My friend _is_ a vinyl fan. 

[yotsuya]

This is why I have a special category in my game list just for ---smurfy--- crowd pleasers. I put trash such as Dragon's Lair in there.

I bet when people come over to hang out and ask to listen to music, it's either vinyl or GTFO.

Who are we kidding? There's no "crowd" to "please", I'm sure, unless your little brother CabinetCop counts.

You know what's hilarious? My friend _is_ a vinyl fan. 

Of course.  All hipsters are.

[bulbousbeard]

Even though it's been well-established that hipster has no single, formal definition and is a useless label for someone, he's really not a hipster in any of the dozen of ways I've seen it applied to people.

[dkersten]

an elitist that thinks his way of doing things is both unique and better than everyone else's, particularly if it involves items or technology that has been set aside for trendier or more mainstream items or technology.. that is how I define a hipster, and you and cabinetcop seem to fit that bill rather well.  I envision you two sitting around in your mom's basement sipping on wine listening to an old JVC stereo with $1000 speaker wires, greasing up your beards and adjusting your thick framed retro glasses and talking about how the fools over at the arcade controls forum can't understand how superior G-sync is to all other monitors.

[lamprey]

specfire,

Are you still looking for games to add to your list? If you are still looking for suggestions let me know as I have a list of about 600-700 games that are more or less decent. If not, then all good!

I don't know the limitations of Mala, but this seems like a good case to have multiple lists:
1. Favs or Popular or Top XX or whatever you want to call it
2. And one for everything else.

[yotsuya]

an elitist that thinks his way of doing things is both unique and better than everyone else's, particularly if it involves items or technology that has been set aside for trendier or more mainstream items or technology.. that is how I define a hipster, and you and cabinetcop seem to fit that bill rather well.  I envision you two sitting around in your mom's basement sipping on wine listening to an old JVC stereo with $1000 speaker wires, greasing up your beards and adjusting your thick framed retro glasses and talking about how the fools over at the arcade controls forum can't understand how superior G-sync is to all other monitors.

Substitute "Pabst Blue Ribbon" for wine. Bingo.