What games did you miss the first time around?

[Zobeid]

Singapura already started a thread ( over here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79831.0 ) asking what old games we have fond memories of.  So, I want to turn that idea on its head. . .

What great old classic games have you only discovered recently -- through MAME or otherwise -- that you never saw or never got a chance to play Way Back When?

I was very much into space shooters, so. . . . .

Bosconian!  I don't know why I never stumbled across a Bosconian machine in any of the arcades, I'm pretty sure it's not a really rare game.  When I finally discovered this game, my feeling was:  THIS is exactly the sort of thing I would have gone nuts over (and still is pretty fun today).

Zektor. . .   More interesting than Space Fury -- and I liked Space Fury pretty well.

Major Havoc.  I only heard about this game when people started calling on Jeff Minter to create Major Havoc 2000 (he never did).  I didn't know what they were talking about.

Black Widow.  Hmm, there were a lot of vector games that I never encountered.  I wonder why?

ColecoVision games:  I had Venture, Lady Bug, Carnival and Cosmic Avenger on my CV.  I never saw a Lady Bug machine, and I only saw a Cosmic Avenger machine one time (and didn't get a chance to play it).

Blaster!  I never heard of this game until Jeff Minter wrote on his website about it -- and his own surprise at discovering a forgotten Williams treasure.

Other Williams games. . .    Bubbles.  Never heard of it until it came out in the Williams games pack.  I also recently stumbled across Mystic Marathon.  I don't think either of these would have been favorites for me, if I'd seen them back in the 1980s, but I would have given them a spin.  (Heck, I'd even play Dig Dug if nothing else was available.  I drew the line at Mr. Do though.)

As I move forward into the late 80s and on into the 90s, the arcades were closing up around here and games were disappearing from convenience stores, and there are a lot of games that I basically know only from emulation, or from very brief encounters.  There's Rastan and Rygar. . .  (I know Rygar from the excellent Atari Lynx port.)  Truxton and Vindicators were both games I loved at first sight, but only saw them one time, while traveling.

Nostalgia for old favorites is a fine thing, but it's also fascinating to dig through the whole history of video games and see all the stuff that I missed before.

[Jdurg]

I didn't start playing Street Fighter 2 until the Turbo edition came out.  By then, the peak popularity of it had JUST passed.   

[GAJoe]

I didn't discover Mr. Do! until 2004.  It was installed at a local pool room, and I gave it a chance.  Before I knew it I was laying out of work to play.  It was a machine that supported the 255 lives trick, so I could go for hours on one quarter.  It's probably the classic arcade game I've spent the most hours of my life on.

[severdhed]

Centipede.  i had heard of the game, even seen a few cabinets, but i never played them.  It wasn't until about a month ago, when i helped my boss get his control panel built (no progress has been made on the cabinet since then).  Once we installed his trackball, he introduced me to Centipede.  I am amazed at how much fun this game is.  Now, when we are at work, we stop 2 or 3 times a day to go play a few rounds of centipede.  right now, i hold the high score, which drives him nuts...so we end up playing a little more often when my name is at the top of the list...  i removed my trackball from my control panel a while back because i just didn't use it very much, and i figured it would look less cluttered if it wasn't there..but now i am going to be putting it back in because I am hooked on Centipede.  It is a little funny too, he built this gigantic 4 player panel with a spinner, trackball, and dedicated 4 way, but i think centipede is the only game that gets played.

[danny_galaga]

almost all of them 

easier to list the games i DID play (even if just once) probably about ten of them.

favourites i discovered through mame:

commando
galaga (ironic i call myself danny galaga, eh  )
street fighters
pang
exerion
juno first
gyruss (i might have played it once, but im not sure now- gettin old...)
king of fighters- in fact all of the fighting games
zero wing
xevious
centipede

etc, etc...

[shardian]

I missed pretty much all of them too. I was a JAMMA era child. The arcades were 99% Schmups, fighters, and side scroller beat'em'ups.

Pretty much the only classic I ever saw on location as a kid was Ms. Pacman and Pole Position. I did play many originals on my IBM PC. Dig dug, Zaxxon, Defender, Space Invaders -  I played the crap out of those on the PC keyboard. I never even knew they were originally arcade games!

And I agree that Bosconian is the bomb! I first played it on the Jakks 5 in 1 TV thing.

[Ginsu Victim]

I was born in '77, so I didn't miss out on much. However, there are plenty of games I didn't play until MAME because I was either intimidated (Sinistar) or just didn't have a lot of money on me to try everything.

Thanks to MAME, though, I've played so many great classics that I never had the chance to try before, like Sinistar, Satan's Hollow, Mr Do, Tempest, Pooyan, Discs of Tron, Gaplus, Gorf, and plenty more. There are also a lot of games that aren't from the "classic" era that are still great and I hadn't tried until they were emulated. Namely the entire Neo Geo collection. Sure, I'd played some Fatal Fury here and there, and King of Fighters 94, but most of my Neo Geo experience started with NeoRAGEx. It got me hooked on Baseball Stars 2, that's for sure.

[danny_galaga]

And I agree that Bosconian is the bomb! I first played it on the Jakks 5 in 1 TV thing.

same here. unfortunately i cant get it to work on my mame (78) and i can never get around to getting new batteries for the 5 in 1...

[ahofle]

Same first 4 from your list (Bosconian, Zektor, Major Havoc, Black Widow).
Some other gems I never played in the arcades:
Juno First (GREAT game)
DonPachi
Snake Pit
Wacko
Puzzloop
Jumping Jack (hard game!)
Quantum
Cameltry
Aztarac
Chicken Shift
Flicky

[Ginsu Victim]

Same first 4 from your list (Bosconian, Zektor, Major Havoc, Black Widow).
Some other gems I never played in the arcades:
Juno First (GREAT game)
DonPachi
Snake Pit
Wacko
Puzzloop
Jumping Jack (hard game!)
Quantum
Cameltry
Aztarac
Chicken Shift

Cameltry. I only recently found out about this one and I'm hooked. It has made me appreciate my spinner I built even more.

[Spyridon]

Any JAMMA game (although I haven't found many I really like).  I was a child of the Arcade boom so I'm much more into the classics. 

One of the classics I did miss was Discs of Tron.  Still hoping to one day experience an EDOT.

[Singapura]

I also have to say most Jamma games. Especially the shooters.

[fjl]

I was big enough to play games back around the Dig Dug days. Only problem was that I was too poor to ever attend arcades. So it wasn't until the late 90's when I could go, but by then most arcades where already closed. And any that where, had those big games that required 50 cents or more to play. So I was like, "fudge that!" I can play games for free at home.

[Vash]

Same first 4 from your list (Bosconian, Zektor, Major Havoc, Black Widow).
Some other gems I never played in the arcades:

DonPachi

That's a crazy addictive game.  I just got into it (and its sequel, DoDonPachi) and holy crap they're fun.