'Classic' arcade games

[Ummon]

I was thinking about the idea of 'classic' games. I break it down like this:
 
- 'Vintage' come in two categories: the largely mechanical with some images projected games; and Pong up through the Cinematronix games through '79.
 
- 'classic' means completely video displayed, CPU-based, remarkable to infamous. These games to me are:
 
    Asteriods
    Battlezone
    Centipede
    Defender
    Donkey Kong
    Frogger
    Galaxian
    Joust
    Missile Command
    Pac-Man
    Pole Position
    Robotron
    Scramble
    Space Invaders (um, yeah, I guess)
    Tempest
 
        So, fifteen. If I had to pick five, essentially meaning almost anyone in the developed world would know them, they might be:
 
    Asteroids
    Donkey Kong
    Centipede
    Galaxian
    Pac-Man
 
    (Pac being at the top. Originally, I had Frogger in there. EGADS, I FORGOT DONKEY KONG. In both lists. Mmm. Fixed, which means Frogger didn't make the top five. And I suppose it could be argued Space Invaders has a spot in there somewhere. I dunno. I don't remember people really talking about Space Invaders after Galaxian came out. It was sorta like, and I thought this too, Galaxian was the proper version, Space Invaders being a proto-version. Whatever.)
 
 
- secondary 'classics':
 
    Asteroids Deluxe
    Berzerk/Frenzy (maybe)
    Dig Dug
    Donkey Kong Jr.
    Galaga
    Gorf
    Gravitar
    Millipede
    Ms. Pac-Man
    Pole Position II
    Q-bert
    Stargate
 
 
- Then you have all the rest of your golden age games (I'm making after '85 the cut-off; in alphabetical order) :
 
    Armor Attack
    Bagman (I guess. I'm not sure I even remember seeing it anywhere.)
    Black Widow
    Crazy Climber
    Burger Time
    Congo Bongo
    Cosmic Chasm
    Crystal Castles
    Elevator Action
    Excitebike
    Gaplus
    Gunsmoke
    Gyruss
    I, Robot
    Jungle Hunt/King
    Kangaroo
    Karate Champ
    Lunar Lander
    Mappy
    Marble Madness
    Mario Bros. (Not a personal favorite, but it was a pretty big game.)
    Mr. Do series (Many people might know Mr. Do, but I never heard anyone talking about it when I was a kid. I much more remember just seeing the latter three, and love them.)
    Pengo
    Phoenix/Pleiades
    Pooyan
    Popeye
    Punch-out
    Reactor
    Sinistar
    Space Duel
    Star Trek
    Tapper
    Time Pilot
    Time Pilot '84
    Track and Field
    Tutankham
    Xevious
    Zaxxon/Super Zaxxon
    Zektor
 
 
- Special Category
 
    Star Wars
    Tron
    Discs of Tron
    Laser disc - especially Dragon's Lair
 
 
- Odd ones: these weren't remarkable, but definitely remembered:
 
    Qix
    Space Panic
    Turbo (I don't remember seeing it that much, and don't remember anyone really being jazzed about it.)
    Warlords (I actually mostly saw, and played, this on the Atari 2600.)
    Wizard of War
    Cinematronics vector games of the first half of the 80s - remembered....
 
- Esoteric ones:
 
    Major Havoc
    Quantum
 
 
I'd like to take a moment to focus on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - the game I was playing last night that actually got me to thinking about all this. Indiana Jones is an unusual game. To my knowledge, it was the first serious sort of role-playing game in the arcades. You played a truly human-looking character and you actually went places off the board, the direction totally up to you. (Tutankham was a sort of prescient parody of this, though it only scrolled side to side; Jr. Pac-Man and Mappy did this, but those weren't 'real' places.) As well, it's isometric rendering, I'm betting descended in some way from Marble Madness, set it apart from every other game of the time. (However, Marble Madness only scrolled downward.) I don't think it was copied.

[studmuff]

I would add Spy Hunter to the golden age games list

[javeryh]

Blue Print
Juno First
Food Fight

[gman314]

I think Mario Bros. is awesome.  Too bad so many people think that Super Mario Bros. was the "original" installment.   

[Loafmeister]

It's a cool list but as much as I love centipede, there's no way Robotron plays second fiddle to it .

[pinballwizard79]

I like seeing game lists, it makes me feel all warm & fuzzy that I can play them in my basement.

For a modern game list you should consider "Moonwalker" though.......that game is awesome even if it is late model.

What other game lets you play as a person accused of erm, "something" for 20 years as you "save" children by rubbing against them while shafted robots thrust towards you & at the end..........have you seen the space ship?

I really wanted to use the word isometric in that description above   

[DeLuSioNal29]

Very well done list.

I think though (at least for me) the Ms. Pacman tops Pacman any day.  I mean, look how many people are restoring Ms. Pacs vs. Pacs.

~ D

[SithMaster]

Very well done list.

I think though (at least for me) the Ms. Pacman tops Pacman any day.  I mean, look how many people are restoring Ms. Pacs vs. Pacs.

~ D

That's only because men like boobies.

[CrazyKongFan]

And Galaga should be one of the classics too...of all the classics you find out in the wild today, most are either Ms Pac or Galaga. I would replace Galaxian with Galaga in your top 5 recognizable ones.

[protokatie]

I think Mario Bros. is awesome.  Too bad so many people think that Super Mario Bros. was the "original" installment.   

I thought DK was the origonal mario game.... Meh. I will be bashed for this, but I didn't like either DK or Mario Bros. Hell, didnt even really like super mario bros. (yep, played Zelda instead). I did like SMB2 (western version) and SMB3 tho

[Blanka]

Protakatie: You're right about Donkey Kong. It was not a good game. It was a good concept, but badly programmed (applies to DK junior and DK3 as well).
With the platform-like games you need good controls. Super Mario is one of the first to do this right. What I mean is that you can push up during a jump to climb a ladder, you can push left-up to walk left and continue climbing, you have some influence on the length of jumps and your landings don't have to be pixel-perfect. Donkey Kong also suffers from bad collision detection. The whole sprite bounding box is measured against enemy's, instead of just the visible pixels. This all together makes DK a hork to play, compared to the other classics like Tempest and the Space shooters. Even Pac-Man suffers little from this "old school" control-style/crash detection and could have been slightly better playable. I think these games should have been made with 8-way joysticks and be programmed to use them right.

[ratzz]

Thats a great list, well thought out.

I would personally move Galaga up the list, but I think everyone has a slightly different list.

Nevertheless, still a good list of games to add to the favs folder. 

[Ummon]

Blue Print
Juno First
Food Fight

Yeah, they could all go in the general golden age category. And yes I missed Spy Hunter.

It's a cool list but as much as I love centipede, there's no way Robotron plays second fiddle to it .

I think it does in overall popularity. The list is based in a loose compilation of how popular, how many manufactured, and when released.

Very well done list.

I think though (at least for me) the Ms. Pacman tops Pacman any day.  I mean, look how many people are restoring Ms. Pacs vs. Pacs.

~ D

Now, yes. And I like Ms Pac better, too. But Pac is the all-time best known game in history. Plus it came first.

And Galaga should be one of the classics too...of all the classics you find out in the wild today, most are either Ms Pac or Galaga. I would replace Galaxian with Galaga in your top 5 recognizable ones.

The list is based in a loose compilation of how popular, how many manufactured, and when released. I personally kinda consider Galaga the first real game of the series, but I think Galaxian beats it overall in the conditions listed.


The DK discussion: I didn't really get DK when it came out, so I didn't play it much. But I sure as hell knew the game. As well, I was bothered by things I thought it should've had; now I don't think that way, because in its context it's a killer game. Each of them have their own context that distinguish them - Mario Bros. was original (though the basic change through the game is types of baddies; the board stays the same, which can get boring, depending), and Super MB was original in ways - but DK was totally original. And it says something about it that young gamers who get to the kill screen aren't falling out of the woodwork.

[RayB]

Protakatie: You're right about Donkey Kong. It was not a good game. It was a good concept, but badly programmed (applies to DK junior and DK3 as well).
With the platform-like games you need good controls. Super Mario is one of the first to do this right. What I mean is that you can push up during a jump to climb a ladder, you can push left-up to walk left and continue climbing, you have some influence on the length of jumps and your landings don't have to be pixel-perfect. Donkey Kong also suffers from bad collision detection. The whole sprite bounding box is measured against enemy's, instead of just the visible pixels. This all together makes DK a hork to play, compared to the other classics like Tempest and the Space shooters. Even Pac-Man suffers little from this "old school" control-style/crash detection and could have been slightly better playable. I think these games should have been made with 8-way joysticks and be programmed to use them right.

Your bias is due to modern gaming where play control has been very very well refined. Play any "run and jump" character game from the classic era and you will have all the same complaints about your character's control.

That said, I don't think the hallmarks of arcade history should be penalized in hindsight because of modern advances. That would be like complaining that a Ford Model T lacked horsepower and handling compared to today's cars.

[extendedplayarcade]

Very well done list.

I think though (at least for me) the Ms. Pacman tops Pacman any day.  I mean, look how many people are restoring Ms. Pacs vs. Pacs.

~ D

That's only because men like boobies.

And those Pre-Botox-ed Lips she had.   

[leapinlew]

I probably couldn't include Galaxian or Centipede. It would have to be Space Invaders. Galaxian, Galaga and Centipede are pretty much enhanced Space Invaders games. Sure, it isn't my favorite, but it's obvious where they got their inspiration from. The way I see it.

Pacman
Space Invaders
Pole Position


Here is MSNBC's top 5 classic list
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20285514/

Here is MSNBC's forum where people posted their top 5
http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?boardid=791&ThreadID=372047&BoardsParam=HIPDelay%3d1