You might want to try playing those games with arcade controls first. My experience has been that they aren't really that much fun on cabinet. They aren't really designed for sticks.
That said, you can usually remap buttons to do what you want (via your IPAC or whatever). Do some searching to get more information.
I tried playing Descent II on the cabinet once because I thought it'd be way cool... In the end, it's much better with a keyboard as designed. But maybe a flight-stick...

-pmc