Which arcade games have you actually seen/played in person

[mimic]

I bet lists going to be long! Arcade games I have seen or played, in no particular order of names I still remember:
moon patrol - I played it few times, but always sucke (now I'm much better) plenty of cabinets everywhere,
mission xx - I've seen that cabinet in only one arcade, never again. I actually liked it. It reminded me sort of xevious in sense that you could shoot air and ground targets independently
grobda - loved it, but again only in one arcade ever,
green beret - abundant, played it only few times again sucked at it (still am) always liked to watch other play,
gryzor (later I found out it was really contra) it was here and there not too popular
defender - super hard! But I loved to watch people that knew how to play 'em,
1942 - bleh never liked this game, tried maybe couple of times
flying shark - great looking game, which I sucked at, again mostly particpated behinf\d someones shoulder
mk1, mk2, mk3, - never put a single coin, but played it many times on Amiga
warlords - loved it! Sole reason I purchased 2 spinners, very unpopular. again only one arcade had it for very brief period.
robocop - I don't remember playing it in arcades, but completed it on Amiga,
mikie - never played it at arcades, but I like it now on mame.
pac man - bleh to this day I don't understand the appeal,
donkey kong - never liked it,
street fighter 2 - again only behind a shoulder, never played it once,
vigilante - nothing special, I think I tried it few times,
commando - very hard (but I liked the action), again either ZX Spectrum or Amiga got most of my time.
Knuckle Joe - The only arcade I can assume I completed (made it past final boss, after which game would resume from beginning)
robotron - I liked to watch good players, can't recall if  I ever tried once ,
tempest - one of my favorites!,
joust - never played once,
bosconian - back then I thought was hard, but now I like it,
bank panic - few times, available only in one arcade,
pit fighter - never played it, but I think it might have been first game either before or just after mk 1 to use digitized fighters, I was impressed.
galaga - never got into it, still not a big fan
time pilot - loved it.,
gorf - liked it better than phoenix and galaga and space invaders and whatever else was emualting than those other mentioned games combined,
xevious - loved it (mostly watch how others played and what's next!),
scramble - It was pretty cool,
cobra - as above,
shinobi - here and there, same on Amiga,
asteroids - it was pretty cool,
pole position - I don't think I tried once,
lode runner - again only one arcade had it, which on top of that was far away, I played few times and l liked it,
trojan - it was here and there, kind of liked it.
errr, uh, don't remember anyting more at the moment, will update as I recall (or not if no one cares!)

If you decide to post here and can't remember a game at the moment, then if you wanna add it later, please just edit your earlier post don't make 100 posts with different games

[dmel75]

Having grown up in the 70's-80's (I am 36 now) I think I played them all. =) My favorite arcade games from that era are Elevator Action, Shinobi, Major Havoc, Ms. Pac Man, BurgerTime, 1942 and Galaga. Those games get lots of play on my Arcade cabinet these days. Back in the 80's I lived near some very well stocked arcades in Memphis, TN. "The Gold Mine" which was in the Mall of Memphis , the "Barrel of Fun" in the Hickory Ridge Mall and two Putt Putt Golf facilities that had large arcade rooms. They rotated out a lot of games so there aren't many of the US based games that I did not put my hands on at one time or another.  Someday I want to travel to FunSpot and relive those times a bit.

[severdhed]

i never really played that many real arcade games...

MS Pacman, TMNT, street fighter 2, MK, MK2, Cruisin USA, Cruisin World, stun runner, asteroids, crossbow, nba jam, pole position, trojan, samurai showdown, puzzle bobble, arkanoid, bad dudes, area 51, maximum force, lucky and wild, time crisis 2, target terror, hard drivin, sunset riders, xmen

that is all i can think of

Edited to appease the grammar Nazis

[RayB]

They are called arcade GAMES, not "arcades".

[mimic]

They are called arcade GAMES, not "arcades".

corrected, thx

[Spacejack]

Another Memphis arcader here from the '70's-80's.  Too many games to count, of course.  I actually worked at the Gold Mine for a while there (not a terrific experience, it was part of the Nickels & Dimes chain).  There was even another arcade at the Mall of Memphis for a while, called Tilt... it was the only place I ever saw Bosconian.  I worked at the Gold Mine during the approximately eight years that they had "Time Traveler" as their showcase cabinet (no kidding).

There were some more good arcades in Memphis in addition to this.  The Sultan's Castle in the Raliegh Springs Mall where I first got freaked out by Satan's Hollow and first encountered the idea of a 100% markup on video games (50 cents for Scramble!).  The Barrel of Fun had Krull and Empire Strikes Back.  And somewhere around here in the days of yore, at one of the bowling alleys, I played Caveman.

What a world it was! I guess I never thought about how good we had it for arcades in this town.  Probably because of FedEx, I guess, would have made for cheap delivery of stuff that came in to the hub.

addition:  Still here, by the way.  The invisible rubberband attaches at the base of the spine if you live here too long and then you can't get away.

[Ummon]

Yeah, I was no holy roller, but having had enough Catholic and Christian experience, I was a little awestruck that the game said Satan on it.

[retrometro]

Another Memphis arcader here from the '70's-80's.  Too many games to count, of course.  I actually worked at the Gold Mine for a while there (not a terrific experience, it was part of the Nickels & Dimes chain).  There
...

Awesome.  My wife is from Memphis and we go there a couple of times a year.  Can I assume all the descent arcades are on the east side of town? 

 

[Spacejack]

"Can I assume all the descent arcades are on the east side of town?  "

There aren't any arcades to speak of anymore at all.  Putt Putt is still operating, but all their arcade games are severely screwed up.  The Downtown Jillian's was about the last extant arcade that took it in any way seriously, but they closed up about six months ago or something like that anyway.  Mall of Memphis is gone altogether.  Raliegh Springs is in poor repair and is basically just a Sears and a tacked-on Malco theater at this point.  Hickory Ridge just got sold to a megachurch!  That was after it got really damaged in a storm.  None of the Malls had arcades at the end anyway.

About as good as it gets these days is the gameroom in the Malco Paradiso.  MvC2, Mario Kart GP (2 cabs), Super Pac-Man, a handful of other "deluxe" types.

[Ginsu Victim]

Far too many to name, like most of us here.

[clok]

I grew up (again like alot here) inthe 70-80's so i played most, it was sorta a mission in those days to find new games, many where trash, but where worht 1 quarter. maybe the question should be more in the vein of what ones do you remeber most? Not gameplay wise but the cab/controls/heck even gameplay.

Disc of Tron  (the stand in one)has always stuck out in my mind (Tron even when it came out, with all the neon glow). The atari Heli game you sat in and moved yourself with the stick (havok?) Vurtal Racer with the Hydrolic Air seat. Subroc in 3D. Mechwarrior with the pods. The first VR game i played on the stairs in the 3d world with the bird (sorry dont rember name) crappy game, but very trippy the first time. B.O.T.T.S. (i passed up the chance to own one  for $250 cuz i didnt think i would have room for it!!!!! kick myslef every time I think about it)

just plain gee qhiz: SPace Fury (it talked!!!) Tempest (still my favorite, just so different to me when it came out). Guantlet (so much fun with others) Kung Fu Champ (or was it karate Champ? Actually fighting somebody else not the CPU). There are so many... REACTOR!!! (just cuz the music was so cool).

yep far to many...

[javeryh]

Way too many to name.

[Todd H]

You name it I've probably played it. I did grow up in the lat 70's early 80's after all.

I can still remember the sights, sounds, and smells of my favorite childhood arcades. Nothing else like it.

[TOK]

The main games I played in person were Major Havoc II The Atlantis Missions, Time Pilot '85, Pole Position 3: Fukuoka Drift and Robotron $20.84.

As a follow up question, I'd like to ask people what foods they've eaten! 

[Ummon]

hahahahahahahahahah

[iscariot]

At 31 years old I managed to play just about everything out there.  Literally everything.  I lived in Japan for awhile so I got access to some nice stuff that never saw the light of day stateside.  It's great.

Anyone remember the Jackie Chan fighting game?  I actually had a jamma board of it but I stupidly sold it.

[mimic]

The main games I played in person were Major Havoc II The Atlantis Missions, Time Pilot '85, Pole Position 3: Fukuoka Drift and Robotron $20.84.

As a follow up question, I'd like to ask people what foods they've eaten! 

Ok, great, mister "funny". I'm not correcting the subject line again 

[Blanka]

Actually not many, they were scarse on the Dutch countryside.
There was a Galaga machine at a restaurant close to my place.
I played Arkanoid and Tiger Heli in Houstrup Denmark, at the campsite we visited a couple of times.
And we raced Virtua Racer quite often during the study years, until the place (like most others) became a slot-machine casino.

[TOK]

The main games I played in person were Major Havoc II The Atlantis Missions, Time Pilot '85, Pole Position 3: Fukuoka Drift and Robotron $20.84.

As a follow up question, I'd like to ask people what foods they've eaten! 

Ok, great, mister "funny". I'm not correcting the subject line again 

As an arcade-rat kid of the 80's, I could have spent 3 hours listing nearly every classic and second tier classic made, totally ignored the topic, or gone with a smart-ass reply.

I'm happy with my decision. 

[Turnarcades]

As I've mentioned elsewhere before, we never really got dedicated cabinets frequently in the UK so it was hard to spot across an arcade what games were in there. Most arcades I ever saw were seedy, dark places with none of the fancy flyer advertising or any money spent to make the centre more appealing; rather they were dumped in the back room of a regular 'fruit machine arcade centre' in the few inner city locations that had them, or in poorly-maintained seaside town arcades.

The largest selection of arcade centres I ever witnessed was in Newquay, Cornwall but few of these contained original machines. This was the first time I played TMNT and thankfully it was in an arcade that had spent money on brand new cabs. Living in-land as I do, during my teens I was limited to playing some bad Neo-Geo conversions, Street Fighter 2 hacks and a few decent JAMMA side-scrollers in some seriously questionable establishments where kids were mugged for their pocket money frequently.

Sad really isn't it? 

[arzoo]

I spent many hours as a teen in our only local arcade (I graduated high school in '81). They would uncrate the new games out on the floor and we would wait to be the first to play. I can remember seeing a brand new Defender, Berzerk, and Gorgar (pin). I also worked in the arcades at Great Adventure (NJ), so I played a lot of games those years.  Geez I'm old  .

[Silas (son of Silas)]

As I've mentioned elsewhere before, we never really got dedicated cabinets frequently in the UK ..

Yup... I grew up in Reading about 30 miles West of London. I think the only time I ever got to play on a real arcade machine in the UK was at Gatwick or Heathrow airports when my parents used to take me on holiday as a kid. I distinctly remember the first time I completed Double Dragon was at Gatwick airport.

From the age of about 11 by dad used to fly us to the US (Chicago) on business trips 2 or 3 times a year, the we would would fly down to Florida for a break of a week or 2. That's where most of my arcade memories are rooted. I used to want to spend more time at The Florida Mall arcade than I did at any of the theme parks. The games I remember from there are:

Double Dragon
Ikari Warriors
P.O.W
Ring King
Afterburner
Final Fight.

Later in life when I was 21 (1996) I traveled to the US with a mate and we spent 3 months touring in an RV from San Francisco to Orlando. That was one long arcade game from start to finish.  Back in '96 there were literally hundreds of second rate, cheap RV parks in the middle of absolutely nowhere that still had a clutch of old cabinets hanging around the crummy stores. That's where I first encountered real classic gaming. From that trip I remember playing:

Pac-Man.
Ms. Pacman
Moon Cresta
Donkey Kong
Frogger

At the end of that trip my mate and I holed up in Orlando for a couple of weeks, during which time we played Mortal Kombat (I don't recall which versions) daily.

I suppose if I hadn't spent so much time in arcades in the US, this whole hobby would have passed me by.

[RayB]

As a general rule, I played EVERY game I could get my hands on from the time I was a kid on up through mid to late 20's.

If an arcade machine was present anywhere, be it a convenience store, restaurant, whatever and I was "there", at least one quarter had to go in!

I've even played rare turds no one may have heard of, such as:

Space Odyssey (Sega - cabinet was similar to Zaxxon)

[arzoo]

As a general rule, I played EVERY game I could get my hands on from the time I was a kid on up through mid to late 20's.

Wow - you've got to be more than 100 years old (or a Highlander)

[Minwah]

As I've mentioned elsewhere before, we never really got dedicated cabinets frequently in the UK

Except, Sega dedicated cabinets used to do pretty well. I used to play on OutRun, Super Hang On, Enduro Racer, Thunder Blade, Power Drift, After Burner & Space Harrier all in the same arcade - all sitdown/moving versions where applicable too.

I also recall a dedicated RoadBlasters (thus the shape of my cabinet!) and most of the 4 player games were dedicated (Gauntlet, Simpsons, TMNT). Also I saw plenty of real SF2 machines. Most other games were in boring old generic cabinets though, with really bad 'euro style' joysticks

[Hoopz]

My favorite was an environmental Discs of Tron.  Best cabinet IMHO.   

[supadave]

Too many to name, but here are a few that I'll share and why..

1. Mortal Kombat II - I used to skip work and spend hours upon hours and tons of money. I got so good that I could finish the game start to finish on one quarter. I was always upset that the game didn't roll over my credit after I defeated Shao Kahn.

2. Killer Instinct - Another work skipper of a game. Not as addictive as MKII though

3. Double Dragon - This game kept me pumping my quarters in like mad!

Honorable Mentions - Punch-Out, Frogger, Rampage, Dragons Layer, Guantlet Dark Legacy

[mimic]

I'm kind of shocked at what are island friends reporting, having arcades so scarce. I lived in much poorer country, I'm not gonna say that arcades were everywhere, but there were at least 5-10 in every city that had maybe 15-20 machines each on heavy rotation, so there was always something new coming

[1UP]

Remember the old arcade? Blew every dollar that I ever made...

Another child of the 70s/80s.  Played em all at one time or another.  Favorites are still Star Wars, Space Ace, Tempest, Major Havoc (love the old vector games) fast Ms. Pac-Man, Mario Bros (not super!) Donkey Kong, and 720 just to name a few.  Oh and of course Street Fighter 2 in almost any incarnation! 

[Namco]

My parents were bowlers and we lived near a lot of malls so I was lucky enough to get my hands on a shipload of arcade games over the years. I never had any quarters to play them all, but I did relish standing in front of them at least and watching their attract screens.

But then again, there were many, many venues with multiple machines, many with dozens of machines. Over the years you see the games come and go. Here's a list of my favorite venues as a kid:

El Dorado Bowl
Inglewood Lanes
Time-Out, Fox Hills Mall
Aladdin's Castle ( I think), Hawthorne Plaza Mall
Palos Verdes Bowl
Malibu Castle Arcade, Redondo Beach

El Dorado Bowl in my formative years was the best because they got all the latest games as they came out along with the classics. I remember the first time I saw a Pole Position, Ms. PacMan, Food Fight, Burgertime, Xevious, Pac Man Plus, Star Wars, Punch-Out, Tron, Mario Bros., Dragon's Lair, they were all here mixed in with Tempest, Galaxian, Galaga, Pac-Man, Defender, Donkey Kong.

All American Arcade or Aladdin's Castle, Hawthorne Plaza Mall. I think it was called Aladdin's castle, but it might have been All-American Arcade or something like that. All I remember is that they had Mr. Do, Golden Axe, Battle Zone, Pengo, MACH 3, Hang On, just a lot of great, classy games.

Inglewood Lanes in my middle-school years brought Double Dragon, Operation Wolf, Donkey Kong 3, Major Havoc, Gyruss.

Time-Out always had games that I had never seen anywhere else. Bad Dudes, Super Monaco, Moonwalker, NARC, claw games. But by this period games were already getting gimmicky.

The Castle Arcade was this great venue with minature golf outside. All I cared about were the arcade games inside. Every classic game you can think of. I remember there being a lot of vector games including cool stuff you've never seen before like 3 Tempests side-by-side-by-side. First time seeing air hockey here too. This place was the holy grail because of its great selection and rarity of going there.

Palos Verdes Bowl didn't have a great selection, but I remember Time Soldiers, Robocop, Ninja Kid along with a few classics like Shinobi and... Street Fighter 2, awww yeah!


That's just a few, but there were just hundreds of games over the years. From seeing Kangaroo at both the grocery store and Zody's, to the countless 7-11s you stopped out JUST to see what they had. Fighting games at 7-11s, driving games at the malls, pinballs here and there. The golden age of arcades was where it was at. I wish I was older at the time and had an income that could be spent on playing these games more, but then again if I didn't enjoy them during my younger formative years, I wouldn't have been so drawn to them and computers and electronics in general as a lifelong interest.

[Spacejack]

"or in poorly-maintained seaside town arcades."

I visited Dorset in 1984 and found the pier arcade there pretty mesmerizing and well-stocked (it was full of slots and various change games too of course).  Your post brought to mind a number of games I only saw there, the most noteworthy of which was Mr. Do's Castle. And I always found it bizarre how the Dragon's Lair cabs I saw in Europe lacked the scoreboard... they were dedicated cabinets thought if I recall correctly.

It also reminded me of how much fun it used to be to hunt down arcades and gamerooms, particularly semi-abandoned ones, while traveling in the 80s.  If you looked hard enough at any hotel or airport you could turn up the most amazingly archaic stuff.  Airports were my primary experience with Atari Football, for instance.  And I relish having actually played Sundance in the forgotten gameroom at one of the hotels in Orlando, where they also had Armor Attack and King & Balloon... I think the newest game in there was Ladybug and this was maybe 1985-86.

The machines from those hotel gamerooms and such are the ones I wonder most about now.  Where they wound up, how they got there.  There was nothing quite like an old gameroom that had never had much traffic in the first place.

[cgrisamore]

Another Memphis arcader here from the '70's-80's. 

Me too!  In addition to the mall based arcades you've listed in your post, I played at lot at Fun City on Winchester in Whitehaven (I grew up in Whitehaven) and I fondly remember an arcade next door to the Highland quartet movie theatre that I visited quite a few times.  Oh and of course Solomon Alfred's at Overton Square...

[Barry Barcrest]

As I've mentioned elsewhere before, we never really got dedicated cabinets frequently in the UK so it was hard to spot across an arcade what games were in there. Most arcades I ever saw were seedy, dark places with none of the fancy flyer advertising or any money spent to make the centre more appealing; rather they were dumped in the back room of a regular 'fruit machine arcade centre' in the few inner city locations that had them, or in poorly-maintained seaside town arcades.

The largest selection of arcade centres I ever witnessed was in Newquay, Cornwall but few of these contained original machines. This was the first time I played TMNT and thankfully it was in an arcade that had spent money on brand new cabs. Living in-land as I do, during my teens I was limited to playing some bad Neo-Geo conversions, Street Fighter 2 hacks and a few decent JAMMA side-scrollers in some seriously questionable establishments where kids were mugged for their pocket money frequently.

Sad really isn't it? 

Damn I don't know where you went on holiday but I remeber cracking Arcades in Weymouth, Margate and Blackpool. Actually pretty much every seaside location i went to as a kid had great dedicated cabs and was probably 80% Arcade Games with only a Few Fruit Machines.

Dedicated Machines I Rember Playing Include.
Star Wars (Cockpit and Stand Up)
Empire Strikes Back (Cockpit and Stand up)
Return Of The Jedi (Cockpit (Converted Star Wars ) and Stand up)
Space Invaders (I had to stand on create I was so young)
Gorf
Dragons Lair
Out Run (All of them including the hydraulic sit down)
Outrunners (2 player sit down)
Power Drift (The first game i completed in an arcade)
NX1 (The three screen Pole Position style racer)
Spy Hunter
Tempest
Asteroids
Road Blasters
Super Srpint
Ivan Iron Man Stuarts
Ridge Racer (The life size Mazda MX1 Version, i think it's still in blackpool)
Hard Driving
Chase HQ
WEC Lemans (The sit down that rotates)
Buggy Boy.....

You know what I've played loads of dedicated cabs. I know you live in wolverhampton now, if you did as a kid you could have played a lot of these in one of the two excellent arcades at the lickey hills where i used to frequent. Fletchers Copper Coin was the best now it's just gambling machines only. The other arcade lower down is now flats Your alternative arcade would have been back of the clent hills, i am actually going to see if that is still there as i think i saw it's machines on ebay a year or so back.