Top Five Games that you dumped the most money into growing up?

[LLUncoolJ]

1. Spy Hunter
2. Galaga
3. Commando
4. Tron
5. Operation Wolf

Honorable mentions:  Narc, Time Pilot, Heavy Barrel, Karate Champ, Kung Fu Master, Donkey Kong (Sr & Jr), Pole Position, Cabal, Ivan Stewart Off Road

Guess it really depends on what you had access to. Since I was a kid on a bike, I could only cover about a 5 mile radius.

[Ginsu Victim]

1. Rastan
2. TMNT
3. Donkey Kong
4. Donkey Kong Jr
5. Popeye

[shmokes]

Super Mario Bros.
Street Fighter 2

Those are the only two that I really dumped a substantial amount of money into.  I played lots of others, but I was always way too poor to play arcade games enough to characterize my spending as dumping money into.   More like a quarter here a quarter there.

[LLUncoolJ]

Super Mario Bros.
Street Fighter 2

Those are the only two that I really dumped a substantial amount of money into.  I played lots of others, but I was always way too poor to play arcade games enough to characterize my spending as dumping money into.   More like a quarter here a quarter there.

I suck at SF2. I bought one about a year ago to convert to a multicade. Turns out the monitor didn't want anything to do with the multi-board. So I tried to play that thing for 9 months and then sold it...sucking at it all the while.

[shmokes]

I was unbeatable on the original SF2.  Never got into the variations.  I could beat it on a single quarter (never did it without losing a round, though).  An older kid once threatened to kick ---my bottom--- if I didn't give him a quarter after he joined in while I was playing a game and I beat him in two perfect rounds that lasted about ten seconds each.  I told him I wasn't going to give him a quarter, but he didn't kick ---my bottom---.  He just mumbled ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- at me and left.  I ended up losing the quarter I was playing with, though.  Bastard. 

[Zero_Hour]

1. Astro Blaster
2. Scramble
3. Wizard of Wor
4. Star Hawk
5. Berzerk

Those were the ones I spent on when ubiquitous arcades were still a relatively new phenomenon. Honorable mention goes to the Dual Screen Cyberball that I played in college - probably spent a sizable percentage of what my tuition cost on that thing.

[javeryh]

1.  Ms. Pac-Man
2.  Donkey Kong
3.  Galaga
4.  Street Fighter 2
5.  Tetris
6.  Killer Instinct (it was in the college study hall!)

[wp34]

1. Asteroids
2. Stargate
3. Donkey Kong
4. Smash TV
5. Road Blasters

Living in a small town made getting to an arcade problematic.  Asteroids & Stargate were at the skating rink.  DK was at a local pizza parlor which was in walking distance.   I probably put more into Smash TV and Road Blasters than I care to know as they came out after I was old enough to drive myself to the arcade.

[LLUncoolJ]

1. Asteroids
2. Stargate
3. Donkey Kong
4. Smash TV
5. Road Blasters

Living in a small town made getting to an arcade problematic.  Asteroids & Stargate were at the skating rink.  DK was at a local pizza parlor which was in walking distance.   I probably put more into Smash TV and Road Blasters than I care to know as they came out after I was old enough to drive myself to the arcade.

Damn, I forgot about Smash TV...it is at least worthy of an honorable mention. Stargate was basically a 25 cent kick in the nuts for me.

[TOK]

1 Xevious
2 Moon Patrol
3 Congorilla (DK bootleg)
4 Robotron
5 Pleiads

When my best friend and I got really good at Xevious, we'd get 1/2 hour plus of play per turn. I started playing Moon Patrol and Pleiads because they were close to Xevious and hardly anyone played them. It gave me something to do while waiting for my buddy to get killed in Xevious. When one of us died in Xevious, we'd switch off to whatever the other guy was playing.

Ultimately, I ended up liking Moon Patrol more than Xevious, but it still has to be the game I've spent the most on.

[Namco]

As a kid I was attracted to quarter munchers and wasn't very good at games. Like I'd have a dollar and would play two 1-minute games of Dragon's Lair.

As a teenager I was better funded, but more skilled so although I played a smaller selection of games, I played them for longer and more often.

That said, here's my list as best I can make it:

1.) Street Fighter 2
2.) Double Dragon
3.) Samurai Shodown II
4.) Mortal Kombat
5.) Samurai Shodown

Honorable mention:
Elevator Action
Operation Wolf
Earthshaker
Pac-Man series
Tekken series
Donkey Kong 1 & 3
Dragon's Lair
Cyclone
Tron
Two Tigers
NBA Jam & NFL Blitz
Nam '75
Bubble Bobble
Dig Dug
Daytona USA

[Namco]

...Honorable mention goes to the Dual Screen Cyberball that I played in college - probably spent a sizable percentage of what my tuition cost on that thing.

Samurai Shodown was my college. If I had 5 minutes between classes I would go play it and show up 15 minutes late to class. After I dropped out and was working full time making minimum wage, Samurai Shodown II came out and I spent my time on that.

Here's to the 10 unit video game 

[drventure]

1) Targ
2) Spectar
3) Asteroids
4) Red Baron
5) Star Castle

Good times!

[Ummon]

Like some above, I didn't have much to spend on them. And I wasn't that good at any of them. Then there were circumstantial logistics. So there were really only two that got attention, for as long as they were there/I was going where they were:

- Xevious, at the Quick Fart on the way to school (junior high)

- Gyruss, at Chuck E. Cheeses.

- well, and I guess Sidearms:Hyperdyne, once we started going to Peter Piper's. I was way into Robotech and stuff at that time.

[LLUncoolJ]

If nothing else, this thread gives me some great ideas for games to play on MAME. Like a lot of you, I too was broke as a kid and had to search couch cushions and whatnot for my fix. The small town where I lived had an arcade for a while and at report card time, they would give you 2 credits for an A and one for a B. It actually made you look forward to report card time.

The other time I would be credit rich was when I went to my grandma's. There was an arcade a few blocks away that was supposed to open at 11am but the hungover college kid manning the place was always late. I'd get a couple of dollars from grandma and go up there and sit out front all pissed off waiting for it to open.

Once my grandma came to visit in Oklahoma and gave me $20 to go get my sister and me some candy. Like a crackhead, I stuck the whole thing into a Spy Hunter. I was gonna stop at $5, then $10.

And one more fireside story. I once lived down the street from a Peter Pipers Pizza. Me and a friend would go up there. They would give us like 4 tokens a piece for an hours worth of folding pizza boxes...talk about cheap labor! 4 quick games of Karate Champ or Track and Field and it was all over.

[shardian]

Hehe, I have a funny 'poor' arcade story. During summer, me and my best friend would ride the bus to the mall to hang out at the arcade. The bus ride set us both back a dollar round trip, which sucked. Once at the mall, we would rather spend our money in the arcade than on food and drinks. So we had a pattern of going to Long John Silver's ( fish place), and ordering a water and a tray of crumbs each. Cost  = $0. Woot!  For you rich folks, the crumbs at LJS are the batter flecks they strain off of the deep fryer grease. Occasionally we would get lucky and get a fry thrown in. Then we would go to Taco Bell and get another water and head down to the arcade for a bit. Not too long though, because we would venture back to Taco Bell to get a refill or two of our favorite pop. Woot again! One day my friend decided to try Arby's instead of Taco Bell, against my sage advice. He totally got busted when he went back for pop. I was looking thru the glass and laughing ---my bottom--- off at him while he got berated by the manager.

Then we went back to the arcade and spent whatever lawn mowing/chore money we had left. After the money was gone, we watched other people play, and checked coin slots.

Those were good times.

[YoGaBaR]

1-Simpsons (this could take up the top 3 spots I put so much money in it)
2-TMNT
3-Tron
4-Skee-ball
5-Joust

[danny_galaga]

space invaders
galaxians
1942

after that i lost interest in puter games for the longest time...

[Ummon]

Once my grandma came to visit in Oklahoma and gave me $20 to go get my sister and me some candy. Like a crackhead, I stuck the whole thing into a Spy Hunter. I was gonna stop at $5, then $10.

You WERE a ---smurfing--- joneser, man!

And one more fireside story. I once lived down the street from a Peter Pipers Pizza. Me and a friend would go up there. They would give us like 4 tokens a piece for an hours worth of folding pizza boxes...talk about cheap labor! 4 quick games of Karate Champ or Track and Field and it was all over.

That's actually not that bad, considering. About the same as when we folded ---smurfing--- newspapers, but a lot less work. Finally gave that deal up after a year and a half.

[Bones]

Dragons Lair

[RayB]

It's hard to nail down a top 5 I put most money into in total, but I can definitely remember some that I dumped lots of cash into during a single session...

1. Gauntlet
2. Super Cobra
3. Centipede
4. Juno First
5. Rolling Thunder
6. Shinobi
7. Strider

[RTSDaddy2]

I'm thinking I'm about to seriously date myself, but what the heck:

1) Asteroids
2) Space Invaders
3) Pac-Man
4) Donkey Kong
5) Berzerk & or Frenzy (whichever happened to be closest)

[pinballwizard79]

Stun Runner
Time Traveler (I tried to file bankruptcy at age 14 due to this machine)
Killer Instinct
Marvel vs capcom
San Fransisco Rush (the cop one, whatev it was called)

[Paul Olson]

Donkey Kong (Getting a return on my investment now that I own one  )
Galaxian
Super Sprint
Track and Field
Ms Pacman

Except for DK, there were other games I liked better, but I remember playing these a ton. Probably because I could play longer.

[Ummon]

Time Traveler (I tried to file bankruptcy at age 14 due to this machine)

Probably one of the few locations it might've stayed for a while.

Donkey Kong (Getting a return on my investment now that I own one  )

Hah, no doubt. Ditto, on many of them, for me.

[dgame]

1. Mat Mania: There was one in a laundromat near my house. We would literally walk miles to play games so this being so close got a lot of play.  Fun game and I didn’t know the collision trick/cheat back then so it was a thrill beating Coco Savage and the other harder fighters. Still a blast to play in MAME, and the collision trick/cheat makes it great for stress relief.

2-5. Gauntlet/TMNT/Simpsons/Final Fight: The kings of the quarter munchers.  These got more marathon play but the proximity to my home gives Mart Mania the revenue edge.

Honorable mention: Street Fighter 2, I played a lot and got pretty good at it so I didn’t have to put a lot of money into it for continues. One credit goes a long way.