Your Favorite Arcade Game(s)

Anybody here that has made it out to the arcade as a kid surly has some games that stuck with you that you would not mind revisiting.

I just got done building my own arcade controls today and was playing some of the games I used to play at the local bowling alley as a kid. Was great fun and its nice not to pay a quarter every time you lose

So I want to know what other games I never played that maybe I should look into.

My games I used to play the most

> Street Fighter Alpha 3
> Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
> Killer Instinct

Since those were the 3 games we had in the little arcade.

Games I like that I never got to really play in the arcade but have on consoles

> Marvel vs Capcom 2 (MVC2 on Dreamcast)
> Killer Instinct 2 (KI Gold for N64)

Classic Games I like

> Bubble Bobble
> Bust-a-Move
> Various Flying Shooting games (19XX, DoDon Pachi, Etc)

So what can you add to the list that I should check out?

Edit: For those interested here is the before & after of my computer desk --> Arcade conversion:

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Cool Thread

PACMAN, Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon, Killer Instinct (Super Nintendo), Tetris, Kirby, and for sure bubble bobble!

 

My faves that caused me to skip a lot of classes in Junior High:

Joust
Gladiators
Major Havoc
Xevious
Tempest

 

king of the fighters series. samurai shodown(samurai spirits).

 

DONKEY KONG!

Im trying to be the King of Kong..

 

The game I sunk my retirement fund on is Point Blank

 

raiden x
teenage mutant ninja turtles: turtles in time

 

Metal Slug series
Aero Fighters 2
Wind Jammers
Altered Beast
Tech Romancer
Virtual On

 

I had that on playstation with 2 guncons thats a good one, but I would have to invest in LCD lightguns to enjoy that now, and they are rare. Topgun II is the only good one I know of and they are $50 each + expensive shiping.

I liked Area 51, That ninja zombie game, and a few other shooters too so I will get atleast one gun down the road. I'll experiment with my wiimote first


I forgot 2 other games I used to play a lot. At Chuckie Cheese instead of rides and ticket games like most kids I would spend all my tokens on the simpsons game or x-men.

 

Oh yeah, since you're into scrolling shooters, alongside Aero Fighters 2, check out Blazing Stars, Macross Plus, R-Type and Gradius II/III.

 

oh and house of the dead. good thing it's now on the pc.

 

My friend had Macross import on his Saturn it was great. Was not Plus it was based on Macross remember me love. Great game, both gameplay wise and how it had the anime integrated into the game itself. I dont think it was an arcade game though.

 

Oh and by the way great job on the rig, I'm a little jealous!
Wish I had the time but it's more of me not having the skill to build my own.
And I will second the Samurai Showdown series!

 

It's not the same one, if we're thinking of the same game. I believe the PSX/Saturn version was a 3D shooter by the name Macross VFX. The arcade was a vertical scrolling shooter, pretty much void of any special cutscenes.

Oh yeah, Raiden Fighters 2000 is another good one.

 

off road
hard drivin'
rampage
street fighter II
street fighter alpha II
tekken
marvel vs capcom
double dragon
wipeout
tmnt
mortal kombat
x-men
adams family pinball
jurassic park pinball

I think that's most of the games I wasted the most money on.

 

It was not too hard, atleast how it is right now. Once I hack my dreamcast controllers and solder those to DB25 connections and splice the controls then things start getting difficult. I have a 4 way DB25 switch and each system will have an adapter so that with a flip of the switch the controls are good for more than one system.

For now it will just be PC and Dreamcast. Down the road I may expand it to further systems. Since I only have 2 systems in mind I hooked it up directly to the PC with a keyboard encoder as there was no reason to go through the trouble of the toggle system untill the dreamcast adapters are done.

I admit the goal was to have arcade controls and save money/space. A prebuild stick like x-arcade is like $150 and I was able to find official Happ arcade parts to build the same controller for like $50, but it ended up costing about the same after I bought tools and things. But thats mostly because I expanded it to be modular, if I had stayed with the original plan and only got the parts & drill bit it wold have been less than $80

 

Jumpman!!!

 

Stargate Defender
Defender
Gorf

 

i like most of the flying / diving shooting games. the more outrageous the weapon pickups, the better.

favorites: r-type, in the hunt, striker / 19xx, raiden, etc.

 

Definitely check out Dodon Pachi then! Its the best so far I really like it.

Well I should say it does not have the moust outrageous weapon pickups, its only just 3 ships and each ship has 1 weapon that can power up, but I have never seen a game were the enemy and yourself have so much firepower. Its a "bullet hell" game where you really have to have some skill to slide between millions of shots to survive. After you get the hang of it your just amazed at some of the dodges you make it through.

 

Music Simulation:
- Beatmania series (5-key and 7-key) .... aka. Hiphopmania (North America)
- Drummania & Guitar Freaks series
- Dance Dance Revolution / Dancing Stage series

Fighting Games:
- Capcom VS series (XvS, MSFvC, MvC, MvC2, SNKvC, CvS, CvS2)
- Street Fighter series (II, II Turbo, Super II Turbo, Alpha/Zero series, III, IV)
- King of Fighter series
- Killer Instinct series
- Mortal Kombat series
- Darkstalker series
- Guilty Gear series
- Tekken series
- DOA series
- Soul Blade / Calibur series
- Arcana Heart series
- Capcom 3D games (SF EX, Rival Schools, etc.)
- Neo Geo / SNK fighting games (like Samurai Shodown/Spirits)

Flying/Airplane shooters:
- Aero Fighter / Sonic Wings series
- 19xx / Strikers series
- RAIDEN series

Light Gun shooters:
- House of the Dead series
- Vampire Night
- Time Crisis series
- Point Blank series
- Silent Scope series

Shoot Em Up shooters & Co-Op games:
- Metal Slug series
- Sengoku series
- Dungeons & Dragon series
- Power Stone series
- X-Men: Arcade game
- The Simpsons game

Puzzle games:
- Tetris (about twenty years playing this one)
- Columns series
- Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move series
- Magical Drop series
- Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo

I think theres more... but I cannot remember at the moment.

... wow. I played a lot of games over the years.

I did spend almost every day at the arcade after school during middle school & high school years.

P.S. the games I listed are not just listed because I played them a few times, they are all games I feel proficient at.... I would like to play with anyone with the games listed.

 

So you were one of the rich kids that had a never ending supply of quarters that made my life suck as a weekend warrior with like $5 max lol

I had this one kid John who's dad went league bowling like 5x a week and every week when I went there he was there without fail with his never ending supply of quarters. Always bashing my face in.

I beat him many times in all the games but he definitely had a 2/3 game advantage atleast. But it was fun having a good challenge, better than fighting a button masher (esp if they win!) but sucked when I ran out of money so fast.

I have had times where I lasted nearly an hour on one credit though in UMK3 but everybody started to call me cheap or a cheater due to my tactics.

 

Actually no.

I was quite poor.

I hung out at the arcade and watched others* play.... to learn.

Then I would use some tokens/quarters to test what I learned.

I think on weekdays, I didnt use more than $1 per day.

And on weekends, I get 35-40 tokens for $5.

a single token can last me at least one to two hours.... especially when its a fighting game with challengers.

i remember when we were beta testing the first US Marvel VS Capcom 2 machine near me.... one quarter gave me a 64 winning streak (lasted for hours).... even gave me a limited edition MvC2 pin from Capcom..

* when I say "others", I mean the top ranking fighter game players of Southern California (and of Shoryuken.com).... getting beaten by them made me more confident when fighting others. You gotta lose to learn something. To be the best, you gotta play with the best.

 

DDR was my big thing for my teen years. I met half my circle of friends from that game. Great exercise. But man it makes me feel so out of shape if I try now. Easy/Normal songs are too easy but a Hard song is just a bit too hard if I play a game now.

I manage to play like 1 time per year lol. Like me and the wife will go to the movies and I spot a DDR machine and I am like "ooo I gotta play" I cant stand that beatmania series that is out now with the 5 arrows placed in the exact opposite off DDR.

It was hard for me to play DDR at first since I moved like a mechanical zombie all stiff legged and un-coordinated. After I got the hang of it it was a lot of fun. The bowling alley down the road from my house happened to have 2 good machines and it was $.50 for 3 games. All the other machines I ever ran into costed more or gave you less games per play. Problem is the game got wore out pretty fast and I do not think they ever fixed it. To many people stomping the living out of the dance pad.

 

DDR was big since the arcade I went to usually got the first US machines ... usually for beta testing.

We played it, I sucked.... but continued to work on beats and movement... which led me into the love of music simulation games.

I was actually in one of the first international DDR tourneys... met so many from all over the world... that showed up at a renowned little arcade in Orange County, CA.

 

pac-man !!!!!!yea

galiga

 

@ Gophin - Thanks for Sonic Wings! That was one of the games I was looking for. I did not realize the squeal had a different name.

Soul Edge & Soul Caliber were the brunt of my playstation/playstation 2 games I played that and Tekken 1,2,3. I never played Tekken in the Arcade but did some Soul Caliber & Soul Blade.

Those are2 games that I liked on the console better than the arcade. They did a great job with that story mode that let you unlock new weapons. I wish they had cool stuff like that with more games.

I never got into Tekken 4 or higher, or Mk4 or higher, and After Soul Caliber I never touched it. Just been out of the scene for too long to see and play the new games I guess.

Speaking of arcade fighting games, one that was not at the bowling alley but I had to play when I went to the big mall arcade was the one with the dinosaurs in it. Anybody remember that game? I just remembered its called Primal Rage.

 

Pacman and Tetris

 

ah... I remembered playing Primal Rage... it was fun for the first day... then got old.

 

I guess something about fighting dinosaurs got me that and it was gory more so than MK.

But then that also reminds me of a great classic I am surprised nobody mentioned yet. Rampage!

That will be a good one to do with the kids since you dont need much more than to mash on the buttons to look like your playing

 

We can play online against each other.

kaillera style.

 

what game? only games I have that are online are Mario Kart Wii & Super Smash Bros Meele.

Certain versions of Mame have an online plugin but I have never used it.

edit: oh yeah thats the plugin Kaillera, does it work well? I'll have to look into it.

I was surprised to see how incredibly bad I was at Street Fighter Alpha 3 the other day. I used to be really good at that and had trouble with the first guy. I guess it plays too different than MVC2 wich is what I would be more used too.

 

I remember that game, i liked it a lot.

The other arcade games i have played and liked were:
Killer Instinct, it was my favorite but now i suck at it.
The Simpson's Arcade Game, i dont know exactly what its called
and the X-Men game that was like the Simpson's game
thats all i can think of right now

 

the Kaillera plugin works fine, as long as you have decent bandwidth and playing on a good server.

as for MvC2.... I played it for a long time until people just exploited bugs.
.... before then it was fun to figure out combos and such, I actually made one of the first FAQs for the game.

Alpha 3/Zero 3 is one of my all-time favorites... still play it against friends.

 

Yep both the simpsons & xmen games were at our chuckie cheese, I used to play them when I was taken there as a kid for birthday parties. xmen is one of the few if not only games that was up to 6 players, though that version of it was rare.

A newer game like those in a way that was 3d and a lot of fun was Die Hard Arcade. I think it was only 2 players though.

Killer Instinct was a lot of fun, KI2 was really hard to get used too as it was way different but after picking up on the differences I like it better in that it has more depth.

@ Gophin I will check out Kaillera and PM you when I have it going. So its server based? Thats good I figured it would be old school manual IP address stuff. So you can actually find people playing games on there? Thats great, but those playing are probably all vets that play often and I wonder if people hack/cheat since it seems like it would be easy to do.

PM me any links for versions of it I should look for or tutorials on how to use it if you do not mind. It will be a lot of fun to get schooled by you sometime if our schedules manage to sync up and we can play.

 

there is no real tutorials needed.

but here is a good F.A.Q.:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=103943

just start the Kaillera in your emu and join a server that has a good ping to you, then either you start a game with someone already hosting or start one yourself and wait for others to join.

 

I'll check it out. I have a good ISP but I have to find the best Mame with Kaillera as the normal current releases do not have it.

 

most people use MAME 32k .64

for Capcom 2D fighters, I like using Final Burn Alpha

 

does online play work well with fighters? i think any mount of lag would ruin the game.

 

I like the Time Crisis series and Ghost Squad. There not 'oldies' so to speak but I thought I'd mention them

 

DONKEY KONG ALL THE WAY!!!

fattail95

 

Boogerman, Road Rage

 

thanks for the tip, v. yep. played that one.

here are some more of my favorites: mr heli / battlechopper, slapfight (freaking hard), galaxian.

 

Wow Vicious that's an impressive setup. Too many wires for me to comprehend!

I never got into fighting or light-gun games, but I always enjoyed the coop beat-em-ups like TMNT, X-Men, and Simpsons. And of course racing - Daytona.

 

Galaga
Mat Mania
Double Dragon

 

My favorites:

Slapfight (Alcon) (powerups almost as addictive as Raiden)
Black Tiger (could finish it without losing a guy)
Bionic Commando
Speed Rumbler
Cabal

Gauntlet ('Wizard needs food...badly')
Cyberball

I picked up a 4-player Midway Vegas cabinet with NBA Showtime/NFL Blitz at a local arcade auction for $400...one of the four optical joysticks was broken ($20 eBay fix), and they didn't have the dip switches right for the monitor, so it flickered...wasn't a bad price for a beautiful 20-something inch monitor, working CPU and hard drive, and three working optical joysticks in a nice wood cabinet with a lighted marquee (I did do some sanding and repainting and wired up my own speakers just under the marquee...soon, I'll probably have to replace the transformer in the power supply)...I've even contemplated purchasing a Gauntlet Legends or Dark Legacy board from eBay and swapping boards (but not artwork)...

I still hit the auction about twice a year hoping to find a four player, two monitor Cyberball cabinet...even though my wife would probably leave me, that game just might be worth it...(she didn't appreciate all the profanity associated with disassembling the first cabinet to get it upstairs to the bonus room...and the Cyberball cabinet would be twice the headache...)

 

I'll have to check out Slapfight..

Raiden I want to say is one of the ones I did not like but I cant say for sure, one of the really old old standard ones is what I have in mind.

I am running an excel list but its on my other computer, when my list is complete I will post it.

@ I WantMyMTV yeah as long as thats a JAMMA cabinet you can change out PCB's pretty easy for a new game, also look into something like the J-PAC to easily convert it over to a MAME machine without destroying or modifying any of the original wires.

Depending how far you want to take it, you could make it modular so that you can just change over between games easy.

Update: I just got my DB25 fingerboard today, it looks like the perfect size to easily swap it out with the I-PAC VE, so soon as I get all the rest of the parts I will start trying to hack those dreamcast controllers and convert my setup into a modular one.

I need to find a VGA and Power cable for the Sega Dreamcast though. It took me half a day to find the system, and I do not even know if I have the games I want yet (found the cases but wont be at all surprised to see they are not in there)

I have some good xbox games too like the guilty gear series so debating adding the xbox to the setup too, but at this point I do not even have anywhere to place the xbox and nothing to hack to connect it to the arcade control panel.

 

Anybody mention Sinistar yet? thats a good classic

 

Need more recommendations

Here are some of the ones that I really liked that I never played before:

The Street Fighter "Strike" Series (2nd/3rd Strike) (fighter)

Blazing Star (horz scroll shooter)

Darius Gaiden (horz scroll shooter)

Armored Warriors (cool mech beat em up think metal slug)

Sengoku 3 (beat em up)

Arabian Fight (uniqe beat em up)

Aqua Rush (really really cool tetris like game)

A few more I found that are cool too but on my list on my laptop, im on the desktop now. Lots of the scroller shooters I did not know about but so many of them I lost track of what name goes to what game.

 

It's a JAMMA+ cabinet...I keep the back panel off the cabinet so it's fairly easy access to swap out the boards...and I did love the original Gauntlet and Gauntlet 2...never played the Atari/Midway 3dfx sequels...I chose a sports cabinet because those are different every time...I think the Gauntlet games would get 'tired' after enemy locations and numbers were memorized...

My out-of-state friend bought an arcade cabinet at an auction and converted it to a mame cabinet...I might do the same...right now, I just mess around with mame on the laptop, but there's something about a commercial-grade setup like you have...the arcade experience is much better with a joystick and big buttons than the cursor keys with Left CTRL...