The greatest arcade game of all time, tell your story.

[CMoon]

Another vote for the original strider arcade game.

Even the psx port which should have been perfect, wasn't quite. I really did enjoy Strider 2 (the one by capcom), but it still wasn't the same experience.

[Randorama]

I am half tempted to post the article I wrote for Insomnia (yes, Insomnia) on my Black Tiger experience. It was a fairly long article and, besides, I somehow feel guilty about posting it here, as it is something I promised to Icy (laugh to your heart's content, gentlemen).

To cut a long story short, though, A remember a mythical period, when I was 9 or so and freshly adopted, that I spent my Sunday afternoons with my father, playing games such as Black Tiger, Thundercade, and tons of other classics of the time in my uncle's arcade. I recall that I had to play Darius, on its dedicated cab, by staying on a stool as I was too short! I also recall Double Dragon's third stage song echoing in my mind, when I walked back home from the arcade. It perfectly suited the dark, medieval alleys of my hometown.

Ave atque vale, old arcade.




Besides: can you guys avoid degenerating this thread to a "my port suxx, yours roxx lol" thread? Thank you.

[GaijinPunch]

Mine was something similar to system11's, but in the prototype stage of what is now current day America, that meant playing games at Chuck E. Cheese... which now speaks volumes about the American diet.

Some of my best arcade memories though are from the water park I went to almost daily every summer up until about high school. We used to line quarters up to play Super Mario, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Punch Out, Contra... you name it. I guess the one I loved the most was Rastan though... namely b/c if I was down to a measly quarter, that one would last me about 20-30 minutes.

[Acid King]

it was just leagues above and beyond Street Fighter in my mind..

Don't ever read this thread or you'll be seriously disappointed.

Ha. Yeah, I saw that. So many uselessly mashed buttons...

Regardless, good game but certainly not leagues above Street Fighter by any stretch of the imagination.

Fuck Street Fighter.

[Skykid]

Fuck Street Fighter.

I know, it's frustrating when you can't play it and everyone beats your ego into the ground. Practice, said the monk!

[Acid King]

I know, it's frustrating when you can't play it and everyone beats your ego into the ground. Practice, said the monk!

Yeah, that must be it. I always preferred the more colorful cast and slower play style more. The only iteration of Street Fighter I really liked was Alpha 2. I know, right? God forbid preferences.

[Skykid]

I know, it's frustrating when you can't play it and everyone beats your ego into the ground. Practice, said the monk!

Yeah, that must be it. I always preferred the more colorful cast and slower play style more. The only iteration of Street Fighter I really liked was Alpha 2. I know, right? God forbid preferences.

Zero 2 is absolutely amazing, and the best of that particular trilogy. Good choice!

[dan76]

Amidar - 1981
Star Wars - 198*
Discs of Tron - 198*
Dragons Lair - 1984
Paperboy - 198*
Outrun - 1986
Gauntlet - 1986 and my favourite of all time.

Those were the crowd pullers.


These were favourites as well. But mostly I liked them because they were loud, jingly and represented everything about the 80's.


Rygar - On loud speakers was phenomenal.
Wonderboy
Shinobi - Again, the music the atmosphere, and for a year a crowd puller
Bubble Bobble - For some reason a lot of people play this, for YEARS! With the cheat on of course.
Track and Field/

All great games, and I can't really argue against the original Star Wars either.

Being an old fart and growing up at a seaside resort I was lucky enough to play these games as they were released. That's something that will never return, arcades getting new games, one after another.

Something else that's lost is cab art. Some of those cabs were better than the actual game. One that hasn't been mentioned yet is 720. That cab and music were amazing. Could never play it, didn't really like it but the whole thing was a work art. Had a mate who was brilliant at it, good game to watch.

This is also something that pinball machines excelled at. Haunted House is an amazing machine. I used to go home and try and draw it... Haven't managed it yet.

Here are a few honerable mentions.

Mikie
Green Beret
I,Robot
Tempest
The Empire Strikes Back - I remember liking this more than Star Wars for some reason.
Space Harrier - this was at the local pool where we had school swimming lessons. We would bunk off and hang out in the cafe. They also had...
Temple of Doom - "we walk from here".
House of the Dead 1 - 4


All time favourite game for me is Mr. Do! The scoring and gameplay is so deep considering it was released in 1982. Way better than other single screen games of the era - Pacman, Dig Dug, Ladybug etc. Casino John also agrees with me on this so it must be true

[Raytrace]

Yeah, that must be it. I always preferred the more colorful cast and slower play style more. The only iteration of Street Fighter I really liked was Alpha 2. I know, right? God forbid preferences.

While I do like all Street Fighter - that is definitely my favourite version too - I don't know why, I just like the speed and feel of it.

[cools]

I'm going to agree with Pang. Daytona. Linked 8 player deluxe installation.

[yojo!]

I still remember the day and time I first saw SlapFight In 1986. This game absolutely blew me away. It's the main reason I have cabs and collect PCBs today.

[Ko.oS]

as a kid, most of my time in the arcades was spent staring at the attract sequence or watchin other ppl play..
that said, the three games i didn't feel too guilty spending my poor parents hard earned money on were

- double dragon (coop with a buddy)
- raiden II (toothpaste weapon and debris all over the place)
- daytona USA (altho i kinda sucked at it)

good times. funny thing, i havent touched any iteration of double dragon since 1990, i didnt even remember that opening gut punch mentioned in that other thread...

[GaijinPunch]

I think everyone thought Double Dragon was the best thing since sliced bread when it came out. At least in my neighborhood. Sucked when everyone spammed the elbow, but hey -- it was dope. They even start the game by punching a girl in the gut and showing you about 3 pixels of her knickers.

[Raytrace]

I have to say my secondmost fondly remembered arcade game is Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja - I'm not going to even attempt to say it's anywhere near the greatest arcade game of all time though :p

[Pallerå]

The beatmania IIDX series of rhythm games. Nostalgia has no place in my heart when they make the game better every year (however the latest version might live longer due to songs being added to the game via online patches).
"A real-time dance music game hard and extreme, That's beat mania II DX!! It's too cool!" as the series introduces itself in the label of the turntable controller.
The descendant of the series that started the whole rhythn game genre, and the whole time it's been the best one. Also arguably offers the most challenge, it still isnt like Legendary hard like musha ultra where you can count the clearers of the game on a single A4 page. UNLESS YOU COUNT ONE PARTICULAR HOME VERSION EXCLUSIVE CHART, then yeah it's a whole new story.
The current arcade version has around 700+ songs spanning over 4000 charts of Single Play and Double Play (where you take on all the 14 buttons and turntables yourself) Normal, Hyper and Another difficulties.
You use your 7 buttons and a turntable according to the notes you see on the screen to keep your health meter happy (there's four kinds to choose from, Normal and Easy where your health bar must be filled with at least 80 percent at the end of the song to clear it and Hard and Exhard where your health bar starts with 100% in it but if it hits the bottom, you fail and the song stops).
Notice how the turntables are on the different sides of the table? Thats what splits the community hard. Most western players play on the left side, where in japan the opposite seems to be true. It was only this year the Konami arcade championship was won by a left side player the first time. Needless to say of you and your friend poay both at the same side, you aren't gonna battle realtime.

I'd say IIDX has the most features in an arcade game this far, even letting you compensate with your own preferred timing if you are used to hitting the notes a tad before or after the supposed 1 frame windows for the perfect judgment. Also you can set exactly how fast the notes fall, and how long distance they travel (for example, i play with relatively slowly falling notes but their travel distance is only like 15cm so that i can focua my eyes on one place and still see every note). Did i mention the game keeps your high scores on a network service, and you see your friends' performance on a song, note by note, before, during (neat system where there's a counter showing the score difference between you in resl time) and after the song.
The unlock mechanism is usually fun, you reach the extra stage with a specific conditions and you get to play songs not playable elseway, or you succeed in many different aspects of the game and unlock songs to Extra stage folder where, if you unlock them all and clear them all, you may take on the games "TLB", One More Extra Stage song. THIS is the current versions TLB song. It's usually so that the OMES song gets only harder every game, but there's few exceptions, namely in 17 and the second omes song in the latest game. Given how the latest game has three dofferent unlock folders and the third one is just starting in japan, thre might actually be ONE MORE One More Extra Stage.

Also what's interesting is how rhythm games have dedicated arcade cabinets, unlike classic arcade games, where there's a row of seemingly identical cabinets but with different games inside. Take a look at this pile of lights and speakers.

this was the longest post i'll ever write on a phone.

[GaijinPunch]

I have to say my secondmost fondly remembered arcade game is Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja - I'm not going to even attempt to say it's anywhere near the greatest arcade game of all time though :p

I remember geting the low-down on that one from a friend at church...

The possibilities of questionably tasteless jokes there are limitless.

[CStarFlare]

THIS is the current versions TLB song.

Man, I hated scratch songs.

I guess DDR has to be it for me. IIDX is a grand thing, but it's impossible to find in midwest arcades. DDR was my gateway drug to imports and playing for score (and my involvement with the scene got me into E3). I didn't stick with it as long as I stuck with IIDX, but without DDR I might be an MMORPG gamer instead of whatever I am now.

[xbl0x180]

If I were to count hours spent at an arcade machine, then it'd be Galaga and Gyruss. Are they the greatest arcade games of all time? HELLNO! Still, I can't shake them off. I love those two little games ever since I first played arcades

[cj iwakura]

The beatmania IIDX series of rhythm games. Nostalgia has no place in my heart when they make the game better every year (however the latest version might live longer due to songs being added to the game via online patches).
"A real-time dance music game hard and extreme, That's beat mania II DX!! It's too cool!" as the series introduces itself in the label of the turntable controller.
The descendant of the series that started the whole rhythn game genre, and the whole time it's been the best one. Also arguably offers the most challenge, it still isnt like Legendary hard like musha ultra where you can count the clearers of the game on a single A4 page. UNLESS YOU COUNT ONE PARTICULAR HOME VERSION EXCLUSIVE CHART, then yeah it's a whole new story.
The current arcade version has around 700+ songs spanning over 4000 charts of Single Play and Double Play (where you take on all the 14 buttons and turntables yourself) Normal, Hyper and Another difficulties.
You use your 7 buttons and a turntable according to the notes you see on the screen to keep your health meter happy (there's four kinds to choose from, Normal and Easy where your health bar must be filled with at least 80 percent at the end of the song to clear it and Hard and Exhard where your health bar starts with 100% in it but if it hits the bottom, you fail and the song stops).
Notice how the turntables are on the different sides of the table? Thats what splits the community hard. Most western players play on the left side, where in japan the opposite seems to be true. It was only this year the Konami arcade championship was won by a left side player the first time. Needless to say of you and your friend poay both at the same side, you aren't gonna battle realtime.

I'd say IIDX has the most features in an arcade game this far, even letting you compensate with your own preferred timing if you are used to hitting the notes a tad before or after the supposed 1 frame windows for the perfect judgment. Also you can set exactly how fast the notes fall, and how long distance they travel (for example, i play with relatively slowly falling notes but their travel distance is only like 15cm so that i can focua my eyes on one place and still see every note). Did i mention the game keeps your high scores on a network service, and you see your friends' performance on a song, note by note, before, during (neat system where there's a counter showing the score difference between you in resl time) and after the song.
The unlock mechanism is usually fun, you reach the extra stage with a specific conditions and you get to play songs not playable elseway, or you succeed in many different aspects of the game and unlock songs to Extra stage folder where, if you unlock them all and clear them all, you may take on the games "TLB", One More Extra Stage song. THIS is the current versions TLB song. It's usually so that the OMES song gets only harder every game, but there's few exceptions, namely in 17 and the second omes song in the latest game. Given how the latest game has three dofferent unlock folders and the third one is just starting in japan, thre might actually be ONE MORE One More Extra Stage.

Also what's interesting is how rhythm games have dedicated arcade cabinets, unlike classic arcade games, where there's a row of seemingly identical cabinets but with different games inside. Take a look at this pile of lights and speakers.

this was the longest post i'll ever write on a phone.

It might not be my favorite, but I will say playing on a IIDX cabinet was a religious experience. Easily the prettiest cabinet I've ever seen.

[PlanetHarriers]

Growing up in a UK seaside town, arcades have always been part of my life.

I think my most fondly remembered arcade game is Chase HQ. I remember my nan and grandad taking me to the sea front, and having a go in the black Porshe sit down version. It must have made quite an impression as its one of my earliest momories.

Close seconds would be:

Street Fighter II
Final Fight
Daytona USA

[neorichieb1971]

Quite surprised no Neo geo games have turned up. The fighters especially. Damn, nearly everytime I went into an arcade a group of people would be surrounding KOF machines.

[Hagane]

Back when there were arcades around here, I would skip school to play Real Bout 1 in a big arcade close to a train station. It's still one of my favorite Neo Geo games; brutal, fast paced and the ring outs make for strategic and tense matches. Awesome visuals and sound, too. It must have been the first fighter I played at an arcade.

[gabe]

Quite surprised no Neo geo games have turned up. The fighters especially.

I had that thought too, but then I realized that the Neo Geo fighters from my childhood all blend together. For me, the Neo Geo brand was stronger than that of any individual MVS title. In my circle of friends, a big red cabinet in an arcade meant that we would gawk at the graphics, and then feed quarters into a random fighting game that was not Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.

[Acid King]

Quite surprised no Neo geo games have turned up. The fighters especially.

Viewpoint by Sammy for SNK's Neo-Geo.

I'm going to have to go with Samurai Shodown.

[MinuteFong]

We had Tron and Kung Fu Master in the local newsagents: Tron had the cool glowing cab, and the mysterious Quickshot joystick and spinner. Plus it had 4 minigames, so you couldn't be bad at all of them (at least for the first loop). Kung Fu Master appeared to be set in a Turkish restaurant. The thrill of taking out 3 'waiters' with a jump kick has yet to be surpassed by any Tekken/SF special move.

[Ruldra]

The greatest arcade game of all time? I'm gonna go with Shadow over Mystara.

Being a big D&D fanboy, I was truly amazed when I saw this game in the arcades. The perfect blend of an arcade beat-em-up and D&D was like a dream come true. I'd often just stand there and watch the attract sequence over and over again. The fact that the game is very long and challenging is the icing on the cake.

I was never able to get far in it (never got past the 2nd boss), so I'm pretty hyped about seeing this on PSN. In fact, if I could clear this one, I could quit arcade gaming for good and never look back. Since I've essentially beaten the best arcade game ever.

[CloudyMusic]

I've spent more than my fair share on various music game machines, but I wouldn't really put them in the same category as my childhood arcade memories, since they're a more recent invention.

I don't have much particular attachment to a single arcade game from my youth -- I liked just about all of them, to some extent -- but I do remember putting quite a lot of tokens into a lot of the old side-scrolling action games like Golden Axe, Final Fight, Magic Sword, Tower of Doom, TMNT, etc. Something about lining up on one of those wide cabinets to play multiplayer with friends was a lot of fun.

[Pallerå]

I wouldn't really put them in the same category as my childhood arcade memories, since they're a more recent invention

I'm glad i didn't play games as a kid, so that i can now appreciate all of them for what they are and not for nostalgia value.
(this wasn't a post against you, notice how i said the same thing at the start of the huge post)

[Ed Oscuro]

Quite surprised no Neo geo games have turned up.

Aha! You're onto something.

You know, for me, arcade games were basically "you can look but you can't play." (Besides I put all my money into baseball cards back then, lol) But the Samurai Shodown intro certainly made an impression, perhaps more of an impression than it would have made on others because I couldn't do much else with it!

I wouldn't really put them in the same category as my childhood arcade memories, since they're a more recent invention

I'm glad i didn't play games as a kid, so that i can now appreciate all of them for what they are and not for nostalgia value.

I wouldn't say I'm glad but it's just a fact of life here.

I still couldn't choose a "best" arcade game though.

[Mortificator]

Living in the US, I rarely saw Neo-Geo cabinets. I didn't get into its library until emulation.