That actually reminded me of another game that I’d seen (but hadn’t thought about in years) that was a quarter muncher: Time Traveler, the only holographic video game I’ve ever seen. It had the same mechanics as a Dragon’s Lair or Space Ace, but instead of being laserdisc-based, it projected the image into the middle of a dome. A tough one for sure, and I’ll hate that laughing skeleton bastard until the day I die!!
There was a fighting game with the same tech. It was a big parabolic mirror in the bowl.
Although I spent a lot of money on pinball before video games came into their own, I usually managed to avoid the real quarter-eaters. I preferred meatier games like Defender (yes, one of the toughest games of that era to master, but I did so quickly so it was money well spent), Missle Command, Robotron, Galaga, and Centipede.
I agree with Priceguy that Rampage was a real quarter-eater. It’s impossible to stay alive for long, but it was so addictive.
I never played Gauntlet, and I could see the quarter-eating potential of Dragon’s Lair a mile away so I never, ever played it.
I played Asteroids a lot, but was never very good at it, so you could say it was a quarter-eater. Likewise Joust. Very fun game, but I only ever killed a pterodactyl by accident.
For a month in the summer of '83 I was in a situation where the only video game available was Super Zaxxon, so it ate an awful lot of my quarters. Then you go back and kick ass at regular Zaxxon.
Ooh, I remember Zaxxon. The 7-11 near my house had it, so I’d go there after school if I had some money. I even made the player’s spaceship out of Lego.
I remember first encountering this game. What stands out about it to me now, though, is that it was the first arcade game I can remember that cost $1 per play, and at the time I boggled that anyone would ever spend that much on a single game.
Flash forward to today, when I do so without much thought. I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve put into DDR and DrumMania machines over the past few years ($1 for 3 songs, or about 6 minutes). Also, measuring by just cost per playing time, the recent gun games like Time Crisis 3 and House of the Dead 3 ($1 for 3-5 lives) probably rank among the top quarter-munchers.
The default setting on the Japanese import machines seems to be a single 100 yen coin. Makes me wish they accepted dollar coins so I wouldn’t have to put up with $5 in quarters weighing me down whenever I visit the arcade. Not to mention how extravagant it looks when I play doubles and have to insert eight coins for a single game.
The BFG was in both. Dark Legacy was a sort of expansion to Legends: It had all the same characters and areas, but four more of each.
The arcade in the Student Union used to have Legends, and there were always one or two folks at it. Every couple weeks after class, I’d play for about five dollars worth, and beat Skorn once at level 60-something (after perhaps $30 total). And then they “upgraded” to Dark Legacy, and broke the stranglehold they’d had on all the people with saved characters. Since then (3 or 4 years ago), I’ve seen someone playing that game about twice.
I remember it, too. I remember how much I sucked at it as well.
For me, it was any of the gun games like Operation:Wolf, Terminator 2, even that awful Aerosmith game Revolution X which cost me twice as much because it was one of the few arcade games my ex-wife wanted to play.
What system do you have it for? Control seems fine to me on the Gamecube.
Did you know that there was a “Gate of Doom 2?” Ah, thank goodness for MAME…
You should visitDragon’s Lair Project for an assload of information on just about every laserdisc game ever made.
Magic sword.
I think I’ve pumped about $100 worth of quarters into Mortal Kombat 4 (Version 3) at the arcade. I got so good at that game. When I came back from the military, though, it was gone. I was sad. 
Adam
Lady Eboshi: Great link. I knew Gallagher had a laserdisc shooting arcade game, but I couldn’t find any references for it.
Donkey Kong
Zaxxon
Shinobi
As a youth, I’ve spent over $500 on those damned games…
and I loved every minute of it!
I’m still trying to get a DK machine for my fun room… damn you eBay squatters!
That’s one hell of a cool site. Thanks.
There were a number of games, like Spider-Man, Golden Axe, Rush 'n Attack, Breakthru, Heavy Barrel, etc. that I found absolutely addictive, but I wouldn’t classify as “token eaters” since I could get pretty far on one credit. The first kinda expensive game for me was probably Shinobi. It looked so simple, but just ONE tiny little mistake, and I was starting the whole level over. Some really tricky parts, too. I could easly go through 8 tokens in one morning, and I actually had to restrain myself to not shell out more.
Then there was Crime Fighters. Don’t know how much money I shelled out for that going through the first two or three levels. Finally, I decided to get somewhere. I shovelled all the remaining tokens I had in my pocket…17, IIRC…inside. Got to the last level before losing. (Pretty cool blowoff screen with the main baddie, so it wasn’t a total loss.) The next week, I made certain of success…I cashed in $5, 25 tokens, and put it ALL in. Damn those were a tense couple of weeks. 
Then there were the American racers, California Speed and Crusin’ USA/World/Exotica. Utterly merciless. That’s not even including the one time I did a full season on CART Fury, which definitely was not worth it in retrospect. Oh yeah, you can also add Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat.
And then there was Pump It Up. Talk about a game that changed my life. And the crazy thing is, I didn’t had no interest in arcade dance games whatsoever, it’s just that everyone played the same damn 5 or 6 songs ad nauseum, and I wanted to hear the rest. Seriously, that’s it. Several hundred dollars later, I’m jamming away with the PS2 port (which also did not come cheap).
Finally, the other racers, Initial D (all three times) and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune. $15 a week minimum. Incredibly fun, incredibly fast, unbelievably addictive.
If I had to pick a #1, it’d be Pump It Up, with WGMT a close second.
There was another game I played a lot that was similar to the D&D arcade games, in which you had to fight your way all the way to the top of an evil wizard’s tower. One of the early swords you could find was a falchion, which I always thought was cool sounding. It was pretty hard though; I never got more than a few floors up, and there were quite a lot of floors.
Magic Sword 
Yeah OK, the name didn’t ring a bell when you said it earlier.