Wow, I had completely forgotten about this game. I loved this game! Scramble fills my head with warm, happy thoughts. 
Star Wars
and
Centipede
probably because they were the only two I got good enough at to make the top scores list. A very good and accurate version of Centipede is on the Atari Anniversary PC game. Since I have a trackball mouse, it’s very much like really playing. Star Wars I got for the C64, but it was dreadful - especially because they got the joy stick controls upside down, so you dived when you pushed the joystick up.
I rather liked Gorf too. And the very first game, Space War, which Bushnell put in the MIT student center (well before 1980.) My logic design class went on a field trip across Mass Ave to see it. 
YES! Thanks, Voyager, I had nearly forgotten about Space War. That game was so incredibly cool. Loved the way you could cripple an opponent by knocking out his engine nacelles one at a time and then sorta toy with him until killing him off.
Body Blow! Body Blow! Body Blow! Put 'em Away!
Sorry, in the 80’s, I was a pinball fanatic.
Black Knight, Enterprise and Centaur, forever, baby!
The Nineties killed real pinball.
Stargate (aka DefenderII), hands down. A tremendously complex game for those who mastered Defender. Pick up 4 humaoids and carry them thru the stargate and you warp ahead 4 levels and get several extra ships and smart bombs. And ya gotta love that inviso function, but when you go back to Defender you have to re-learn doing without it.
The trouble with most video games is that your movement is sluggish and limited. In Defender and Stargate, your ship is very fast, very maneuverable, and has very heavy firepower. It’s just that you’re beset with a cloud of small, fast, aggressive alien ships plas the task of saving/rescuing your humaoids. You have to develop specialized tactics to deal with each type of enemy ship as well as an overall tactial plan that is flexible enough to change with the circumstances. Truly a game for the manly geek.
Next favorites would be:
Missle Command
Robotron
Joust
Centipede
Galaga
Sinistar is my first choice. My grandparents were from Hawaii and I used to go visit them every couple of years. They would get their games about 6 months before Michigan so I could master them and then really impress people when they finally arrived at home.
Anyway, Sinistar HAD to be played in the sit down version. Having those speakers right by your ears, hearing it yell “Run Coward!” was awesome.
Other great games…
Gauntlet
Spy Hunter (could play an hour on one quarter)
Gyrus (first time I ever played I made it to Mars)
And a real obscure one…
Bosconian In this game, your spaceship didn’t move, space moved around you (kind of a outerspace version of Rally X)
I don’t think it was an ubiquitous game or one of the “greats”, but does anyone remember Atari’s Food Fight?
You are a kid with a big head, trying to run from one side of the screen to the other to eat an ice cream cone before it melts. Trying to stop you are a handful of chefs. A bunch of food (read: ammo) is piled around for you to fling at your discretion. (The watermelon was unlimited.) Try not to fall in holes. Have at it, kid. Do well, and you might even get an instant replay of your success.
I don’t think I laughed that hard while playing a video game until Mario Kart came along something like 12 years later.
Ohhhh, Gauntlet. Yeah, I saw that game. I never got to play it, because the only place where I saw it at, it was allways either being played, and surounded by other people waiting to play. It was very popular.
I knew exactly what you mean 
I meant “know” instead of “knew” :smack:
That sounds a lot like Rastan.
My top 3:
Elevator Action
Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts
Golden Axe
Oh, if we’re talking pinball…
-
High Speed – “Dispatch, this is 504 – he got away!”
-
Addams Family – Talk about cramming gimmicks onto a playfield…
-
Eight Ball Deluxe – “Stop talkin’ and start chalkin’.”
You will note, of course, that they’re all by Williams. No one else will do.
The only video game with a 48-way joystick! How could you forget it?
And for the Hard Drivin’ junkies out there, don’t forget the sequel, Race Drivin’, which gave you a choice of a speed track or a hellaciously complex stunt track. I only managed to finish the stunt track once, and only by barely doing the 360-degree-flip around the tanker in the tunnel.
The spiritual successor of the Drivin’ games were the San Francisco Rush series, which kicked major ass in every incarnation…
More votes for Joust and Defender Stargate.
Definitely Centipede. The bar we went to at the time had a tabletop game and we’d park ourselves there for the night and the bartender would bring us rolls of quarters and pitchers of Old Style non-stop.
Oh yeah … I remember that.
I saw lots of people do this. I did count swooshes, but I didn’t cover the screen with my hand.
Jenaroph—I was going to post that I was surprised no one had mentioned Food Fight, but you did mention it. Man, I loved that game! It didn’t last too long in my local arcade, unfortunately, but it was one of my favorites.
Someone else mentioned Crazy Climber, which transfixed me back in the seventh grade. A couple more obscure favorites are Mappy and Rock ‘n Rope. Mappy was innovative and bizarre, and I loved it. It used to be in the front lobby of the old Hill’s discount store in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. Come to think of it, that’s where the Rock ‘n Rope machine was, too. By chance, I ran across a Rock ‘n Rope machine in a trailer some time in the early 1990s at the Grange Fair in Centre County, Pennsylvania. Haven’t seen it since, though. Loved that game.
The first video game I was obsessed with was Pac-Man. I wasn’t interested in video games before, but that one just blew me away. I was also hooked on Donkey Kong and Xevious.
And who remembers Rampage? You know—the one where you’re a mad scientist who drinks a diabolical chemical compound that turns you into a giant ape, wolf or lizard? Then you run around tearing whole cities into rubble, smashing helicopters and eating National Guardsmen. It’s just beautiful, man.
Ahhh, yes…
I spent many a delinquint hour skipping class, smoking cigarettes and dropping quarters into the Eight Ball Deluxe machine in the game room of the 7-Eleven across the street from Bay Point Middle School in St. Petersburg Florida.
But actually, that was 1978… I think it was the original Eight Ball machine.
A gamer after my own heart.
My favorite of the Eugene Jarvis trifecta was Robotron, the most frenetic game of the period, and hands-down my favorite video game of all time.
#2 would have to be Battlezone, a game that I owned in the twelth grade (I set it up in my bedroom). I also had an Asteroids machine and a Gravitar machine.
#3 would be Joust, the greatest two-player experience of the Golden Age (other than Atari Football, that is. )
Honorable Mention: Donkey Kong Jr, Crazy Climber, Food Fight, Lady Bug, Gradius, Paperboy, Reactor (best soundtrack), Time Pilot, Vanguard, and Zaxxon.
Is everyone here familiar with the Ultracade? Many of the games mentioned here are among the 86 included with Ultracade machines.