Anyway, what games were your favorite, for those who did or do play arcade games?
I very rarely played them (lived in a rural area, and was only a place with an arcade a few times a year). I died quickly. They faded from my consciousness sometime in early-to-mid-90s.
But I was reading about Space Invaders (well, I started with British computer companies in the 1960s and 1970s, then drifted into video games first in Britain and then in general, and there was Space Invaders), and the massive popularity made me start thinking about arcades in particular.
Now someone who was 10 when Space Invaders came out will have different opinions than someone who was 10 when Street Fighter II came out, of course, but I’d love to hear from both.
Battlezone was my #1 without a doubt. I had a system that I thought was unbeatable yet somehow I always eventually screwed it up.
Xevious was probably my #2. Following those closely was the original Star Wars vector game, the Exidy ripoff of X-Wing and TIE fighter combat, a vector game called Tailgunner, and an Asteroids-like game I can’t remember that was two player co-op.
Battlezone did have a periscope like view, but it was peephole to a standard display. People standing to the side could see around the periscope thing to watch.
You didn’t get a 3-D image, but you looked thorough a visor, yes.
For me, either Tempest or Robotron 2084. Years later, on my PC, I got really good at Punchout and Hat Trick using MAME, but back in the day, it would have been one of those two.
There’s a place near me that, for $11/half hour, you can play all the classic games you want and it has practically all the ones I remember. And, it has a ton of pinball games, too.
I got into a bit of a fracas in the high school locker room after gym class and was sent home early. Dad was at work and Mom hadn’t driven since they were newlyweds so one of my sisters picked me up; we didn’t go straight home, though. Sis had some errands to run in town first and dropped me at an arcade, where I ran up some insanely high score on Battlezone. Likely due to still being keyed up on adrenaline from what happened in the locker room.
Galaga was one I played quite a lot when I was at college - there was a little corner shop over the road with a machine in it and most of my lunch break was spent there.
Later, Star Wars (the sit-down cabinet) was probably my all time favourite, perhaps because it was the only game where I actually got a decent amount of play for the coins.
Anyone remember Spy Hunter. A very early one, it used the Peter Gunn theme. You offloaded from a trunk, drove through a city. Had options like oil slick. etc. But mainly it used the Peter Gunn theme and was very early.
Tempest for the sound, vector graphics, speed was an early favorite.
Really liked Smash TV when that came out. Reminded me of The Running Man movie.
Spent a lot of tokens on Black Tiger.
Same here. I was a champ at Galaga. A college classmate and I used to keep beating each other for the high score. Our styles were very different— he would meticulously work to get the most points he could per level, but by doing so you’re more vulnerable to losing lives. My strategy was just to keep blasting and stay alive as long as possible, so he was surprised at seeing me getting to levels he hadn’t seen yet, but I had to go further just to have a chance at all to beat his high score.
