# What's the Worst Arcade Game You've Ever Played? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [May 29, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646 "2020-05-29T05:33:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimble/32/19185_2.png) [@Kimble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/41 "2020-05-30T17:04:01Z")
Nth-ing Dragon’s Lair. Okay to watch, a waste of money to play. I liked Defender, but I was never any good at the arcade version. Getting a 5-digit score was an accomplishment for me. On the Atari 2600 version, though, I could play about as long as I wanted. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Old arcade cabinet called Vanguard. It was a 2D representation of 3D flying through a maze-like fortress, and I simply could not get the hang of how the joystick control mapped through 3D space. Crashed in 10 seconds every time. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of [Zaxxon](https://youtu.be/Ta0xVtQ_fnk), a game I couldn’t handle for the same reasons? [Vanguard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MwVWsHBm5g) was a side-scrolling (and occasionally diagonal-scrolling) shooter that I remembered for having 4-way shooting. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/43 "2020-05-30T18:12:09Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I heard once about a very strange arcade game, and I’m trying to remember the details. It was something like you’re trying to pick up a woman in a bar, and you have to strike a balance between being too forward and not forward enough. I’ve been doing a search for odd video games, but haven’t turned anything up yet. Hell, there may have only been one copy of it made. > > Does that ring a bell with anybody? It sounds like you may be thinking of Man Enough. AFAIK that was only ever released to the PC though. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/44 "2020-05-30T18:24:39Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > _Tron_. The cabinet design and the vector graphics were cool, but all of the minigames played clumsily and winning or losing always felt more like a matter of chance than anything else. Ugh, try the Atari 2600 version. I had it(called Tron Deadly Discs) and it was really bad, even for a 2600 game. > [@Asuka](#): > > All the Double Dragon games have aged way worse than I remember, they all play like they’re in slow motion. I believe the console ports for NES and Genesis actually play faster which is when I remember it being good. Yeah, but Double Dragon 3 looks worse and plays worse than its predecessors. I’m not sure what happened… ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/45 "2020-05-30T19:12:57Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Ugh, try the Atari 2600 version. I had it(called Tron Deadly Discs) and it was really bad, even for a 2600 game. You may be confusing _Tron_ with an earlier arcade game called _Discs of Tron_. _Tron_ consisted of four “zones,” each of which was a different game; for example, in one, you raced a lightcycle against the game (in higher levels, the game had more than one cycle) and tried to make the computer’s cycles crash. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/46 "2020-05-30T20:23:22Z")
The thing I hated about the arcade 4-zone version of Tron is that the angle of the shooting was too hard to align with the arm/gun graphic: it always seemed like you weren’t actually shooting at the angle you seemed to be aiming at and so the only way to make sure was to either remember or fire a tracer, which wasted a shot when you were on a tank level. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/47 "2020-05-31T01:30:28Z")
> [@Kelby](#): > > Ha-ha, Centipede, I was never much good at that game. > > Congrats on the competition. I never did that, but did get a small crowd to watch my play in the college rec area. I imagine some of them saw “loser” on the back of my head… > > Wiki says the top score obtained was 33 million and it took 38 hours to get there. > > I rarely played for more than an hour or so, but it only cost a quarter. After a while, the challenge was to get under a mill to get you name on the board, as I mentioned. I don’t think the machine I played allowed you to do that if you went over. It was like another trick built into the game system. Yes, I don’t think they ever imagined people would be clearing a million points. By the time they got around to Stargate, however, they built in that feature. But I was never very good at Stargate. Speaking of trying to delicately get an exact score, I still remember when someone told us the cheats for Tempest. By landing on precise scores, you could either get unlimited plays, or jump ahead a boatload of levels. Our local arcade owner figured that out in less than a month and shut it down, and in retrospect I certainly don’t blame him. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/48 "2020-05-31T02:41:50Z")
Managed to ace the following: Asteroids I. Once I quit with like 50 extra ships across the top, let some other guy play it out. Defender. Would typically be disappointed to not get to the million points score turnover point, where you would get a whole host of extra ships-which was good since for the next million points you would get diddly. Berserk. Often cleared 15000 points-for a few years the machine at Cedar Point (~15 years ago) kept my high score in memory. On Mame I once got to 35,000, then quickly lost 3 straight mazes. :mad: [Note I never used-or was aware of-the cycling cheat, where if you noticed a certain maze pattern you could play the same easy 4 boards over and over with no danger of dying by simply exiting N, W, S then E, thus going around in a circle] Battlezone. Myself and another good player during my first college would switch after say every 100,000 points so we’d be able to remain mentally fresh. 1-2 hours on one quarter. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/49 "2020-05-31T11:59:10Z")
> [@Kimble](#): > > Are you sure you aren’t thinking of [Zaxxon](https://youtu.be/Ta0xVtQ_fnk), a game I couldn’t handle for the same reasons? Yes, it was Zaxxon, that pseudo-3D bastard. I always died in like 4 seconds because my hand-eye coordination wouldn’t map the 2d representation of a 3d view. > [@](#): > > [Vanguard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MwVWsHBm5g) was a side-scrolling (and occasionally diagonal-scrolling) shooter that I remembered for having 4-way shooting. I also didn’t care for Vanguard, it was just like a mediocre version of Defender for me. But I bet everybody remembers that sweet-ass iconic commercial for the Atari Vanguard cartridge with the tagline [“Luther Destroys The Gond”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3DGkNE6Ax0). ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/50 "2020-05-31T13:56:28Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Managed to ace the following: > > Asteroids I. Once I quit with like 50 extra ships across the top, let some other guy play it out. > > Defender. Would typically be disappointed to not get to the million points score turnover point, where you would get a whole host of extra ships-which was good since for the next million points you would get diddly. > > Berserk. Often cleared 15000 points-for a few years the machine at Cedar Point (~15 years ago) kept my high score in memory. On Mame I once got to 35,000, then quickly lost 3 straight mazes. :mad: [Note I never used-or was aware of-the cycling cheat, where if you noticed a certain maze pattern you could play the same easy 4 boards over and over with no danger of dying by simply exiting N, W, S then E, thus going around in a circle] > > Battlezone. Myself and another good player during my first college would switch after say every 100,000 points so we’d be able to remain mentally fresh. 1-2 hours on one quarter. Boredom sets in… The original arcade “Pong” (or some clone). Two of us got so good at it that we would play “first goal wins” - it would usually take about an hour for one of us to score. We would then pass it on to two others - one of whom would run the score up to the limit of 11 fairly quickly. The original arcade “Breakout” - I stopped playing after I routinely cleared both “walls” on the first ball. “Super Breakout” was more challenging - you had a choice of three versions of the game. I mastered two of them, but not the third one (where the “wall” slowly descends). ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/51 "2020-05-31T21:15:11Z")
Even when it first came out **PONG** was boring as shit. When our parents bought me the home version for my birthday I didn’t even want to hook it up. There was a game that I am guessing came out in the late 70’s but damn if I can recall it’s name. It was all black and white like Asteroids. The joystick was really small and it felt like you were going to snap the sucker off. UFO’s would fly toward the screen and you had to line up a rudimentary crosshairs on them to shoot them. Even if you direct hit some of them several times they wouldn’t stop and you would lose a turn! :mad: It was almost impossible to get extended play and it didn’t even seem like you were playing. Almost like the outcome was completely pre-programmed and you were just pointlessly moving the stick and hitting the button like a chimp in a test lab. It was a total rip off. Anyone have any clue WTH game that was? The only place I ever saw it was in the vestibule of a SuperValu grocery store in southeastern Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/52 "2020-05-31T23:17:16Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Even when it first came out **PONG** was boring as shit. When our parents bought me the home version for my birthday I didn’t even want to hook it up. > > There was a game that I am guessing came out in the late 70’s but damn if I can recall it’s name. It was all black and white like Asteroids. The joystick was really small and it felt like you were going to snap the sucker off. UFO’s would fly toward the screen and you had to line up a rudimentary crosshairs on them to shoot them. Even if you direct hit some of them several times they wouldn’t stop and you would lose a turn! :mad: > > It was almost impossible to get extended play and it didn’t even seem like you were playing. Almost like the outcome was completely pre-programmed and you were just pointlessly moving the stick and hitting the button like a chimp in a test lab. It was a total rip off. > > Anyone have any clue WTH game that was? The only place I ever saw it was in the vestibule of a SuperValu grocery store in southeastern Wisconsin. It sounds a lot like [Starship 1](https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9782), an Atari game from the late 70s. That had an aircraft-style yoke instead of a joystick, though. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/53 "2020-06-01T04:12:02Z")
I was 12 years old in 1980, and my subsequent teen years were spent at the arcade during that “golden age” of games. I dabbled at many, and became really good at a few ( **Galaga** , **Gyruss** , **Wizard of Wor** , **Turbo** , **Asteroids Deluxe** , **Star Wars** , **Ms. Pac Man** , **Astro Blaster** , **Xevious** , \*\*Gorf \*\*off the top of my head). I do remember **Dragon’s Lair**. My cousin gave me a cheat sheet of “for this scene press this; for this scene, press that” but I never saw the attraction. _But I could never figure out **Tempest** _. I spoke the language of arcade games. I “got it” for most of them. But the few times I tried **Tempest** , I felt like I was trying to complete my English assignment using only Greek. I just could not understand that game at all. There was an arcade game I only saw in one location. It was called **Space Zap** , and the bowling alley at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station had one. Me and my little sister beat the hell out of that game. One of us would take over the laser cannons, and the other would man the fire button. If there was ever an award for “best performance on an arcade game by a 12-year-old boy and his 10-year old sister,” we would have crushed that award. Having said all that, my true love was pinball. If I ever hit the lotto, the first thing I’m going to do is fill a house with all the best (and even sucky, for nostalgia’s sake) pinball games I’ve played. For example, I \*still \*need to beat **Addams’ Family**. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/54 "2020-06-01T04:56:57Z")
This was my favorite game at the mall arcade. I probably couldn’t fit into the “cockpit” now. > **[Star Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fire)** > > Star Fire is a first-person arcade coin-operated space combat video game created by Technical Magic for Midway-Bally and licensed for manufacture > to Exidy in December 1978. It was distributed in Japan by Taito and Esco Trading in 1979. Designed by Caltech engineers Ted Michon, and David Rolfe and inspired by the movie Star Wars, the game is not based on a licensed property. > Star Fire was a major success for Exidy, and became the first arcade video game to use an enclosed sit-down cockpit cabinet... ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/55 "2020-06-01T09:28:13Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > You may be confusing _Tron_ with an earlier arcade game called _Discs of Tron_. _Tron_ consisted of four “zones,” each of which was a different game; for example, in one, you raced a lightcycle against the game (in higher levels, the game had more than one cycle) and tried to make the computer’s cycles crash. I enjoyed both of those. _Tron_ was more basic but had four different games, whereas _Discs of Tron_ was the one where you were standing inside a console surrounded by speakers but only played the disc game. Was _Discs of Tron_ earlier than _Tron_? I thought it was later - the graphics and play were certainly better. As we’ve digressed, my favorite game was **Heavy Barrel** , but as an eight-point shooter it was a recipe for carpal tunnel damage. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/56 "2020-06-01T12:33:20Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I enjoyed both of those. _Tron_ was more basic but had four different games, whereas _Discs of Tron_ was the one where you were standing inside a console surrounded by speakers but only played the disc game. Was _Discs of Tron_ earlier than _Tron_? I thought it was later - the graphics and play were certainly better. I recall encountering _Discs of Tron_ in the early '90s at a rather large arcade in San Diego called “Wonderland”. Their selling point was that the games ran on nickels instead of quarters, but there was an admission fee (less than $10, I think) and no loitering/spectatorship was allowed - you had to always be playing or in line to play a game (and for the big games of the day, like Mortal Kombat, there was _always_ a line.) One corner of the building was dedicated to older (and therefore presumably undesirable) games that were free to play, and Discs of Tron was one of them. I found it at the time to be much more entertaining than the original game. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/57 "2020-06-01T13:45:44Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I never much liked “Asteroids”, and my brother was very good at a proto-3D game called “Zaxxon” that I never could master. > > I used to live near this place, and tried my hand at those games once again, and didn’t much enjoy them this time either. Still loved me a good game of Centipede, and once again used the initials “YYZ” whenever I got a high store. > > [https://www.1984arcade.com/](https://www.1984arcade.com/) I never lasted more than a few seconds on Zaxxon. Frustrating as all heck ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/58 "2020-06-01T13:52:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Dragon’s Lair is the obvious choice here. It’s gonna win in a landslide. > > There was an arcade game called Journey. It was about the band Journey. I swear that’s true. It was not good. There was also an Atari 2600 Journey game. It was also not good. > **[Journey Escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_Escape)** > > Journey Escape is a video game developed and manufactured by Data Age in San Jose, California for the Atari 2600 console, and released in 1982. It stars the rock band Journey, one of the world's most popular acts at the time, and is based on their album Escape. > From the game's manual: > The player must lead the band members to their "Scarab Escape Vehicle" (as featured on the cover) and protect the concert cash from "love-crazed" groupies, sneaky photographers, stage barriers and "shifty-eyed" pr... ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/59 "2020-06-01T14:29:10Z")
I liked Journey Escape for some reason, probably because it was easy enough to play forever and not be super-stressful but hard enough that it doesn’t become instantaneously boring. Plus the Big Bosses looked silly. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/60 "2020-06-01T14:50:08Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > It sounds a lot like [Starship 1](https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9782), an Atari game from the late 70s. That had an aircraft-style yoke instead of a joystick, though. Yep, that’s it. I went online and searched some videos of its actual game play. I’m certain that is the one. I only saw one version of it. Perhaps the yoke had been broken and the repair service Rigged a little joy stick on instead. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646/61 "2020-06-03T01:04:47Z")
the most boring beat em up ever was capcoms marvel comics the punisher… Take everything annoying about a beat em up game and put them in a basket and a plot that didn’t make sense even for a marvel game …but worst of all it was cheap and boring … Funny thing is I decided I was going to beat it once and for all so I used MAME and free play mode and I beat it in about a half-hour … lol, my unicorn wins the lottery pinball game is the data east star wars game… I should start a go fund me so I can get the 6-8 k the collectors want for one … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-arcade-game-youve-ever-played/854646.md?page=4)