I actually worked in an arcade 93-95
Another vote for Dragons Lair/Space Ace god those games sucked.
I’m pretty sure Discs of Tron was first. It certainly was in the arcades I frequented.
But…but…did you ever get inside the volcano?
Seriously, the two biggest rumors I heard (but weren’t true) about video games from the early 1980s were
(a) “There are patterns in Ms. Pac-Man like there are in Pac-Man,”
and (b) “In Battlezone, not only can you reach the volcano in the background, but you can get inside of it.”
I don’t remember the name of it. The only place I ever saw it was at the Malibu Castle arcade in Redondo Beach in the late 70s. It was a quick draw game with a light gun. About 5 feet behind a counter was a life-size screen where film footage of a wild west gunslinger would appear. When his eyes flashed, that was your signal to pull the gun out of the holster and shoot him. If you hit him before he shot at you, he would clutch his stomach (no matter where you aiming) and fall over. Otherwise he would shoot at the camera, then the words “You Lose” would appear on the screen. The holster had a sensor in it to make you lose if you drew too early. If you didn’t put the gun back in the holster correctly to make perfect contact with the sensor, you would lose every round without knowing why. I remember that one cost $1 in an era where most games were 25c.
Eventually I figured out you had to shove the gun hard back into the holster between rounds, but after my 5 duels were over, I decided it wasn’t worth wasting a whole extra dollar to play, especially when for an extra 50c I could play an entire round of mini-golf.
That sounds like the original version of Wild Gunman.
https://osgames.net/game/4116/wild-gunman/
(The pic in the link is the NES version obviously, but the site has a pic of the actual arcade stand from the 70s.)
Yes! That’s it! Although I don’t see the damned holster in the picture.
ChockFull - No, that wasn’t it. (Hey, I get a chance to use my pitiful excuse for “expertise” again! 
) It was Fast Draw Showdown, the last game ever released by American Laser Games. There was an icon on the bottom of the screen which clearly indicated whether or not the gun was properly holstered, and Wes Flowers (the host of the game and its ultimate, near-unbeatable foe) would remind you in a very annoyed tone of voice when the gun wasn’t where it should be; no rough treatment was necessary. In all, it had about as good a track record as the rest of the ALG catalog, but it was absolutely not for anyone with poor impulse control…I’ve seen more than a few games end FOULED/FOULED/FOULED without a single shot fired on either side.
Oh, my worst? I’ve played my share of overpriced, way too difficult, unlearnable, clunky, badly designed, or overly chancy arcade games, but I honestly can’t name any that have given me a great deal of lingering bitterness. Play it, don’t like it, move on; that’s the advantage of the arcade. I’ll go with two that have cause me actual physical pain, The Speed Rumbler, which gave me a damn blood pressure spike, and Mocap Boxing, which left the area above both of my knees sore for days. (I’ll forgive Pump It Up XX because I went into it with my eyes open.)
I once played a game called Piranha. It was essentially Pacman with fish, but without the walls. The ‘ghosts’ could thereby directly zoom in on you. Impossible to survive for more than ten seconds.
Can’t be. Wikipedia says Fast Draw Showdown was released in 1994. I played what was most likely Wild Gunman while my sister was still in high school - I remember her HS boyfriend getting pissed off at the game as well - and she graduated in 1979.
There used to be an arcade at Kennywood amusement park in the Pittsburgh area that contained a fire truck driving game. You controlled the cab, but another person could put their quarter in and control the back of the fire truck. I don’t remember what the game was called (Fire Truck? 
), but I never saw anyone get very far into it. Even with 2 steering wheels, the controls were awful.
Aye; Fire Truck by Atari. It was actually easier solo. Still a crappy game tho.
My local arcade in the early 00s (before it closed) had a 3D “Racing” game where you would sit in a racing seat (like Cruisn USA or San Francisco Rush) and you had the option of playing one of about 8 different emergency vehicles (Fire truck, police car, ambulance, I think even military tank) and you have to drive to the scene of a disaster in the nick of time, but the game was completely over the top where you would inadvertently literally destroy dozens of cars by ramming them off the road into buildings trying to get the the scene of a car accident. The controls were also very squirrelly and you would often just smash into the sides of the roads pretty often. I think the dumbest section was you piloting a rescue helicopter but the helicopter flew literally 5 feet off the ground over normal roadways meaning you were CONSTANTLY hitting semi-trucks and normal cars. I don’t think I ever beat a single mission due to the tight time limits and very bad controls.
I think Sega made a similar game later where you just played an Ambulance rushing to accidents but at least in that the controls were better.
There’s a game that I remember playing in the arcades, but I don’t know how to Google it to get more info. Here’s a synopsis:
There are four people in your party. They walk across the bottom of the screen, from left to right. You’re operating a trackball to shoot projectiles that are being thrown at them. The characters are one-hit kills. There are rocks that fall, animals that try to attack you, enemies shooting and hurling projectiles. If at least one of your characters makes it to the right side of the screen, you advance to the next stage. You uncover more companions as you go.
There were two like this, but I’m sure they were related. One had a medieval theme to it, and one had an Old West setting.
Anyone remember those?
Yes!
That’s the game, all right. But I distinctly remember it having a trackball, like Centipede. Wonder if that was done by the arcade’s owner as a repair.
The Old West one, made by the same company, was 1984’s Cheyenne; it featured a single wandering cowboy named Buster Badshot which had the player had to protect from endless threats.
I don’t recall any trackball game which meets your description, so I’m pretty sure what you played was some kind of cabinet/hardware conversion. These weren’t uncommon in arcade games, especially in the early days.
The local Round Table when I grew up in the 80s had a Cheyenne machine. I’ve been trying to figure out what the name was forever. Thank you, Munch!
I didn’t remember the name, but I definitely remember playing it and watching the older kids play it. I think it was at the bowling alley - I don’t think the grocery store had it. But wherever it was, mine still had the crossbow still attached.
Is it just me, or does it seem like Don Bluth was obsessed with people being strangled or crushed to death by tentacles or snake-type-things?