LoC 90: Top 50 Arcade Games Countdown

[CJones]

Remember the days when people actually left their house to play games with other people? I sure do. It was noisy and crowded and you had to carry around actual physical money. Just so you could put that money into a game that was designed to get you off of the game as quickly as possible so someone else could give it their money. Those were the days. Unlimited continues!?  How about zero continues  Unless of course you want to spend more money, and in many cases not even then.

And if you did really well, you could get your name immortalized on the high score list (sort of like a leaderboard minus the cheating). And by name I mean three letters, and by immortalized I mean, until someone unplugs the machine.

So here, I have compiled a list of the top 50 favorite, most successful, most influential or otherwise most evocative of the words "Arcade Game", as decided by 10 members of the Rifftrax forum. Because we're clearly qualified to do so.

While I get the first entry ready, Here's some Weird Al Yankovic:

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/941ssF8yIr8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/941ssF8yIr8</a>

[Pak-Man]

...Just so you could put that money into a game that was designed to get you off of the game as quickly as possible so someone else could give it their money. Those were the days. Unlimited continues!?  How about zero continues  Unless of course you want to spend more money, and in many cases not even then....

Ahhh Arcade games. Proud hosts of the first microtransactions. :^)

[CJones]

#50 – Tempest (Tie)

  23 Points, 1 List, Top Vote: Stethacantus #3

Production Date: 1981
Manufacturer: Atari

Originally intended to act as a 3D version of Space Invaders, Tempest involves a "ship" known as the "Blaster" which can jump between a number of tracks, all of which are converging on a single point in the distance. Enemy ships travel outward along the tracks, occasionally jumping tracks. If they reach your position, you can use your "Superzapper", which will clear the screen once per stage (pressing it a second time destroys one random ship). After each wave, the playfield warps forward and takes on a new configuration (out of 16 possible). Instead of a joystick, the game used a rotary wheel, similar to the paddle wheels from Pong.

The game was code named "Vortex" while being designed, due to the circular, or semi circular nature of the playfield converging towards the center. Tempest was the first Atari vector graphics game capable of drawing in more than one color. Which was a big deal at the time. This was also the first game to feature a stage select. Both of these features would later be put to good used in Atari's Star Wars.

A case could be made that Gyruss (a game I'm much better at than this) took its inspiration from Tempest.

Fun fact: If you manage to end up with a score whose digits happen to meet certain conditions, you will win a free game, seemingly for no reason.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/AMto2HJJSSA" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/AMto2HJJSSA</a>

Next up: A game you may not have realized was ever an arcade game
 

[soguru]

We have far more than just a few hundred members on the forum. I'm sure it's probably somewhere in the thousands, right? I just wonder why we always get so few submissions.

[CJones]

#50 – Vs Super Mario Bros. (Tie)

23 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #13 TeamRAD

Production Date: 1986
Manufacturer: Nintendo

Yes, there was an arcade version of SMB. It's usually referred to as Vs Super Mario Bros. It's nearly, but not 100%, identical to the NES version. Besides a different title screen, the Vs version is slightly harder. The Vs System is essentially an arcade version of an NES, except instead of cartridges, the operator would install ROM chips on a standardized arcade board. The "Vs" name comes from the fact that the standard Vs cabinet held two games that could be played simultaneously.



These things are ridiculously large and heavy, things arcade operators were not fans of. So Nintendo also produced single and dual-cocktail variants.

Fun fact: Ever wonder why there's an NES game called "The Goonies 2" when there was no "The Goonies 1"? Well, there was a Goonies 1, on the Vs System. For some reason no NES version was ever released in the US or Europe.

Next up, a game I have never seen.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

#51 – Vs Super Mario Bros. (Tie)

23 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #13 TeamRAD

This was a thing?! WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS WHEN I WAS 5 YEARS OLD AND COULDN'T SPEND MONEY OR EVEN LEAVE THE HOUSE ON MY OWN?!?!??!?!!

[ScottotD]

Putting the date in there prominently is cool

[CJones]

#50 – Super Dodge Ball (Tie)

23 Points,  1 List, Top Vote: #3 Hung william

Production Date: 1987
Manufacturer: Technos

So yeah, it's dodge ball. Nothing special there. Right?

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/gFb8GaCoEyQ" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/gFb8GaCoEyQ</a>

However, you might be thinking "These characters look awfully familiar". That's probably because you've played River City Ransom. See, this game is a spin off of the Japanese game "Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun", which we know in the US as "Renegade". And River City Ransom is a sequel to Renegade. In Japan, there's a whole slew of games that take place in this same universe, centering on a guy named Kunio who goes to Nekketsu High School. These connections were lost in localization. So we're just left with multiple games with characters that look inexplicably similar, but who are ostensibly different people.

Fun fact: The localization didn't just make them different people. Countries, ethnicities, characters' skin tones were all drastically altered outside of Japan. The teams of Nekketsu HS and Hanazono HS were changed to Dallas and Chicago respectively, and in the original Japanese, the final team was the US National team.

Another fun fact: Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (aka Renegade) predates Double Dragon, making it the oldest side scrolling beat-em-up with both jumping and 4 directional movement.

Next up: A game I've seen a LOT of... 

[CJones]

#50 – Sunset Riders (Tie)

23 Points,  3 Lists, Top Vote: #14 Johnny Unusual

Production Date:1991
Manufacturer: Konami

It's Contra crossed with Rolling Thunder, and set in the American Wild West.

Actually, this was a pretty darn good game. I should have had it on my own list, considering how much I played it. The full size version had four player co-op, a la TMNT (granted, Steve and Billy are effectively identical). Really great music, great gameplay, hilarious voice acting, the least realistically portrayed stampede ever, and quite possibly the most borderline offensive stereotypes ever jammed into one game. Mexicans, Indians, Women, a British guy, whatever the hell Paco Loco is, all portrayed pretty much exactly as you'd imagine, being a Japanese made game.

Unsurprisingly, the home versions had some changes. In particular, all Indians (Native Americans if you prefer) were removed, except Chief Scalp 'em (who is inexplicably renamed Chief Wigwam, 'cause somehow that's less offensive? I guess?). It's worth noting though that even in the arcade original, when you're about to kill Chief Scalp 'em, his sister runs out and pleads "Please, don't shoot my brother. He's only following orders." Well, I can agree not to shoot him any more. Can't do much about the 100s of bullets he's already taken. But he is the only enemy in the game you can't kill. Also, **** that stage, that was almost always where I got killed. Arrows are way harder to avoid than bullets.

Fun fact: Billy refuses to watch the dancing girls in the Saloon. Which is awkward, since when they tell you about Sir Richard Rose, he's standing way over in the corner. Also, there's a dead guy hanging over the railing, and the dancers seem totally okay with that.

Another fun fact: If someone is playing as Cormano when you beat El Greco, Cormano will catch his hat and put it on, replacing his own. Because naturally all Mexicans wear palette swapped Sombreros.

Here's a full, 4 player playthrough. Fair warning though, these guys suck at this game.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/eYiu-SUVmac" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/eYiu-SUVmac</a>

Up next, a six way tie for 47th...

 

[CJones]

...Which will have to wait until tomorrow. That took way longer than I expected. I'll start earlier tomorrow.

[CJones]

We have far more than just a few hundred members on the forum. I'm sure it's probably somewhere in the thousands, right? I just wonder why we always get so few submissions.

You should take a look at the complete Members list. For every page of names, there's maybe one person who's posts number beyond the single digits. Heck, the vast majority are sitting at zero posts.

[Johnny Unusual]

Sunset Riders was a tremendously fun game.

"Bury me with my money!"

[ScottotD]

Sunset Riders was on my list, one of my first tastes of my favorite 'genre' violence and comedy

[Darth Geek]

We have far more than just a few hundred members on the forum. I'm sure it's probably somewhere in the thousands, right? I just wonder why we always get so few submissions.

You should take a look at the complete Members list. For every page of names, there's maybe one person who's posts number beyond the single digits. Heck, the vast majority are sitting at zero posts.

Yeah, we are down to a relatively few regularly active members.

[Hung william]

Me and my buddy smoked some MARIJUANA in the parking lot of a bowling alley back in the 80s.  We went in to play video games.  I had a religious experience with Super Dodge Ball.  Every single match against the computer was an epic nail-biter.  The last match was freaking impossible but with insane luke skywalker-like intuition and supernatural focus I squeaked out a win with a desperate gamble at the last second and beat the game.  Ninjas dropped from the sky singing congratulations.  Best 25 cents I ever spent.