LoC 90: Top 50 Arcade Games Countdown

[soguru]

Pak you and I have VERY differing tastes when it comes to a lot of things but especially video games. 

[Pak-Man]

Pak you and I have VERY differing tastes when it comes to a lot of things but especially video games. 

Oh, I dunno. I like all the games on your list. I just wouldn't put them all in my Top 25. (Kicking myself over Joust, though. Totally would have been Top 5.)

You have a lot of light gun games, which I enjoy but I don't like how quickly they munch up quarters (Or how many quarters they tend to cost to begin with).

Is it all the more ancient arcade games? The '80s were my golden age. Every birthday was at Chuck-E-Cheese or Showbiz Pizza, and I'd get huge rolls of tokens to blow. My more enterprising friends would hit the ticket-dispensers, my more athletic friends were all about the ball pit, but I was all about the arcade games. Some of the best moments of my childhood were spent giddily bouncing from one cabinet to another...

[CJones]

I was surprised Virtua Fighter 2 didn't make the list.

And Pak-Man, you sound just like me as a kid. 

Anyway, just a reminder, anyone who wants to run LoC #91, PM me your list ideas. I have 2 so far. I'd like to have 5 before starting the next poll.

[stethacantus]

It seems that no one else bothered to include any mechanical arcade games on their lists, aside from a few pinball games. Sad considering arcade games go back more than 150 years, and have only been dominated by video games for 40 years. I, however, remember the days when the only video game found in an arcade was Pong, and everything else had gears. Sure, you grew bored with most of those games ten seconds after you put the quarter in, but that was the arcade back then. The old time mechanical games on my list are denoted with ( MECH ). Also, I decided to only list arcade games I actually played myself in an arcade. In my lifetime, I played 32 different arcade games ( not counting arcade machines that were not actually games, like power testers, movie viewers, fortune tellers and puppet shows ). Towards the end of the 80s I stopped wasting money in arcades, so I could save up my money to waste on game cartridges. For that reason the bulk of the video games on my list are from the 80s. All games are ranked by how much I remembered enjoying them.

#1 Double Dragon
#2 Crazy Climber
#3 Tempest
#4 Vanguard
#5 Carnival
#6 Galaga
#7 Space Invaders ( 1st video game I ever played )
#8 Defender
#9 Phoenix
#10 Venture
#11 Whack-a-Mole ( MECH )
#12 Centipede
#13 Baby Pac Man
#14 Pac Man
#15 Popeye Pac Man ( a hacked video game with Popeye replacing Pac Man that was in the arcades for a while )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeQ0cmAvLHo
#16 Frogger
#17 Donkey Kong
#18 Chicken Tick-Tack-Toe ( MECH ) Although technically a computer game, it did have that live chicken that you were supposedly playing against.
#19 Playboy Pinball ( MECH ) The only arcade pinball game I ever played ( not counting Baby Pac Man. ) and only because it had those playboy bunnies on it. In retrospect, a really stupid reason to play a pinball game. But when you are a grade school kid, you think you are getting away with something by playing an adult game.
#20 Q*bert
#21 Shooting Gallery ( not sure of it's name ) ( MECH )
#22 Skee Ball ( MECH )
#23 Qix
#24 Claw Game ( MECH ) The one where you try to grab a prize, and end up with nothing but marbles.
#25 Dragon's Lair

The other 7 arcade games I had played were Dig Dug, Asteroids, and a mechanical Driving Game ( MECH ) that was similar to Tomy's Digital Derby, only with an actual toy car and a track that was drawn on a paper roll. And bottoming out as my least favorite arcade games were Popeye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hErObuqvlHs
The mechanical game Space Pilot ( MECH ) which only did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go46gr44Wf4
Sea Devil ( MECH )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB5ETE433wA
And a proto baseball themed pinball game ( MECH ) they had at a museum. This was back when pinball games actually had pins, but did not yet have much of anything else. There was only one flipper, shaped like a baseball bat, and the ball either went through a hole at the top, or landed permanently on a base for the rest of the game. And there was no electronic score counter. The score was printed next to one of the bases you landed on, and you had to add the score up yourself.

Very surprised Dance Dance Revolution made no one's list

[CJones]

Yeah, I was surprised no one but you voted for Skee-Ball, the Claw game or Whack-a-Mole. Those are arcade staples. At least we got a few pinball games in.

[soguru]

Is it all the more ancient arcade games? The '80s were my golden age. Every birthday was at Chuck-E-Cheese or Showbiz Pizza, and I'd get huge rolls of tokens to blow. My more enterprising friends would hit the ticket-dispensers, my more athletic friends were all about the ball pit, but I was all about the arcade games. Some of the best moments of my childhood were spent giddily bouncing from one cabinet to another...

No, I still enjoy those, it's just that I think generally speaking, the crossing of generations from sometime around the mid 80's to late 90's really showcased the very best of what you could get in the arcades. I know, Tron came out in 81, so that's an exception for me. There will always be a place in my heart for Galaga, Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Road Blasters, etc. Then of course you have The Star Wars Trilogy arcade game, which is like an indulgence you always wanted so bad but was never technically possible until the late 90's.