16 replies to this topic

[SpoonZ]

Today is a sad day - My lovely, beautiful, 3D, HD, Samsung Flat panel telly box has decided to commit suicide less than 6 months after I bought it. Luckily the guys at the Cash Converters, where I picked it up NIB, have wavered their 90 day warranty and are going to take a look at it for me.

So while I'm without my beloved PS3 and XBOX I'm going to do some retro gaming - I've dusted off the arcade cabinet, lubed up the sticky sticks and unclogged the dodgy buttons. I'm now reliving my childhood memories of the dingy arcades I used to frequent during the '80s and early '90s

My go to games at the moment are, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Toki, Double Dragon and Kung Fu Master (Which I suck at). There's also a few other less well known games that I remember playing as a kid - P.O.W anyone?

The game I wasted most money on as a kid was probably Double Dragon, although I can now 1CC it using the old elbow smash trick.

One of the more obscure games I remember playing in our local arcade was Pocket Gals - A strip pool game! It played really well too, with decent ball physics, a special trick shot level every so often and pixelated norgs to boot!

So what I want to know from all you P1Pers is:-

What was your favourite game from the golden age of arcades? And is there an obscure game you remember playing that most people may have forgotten about or never even heard of?

[KnightAttack]

Everything about the early 90s arcade in my local mall.

It was a mixture of late 80s and early 90s. Standing in awe at TMNTs, SF2, The Simpsons, X-Men, Mortal Kombat, Terminator, 1942, and some other various games I can't remember.....I loved every minute of it. Once, one of my hockey teams during a tournament played through the entire Simpsons Arcade on somewhere between $20 and $40. It's been so long I can't remember.


I miss the arcade.....There was something so pure about that time.



Also: Dude, sucks about your TV. Any idea what happened?

Edited by KnightAttack, 28 January 2012 - 10:45 PM.

[SpoonZ]

I loved the Simpsons and the TMNT games - Those 4 player cabinets were awesome - If only I had the room for one at home (and the money, I think the best I could manage would be one of these 1:12 Scale Simpsons Cabinet )

The Iron Man Stewart's Super Off Road Cab was huge too - That game was a huge credit sink, you could feed credits into it to "Soup Up" your truck before your first race if I remember right! (Was that an early type of the "Freemium" model?)

I also remember being blown away when I first saw the first Mortal Kombat in the arcade. The board in my arcade machine has MK3 on it, but I'm either really bad at it, or it's set to reeeaaallllly hard

There's a great collection of peoples shoddy attempts to bring the arcade home. I found this site when i was considering building my own cabinet - CRAP MAME. Have a read if you're interested in Retro Arcades, It very funny!

Finally - My TV just clicks and tries to turn on but never manages it - A common problem with Samsung TV's. Apparently the cheap capacitors they use start to bulge, usually just as the TV gets out of warranty - It's a quick, easy fix and I could probably repair it myself - But why bother if you can get someone else to do it for you

[InvaderREN]

I always remember a game called Captain Silver. You were a pirate (I think) and it was a side scrolling hack n slash. You fought your way through a village to a pirate ship. And I usually died around there...

[Boblious]

My 4yr old Samsung plasma, did exactly the same thing last week. I opened it up and the caps were all fine, so its a good excuse to start looking for a full HD, 3D set.

Not sure what the golden years of arcade games is, maybe from 1978 onwards? As a kid I remember seeing space invaders and thinking how amazing it was, and was probably the point in time when I decided that computer programming was what I wanted to do.

The games I remember from the old days were games like, Naughty Boy, Sea Wolf, LadyBug, Galaga, Zaxxon, Scramble, Time Pilot and one of my all time favorites Moon Patrol. The country town I grew up in didn't have arcades, so there was a very limited selection.

However looking back, my favourite games of all time would be the top down shooters like 1943, Xevious and Sky Soldiers.

I built (wired really, only needs 3 diodes) a parallel port to MegaDrive controller interface, and use my PowerStick 2's for MAME, so I'm sure mine would fit nicely in the crap mame category.

Good times.

[St0ph]

I remember a restaurant near me had a TMNT arcade machine and somehow we figured out that lifting up on a corner of the screen would give us extra lives. I'm not sure how or why but it was pretty great. Looking back I hope we didn't fuck that machine up too badly.

[mik]

The first arcade game I ever played:

http://segaretro.org/Sea_Devil

It was at the local amusement park, and I ignored the roller coasters all day in favor of hunting manta rays. It used a projector to cast the images on the screen (no pixels to be found on this thing) and the gun had this really great force feedback when you scored a hit.

[levitynyc]

Other than the other early 90s classics, I loved WWF wrestlefest.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Spoonz, what cabinet do you have? Myself I've got a Neo-Geo MVS 2 slot with three games: Puzzle Bobble, Metal Slug 3 and Aero Fighters 2. I've been thinking of converting it into a mame cabinet, but that just seems wrong. Emulation isn't the same.

[SpoonZ]

Wow, I remember my local arcade having a Sea Devil machine, it was right at the back of the acrcade in the darkest, dirtiest corner. The corner with the sticky carpets (I swear that all arcades had one) It was almost always broken, but now and again it would magically spring to life, for an hour or two before it broke again

@Satoshi_Matrix I agree that emulation isn't the same, but unfortunately living in Western Australia, original boards are hard to come by and lots of the early games we got here are bootlegs anyway!

I've got two cabinets, a two player cocktail cabinet that runs all the old vertical screen games like Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pacman and Space invaders etc. It's similar to this one http://is.gd/cocktailcab The build quality of this cabinet is brilliant, really well put together very sturdy and has some great features like the electronic coinbox you can program to take different denomination coins.

My standup, well sitdown, cabinet is a plastic chinese import running a JAMMA 1072 in 1 board. A bit like this one http://is.gd/arcadecab It's nowhere near as well made as the cocktail cabinet but it's fine for home use. It can only take a single denomination of coin and some of the "newer" 3D games like Battle Arena Toshinden run a bit slow - but it plays a mean game of SF3 Alpha so that's all that matters to me

I have both machines set to Pay-as-you-play and I've handed the coinbox keys over to Mrs SpoonZ. I've been pumping loose change from down the sofa into both of them for a couple of years now, so I reckon by the end of February I'll be able to empty them out and have a nice chunk of change ready to spend on the PS VIta. (Fingers Crossed)

[DistantStorm]

My first memories of an arcade game would probably be when I was like five or six, and going along w/ my mother to the laundromat, where they had an old Robotron cabinet. Usually I'd get like 50 cents, which never seemed to last long.

Summer of 5th grade was all about the TMNT machine. Jesus, the fortune me and my friends must of poured into that thing. And of course, SFII in mid '91, and the flood of fighters that followed. It was always a big deal when one of the local corner stores got a new fighting game in. Man, those were the days.

Side scrolling shooters were my other favorite; not quite as widely known titles like Irem's In The Hunt, or Silkworm, or the awesome Aliens arcade game. A few other more obscure favorites were this side scrolling action game Tiger Road, and the 3D racer Stunrunners, which had a kind of Super Hang On motorcycle chassis type setup that you rode on. Very cool game.

There are so many good ones, though: Bust A Move, Roadblasters, oh, Samurai Showdown II, one of my all time favorites..., Spy Hunter, X-Men, Gauntlet, Ninja Gaiden, Narc... Good times.

[levitynyc]

Storm, do you remember Mama Rosas pizza on 15th ave that always had 3 good arcade machines?

What about MoreFun by Cesar's bay?

[SpoonZ]

The only way to play spy hunter was on the cabinet with the yoke type wheel and the gas pedal.

I remember going on holiday when I was about 10 or 11 and putting more cash in that than the huge and shiny super hang-on (I was too small to sit on that huge plastic bike) and space harrier ( I got a tenth of the playtime for twice the price).

If I had a really good game of spy hunter I would just make it to the boat level. The use of the Peter Gunn theme was inspired.

I think I've played most of the console ports and none of them have lived up to the original... If I could own one dedicated retro game cabinet it would have to be either spy hunter or paperboy. (it would be a tough choice).

[DistantStorm]

Storm, do you remember Mama Rosas pizza on 15th ave that always had 3 good arcade machines?

What about MoreFun by Cesar's bay?

Hmm, don't think I've ever been to Mama Rosas, but then I didn't usually get past 13th ave very often.

More Fun, on the other hand, I have MANY fond memories of; summer vacation bike rides w/ a couple buddies along the shore road promenade down to Caesar's Bay. Cruising the games aisle at the Toys R Us before heading over to the arcade... Such great memories.

The arcade in the S.I. Mall was pretty great too; Time Out, I think it was called. Damn, I miss those grimy old school arcades.

[nasero]

I take 2-3 trips to Funspot each summer as its a hour from my house but I've always been a fan of classic arcade games.

Altered Beast, Double Dragon, TMNT, Ghost`n`Goblins, OutRun, Hydro Thunder, Street Fighter, Galaga etc goes without saying.

But one I always seem to spend the most time out and usually try to keep the top score during Funspots Classic Arcade Tournament is Juno First. Love the hell out of that game.

Edited by nasero, 31 January 2012 - 12:58 AM.

[Phineas Gage]

But one I always seem to spend the most time out and usually try to keep the top score during Funspots Classic Arcade Tournament is Juno First. Love the hell out of that game.

Hell yes. I thought I was the only person who remembered that game. I haven't played it in many, many years, but what stands out in my memory is the sound being amazing. The aural feedback you got from shootin doods was very satisfying - something akin to Defender, another favourite.

[Jindofox]

There was a place near us called Space Port that had all the good stuff. We liked Space War, Super Pac-Man, Donkey Kong (and its bootlegs), RoadBlasters, and Track & Field best in those days. It was always fun to see home conversions fail to live up the real thing in the arcade, and it blew my mind when home versions (SF Rush, Soul Calibur) started to outshine the arcade editions.

It was a mixture of late 80s and early 90s. Standing in awe at TMNTs, SF2, The Simpsons, X-Men, Mortal Kombat, Terminator, 1942, and some other various games I can't remember.....I loved every minute of it. Once, one of my hockey teams during a tournament played through the entire Simpsons Arcade on somewhere between $20 and $40. It's been so long I can't remember.

This period is when some of the magic died for me. The vast majority was "run to the right and mash the attack button" style games, and the NES could do that well enough at home.

It is a CRIME that there is no legitimate console or portable conversion of Atari's "I, Robot" for sale.

It is a HUGE WASTE that no one has made a nice iPhone version of Atari's "Star Wars" vector game. Including the arcade trilogy on a GameCube disc was genius.