Your Most Memorable Arcade Machine?

[MartyB]

Mine has to be this one:

http://www.gameverdict.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212

IMO the greatest arcade machine ever created. Yes, we had later versions, but none had the impact of the first one.

I spent hours stood in dark, noisey arcades playing that one.

[Rocket Surgeon]

Most memorable! Sheesh!

Virtua Fighter shares my number 1 spot, although the machines were nothing special.

Loved Star Wars Arcade...the sit down model.

I played two versions of After Burner, one which tilted up/down and left/right...there was also a headphone jack! The other, on the boardwalk, strapped you inside a gyroscope!

But I have to say Drumscape is tied for first place:
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9922/drumscaperi7.jpg

[Nurhachi1991]

StreetFighter 2

[DocWhiskey]

Wasted SOOOOO many quarters in these when I was a teen!

http://i30.tinypic.com/10561r5.jpg

http://i32.tinypic.com/1zl7xj5.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/n5ju4m.jpg

[Lonsome_Drifter]

Polybius!
I still have nightmares about the arcade game. I can remember playing it as a kid, but those memories are so painful. And, for some reason there were always tall men dressed in black suits around the cabinet.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/bspcn.com/R_-Sp6XDaJI/AAAAAAAACXw/m2NkSgmtnj0/s800/polybius-300x225.jpg

[JuniorJones]

Star Wars Arcade. I plan to be buried in one.

[Le Saboteur]

...more than the others I found, but it's not from the same game; the games I spent the most time on were TMNT in the extra-wide cabinet, Sunset Riders, and Dungeons & Dragons.

Donatello was my turtle.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/09/tmntaa580.jpg

Bob was always my choice.
http://www.spermio.com/portal/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/sunset.gif

I played the thief.
http://img.brothersoft.com/screenshots/softimage/d/dungeons_and_dragons-_shadow_over_mystar-177922-1.jpeg

Slightly before most of your time in the arcade:

http://arcade.svatopluk.com/williams/Narc/Narc-01.png

And finally, when games begin to wan I was all about the pinball. My all-time favourite has to be The Addams Family. I spent a ton of money on that one, and now own it!

http://www.davesclassicarcade.com/addamsfamily/ouraddams.jpg

All that's just a brief sampling, though. I spent a fortune over the years in various arcades across the country.

[Lonsome_Drifter]

I had Sunset Riders on the SNES! Awesome game that me and my dad used to play alot. I miss playing that game with him. Makes me sorta sad.
Also, I must agree that Don was the best turtle.

[deckard24]

I'd have to say it's a toss-up between Ms. Pac Man, and the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom arcade game. Man, I'd love to get a hold of both of those for my home!

[Stoo]

I played two versions of After Burner, one which tilted up/down and left/right...there was also a headphone jack! The other, on the boardwalk, strapped you inside a gyroscope!I played this in Vegas for the 1st time a couple of years ago and was practically hanging UPSIDE DOWN! Very cool game.

My most memorable are from the late '70s & '80s.

Pinball:
The Black Night (1978, multi-leveled w/sound effects)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Bit-mapped graphics:
Space Invaders (1979 was an expensive year)
Star Fighter - booth version (1980, 1st game to feature TIE fighters and it wasn't endorsed by Lucas!)
Defender (the 1st scrolling background game)
Centipede
Temple of Doom
Spy Hunter (One of my faves)
Discs of Tron - stand up booth version
Pole Position (raised the bar on video game graphics)
Gauntlet (the 1st 4-player game I can think of. Fun times!)

Vector-based graphics:
Asteroids
Battle Zone (the futuristic tank game with the periscope)
Tempest (I wasted a lot of $$$ on this game but the most memorable time was at Busch Gardens in Florida, 1982. Every time I pressed the FIRE button, I'd receive an electrical shock but kept on playing for an hour. OUCH!)
Star Trek - booth version
Star Wars - booth version

Miscellaneous:
Dragon's Lair (cartoon game w/animation by Don Bluth)
Space Ace (cartoon game w/animation by Don Bluth)
A racing car game (the old one from the '60s. The background looked like a film.)

Honorable Mentions:
Ms. Pac Man. (This is the game that initially brought girls into the arcades.)
A game with colour HOLOGRAMS where you shoot cowboys, etc. (c.1987)
Pong (1976? The original, 1st video game. We eventually got a home version to play on our TV. I can still remember the sound effects.)

P.S. In San Francisco, there is a huge arcade "museum" on one of the wharfs with machines dating back to 1908. Most of them are REALLY OLD but you can play them all! (It has the Indy pinball.)

[roundshort]

Lets see had to be Ms. Pac-Man, as that was the only game our swin club had . . .

But I wasted a bucks in Indiana Jones Temple of Doom Pin-ball, I still hear Indy shouting, We Walk form here . . .
And yes, Dragon;s lair, I never played it, as I think it was a buck!

[Rocket Surgeon]

Pinball:Whirlwind it had a fan. and 3 spinners that would launch your ball just about anywhere.
http://www.edcheung.com/album/album09/pinball/ww1.jpg

Spy Hunter, Tron, Battle Zone

Loved them! Lots of quarters

Virtua Cop! 2 player game solo both guns! AWESOME!



The Donkey Kong Ms. Pac-Man combo built into a table top!
http://arcadegamesales.net/pacman-ct.jpg

[Insomniac]

Area 51
and
Aliens: Extermination

[Le Saboteur]

Miscellaneous:
Dragon's Lair (cartoon game w/animation by Don Bluth)
Space Ace (cartoon game w/animation by Don Bluth)
A racing car game (the old one from the '60s. The background looked like a film.)


It looks like our video game history overlaps, Stoo! I remember seeing Dragon's Lair in the arcades, but missed Space Ace. At one point, I think we might have even owned Dragon's Lair in some form or another! I don't suppose you remember "Crossbow", do you? It was probably out around the same time as "Hogan's Alley" and "Duck Hunt" in the arcades.


P.S. In San Francisco, there is a huge arcade "museum" on one of the wharfs with machines dating back to 1908. Most of them are REALLY OLD but you can play them all! (It has the Indy pinball.)

Are you thinking about the Musee Mecanique (http://www.museemecaniquesf.com/)? You probably are, and it is definitely pretty damn rad. Of similar interest in the East Bay (read: Oakland-Alameda-Berkeley), is Lucky Ju Ju Pinball (http://www.ujuju.com/) and the Pacific Pinball Museum (http://www.pacificpinball.org/post.php?post=57). Coming up during the first weekend in October is the Pacific Pinball Expo, an entire three days of non-stop pinball madness! 25-bucks gets you an all day pass to flip, bump, and tilt your way to Pinball Wizard status!

Could we ever begin to forget...

http://www.fraserking.co.uk/arcade/screenshots/paperboy-5.png

[Le Saboteur]

...of the fact that there are two Indy pinball games, let's take a quick moment to recap.

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=1267) was released in '93 and covered the original trilogy. It's quickly identifiable by the revolver grip that doubles for the launcher. It features excellent ramps, beyond excellent voice work, and an eight ball multi-ball! Listening to all the elephant trumpeting as multi-ball was released is exciting. And it looks like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Indiana_Jones_pinball_machine.jpg

The new Indiana Jones Pinball (http://www.sternpinball.com/IndianaJones.shtml) was released by Stern Pinball, Inc. in April of '08 to coincide with the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Despite being released a month ahead of the movie, the game featured voice work culled from the film, and complete scenes rendered in HD dot-matrix cinematics. This was in addition, of course, to all of the work that was taken from the original trilogy. It happens to look like this

http://www.bhmvending.com/Amusements/Stern/stern_Indiana_Jones_new.jpg

To answer DocWhiskey's question (from that old Michael Jackson's Dead thread), nearly one-half of the play field is empty; there's nothing to do, and that's why it isn't nearly as good as the original. Stern spit it out to make a buck, and didn't put the thought into what would make it a great game.

In purely numerical terms, the Internet Pinball Database (http://www.ipdb.org/) lists the original Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure as #10 on the Top 300 games of all time list, while Stern's Indiana Jones barely makes the list at #293.

[DocWhiskey]

.To answer DocWhiskey's question (from that old Michael Jackson's Dead thread), nearly one-half of the play field is empty; there's nothing to do, and that's why it isn't nearly as good as the original. Stern spit it out to make a buck, and didn't put the thought into what would make it a great game.

Ah, I see. I never played the new machine. Thanks for remembering that. Man, that seemed like ages ago.

[Stoo]

Loved them! Lots of quartersJust to clarify, I was talking about "Discs of TRON" (the stand up booth) that came out awhile after the original "TRON" game. Do you know it? One great bonus to "Spy Hunter" was the "Peter Gunn" theme that blared endlessly from the speakers. Speaking of "Battle Zone", who remembers "Tail Gunner"? It was a 1980 booth game with vector-based graphics where you fly backwards in space and shoot ships.

The Donkey Kong Ms. Pac-Man combo built into a table top! The table-tops were fun (when the plexi-glass didn't have cigarette burns). A memorable time with one was at my uncle's bar (Norm's Hideout) in Miami, 1978. He rigged "Space Invaders" so I could play all night without dropping quarters into it.

It looks like our video game history overlaps, Stoo! I remember seeing Dragon's Lair in the arcades, but missed Space Ace. At one point, I think we might have even owned Dragon's Lair in some form or another! I don't suppose you remember "Crossbow", do you? It was probably out around the same time as "Hogan's Alley" and "Duck Hunt" in the arcades.]"Space Ace", himself, was the same character as "Dragon's Lair" but in a different costume. It was very easy to die in both games and, like roundshort said, they were $1 so they weren't around for very long. I don't recall "Crossbow" (or the other 2) offhand but might have seen them.

Are you thinking about the Musee Mecanique (http://www.museemecaniquesf.com/)? You probably are, and it is definitely pretty damn rad. Of similar interest in the East Bay (read: Oakland-Alameda-Berkeley), is Lucky Ju Ju Pinball (http://www.ujuju.com/) and the Pacific Pinball Museum (http://www.pacificpinball.org/post.php?post=57). Coming up during the first weekend in October is the Pacific Pinball Expo, an entire three days of non-stop pinball madness! 25-bucks gets you an all day pass to flip, bump, and tilt your way to Pinball Wizard status!You got it. That's it! Highly recommended for anyone in/visiting the area. We just stumbled upon it when going to take a closer look at the WW2 submarine that's docked there. Never made it to the East Bay but thanks for the info.

Speaking of Pinball Wizards, do you remember an Elton John:sick: pinball machine called Capt. Fantastic? The plate had a painting of him in his Pinball Wizard scene from the "Tommy" movie.

Could we ever begin to forget...

http://www.fraserking.co.uk/arcade/screenshots/paperboy-5.pngOh, YES! How I loved this game. I used to ride BMX and deliver papers, too, so this was right up my alley. Thanks for jogging my memory with that image, Saboteur!:up:

Another honourable mention: Missle Command '78/'79 (the 1st game with Trak-Ball control - the pre-cursor to the mouse.)

[00Kevin]

for me, there was no holy grail like the 89 teenage mutant ninja turtles game

whenever i went to the arcade with some friends, we would all rush to that one. we would compete and cheer to get the legendary kiss from april. we made it to the skateboard level only once, at that time it was the greatest achievements of our lives, my friend kept taking my quarters whenever he died, but when we got to the skateboard level i didn't let him (so evil, haha)

recently i download it on my xbox 360, but it just isn't the same as bring at an arcade with the buds

[Nurhachi1991]

Moonwalker was a great arcade game to. Nothing could beat the Mecha Jackson :up:

[jamesdude]

I remember there was a very large shooting game with a wide screen and a 6 or 8 lightguns infront of it. I remember seeing skeletons and spiders jumping twoards the screen in that game.

Ive been trying to find out the name of that game for years.

[Kevin]

My favorite:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6601/g-arcade.jpg

[Agent Crab]

This sexy beast!

http://www.retrocpu.com/mame/images/roms/s/samurai_shodown_ii_shin_samurai_spirits_-_haohmaru_jigokuhen.cabinet.png

http://www.arcade-history.com/images/cabinetmini160/1281.jpg That also.

[InexorableTash]

My dream arcade would include:

Marble Madness
STUN Runner
Star Wars (sit down)
Battlezone
Klax
Ms Pac-Man
Starblade
Galaxy Force II
Rampart
Aliens
Qix
Smash TV

Hooray for MAME!

[Le Saboteur]

I remember there was a very large shooting game with a wide screen and a 6 or 8 lightguns infront of it. I remember seeing skeletons and spiders jumping twoards the screen in that game.

Six-to-eight light guns? I don't think any such game ever existed; the most I can remember is three, and that was SNK's Beast Busters. There was a widescreen, sit down version that I spent a ton of money on.

http://castleofcollectibles.com/press/flyers/beastbusterse.jpg