Video Arcades, where art thou?

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**Slarg232**

Secret of Mana was the game that turned a nerdy jock into a full on Gamer. Despite always being stuck as the "Icky girl", it was the first time my brothers and I went through and played a game day after day to beat it together. I need to dust off my copy and play it once more.

Holy crap, SoM goes for $5,000 new......

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:And Rampage! Gah! I loved that game! Big monsters are super cool, which reminds me of King of the Monsters...

Got rampage on mame also =o] God I love that thing its like Devlin Mud "Gak does everything" =o]

**Monster Rain**

Mannahnin wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:How did Mannahnin post in this thread and not bring up Funspot? It's more arcade than you can handle, mortal.

If you keep making these drive-by posts without reading the thread, people will keep thinking you're trolling. I keep telling them you don't troll anymore.

Huh. I must have missed that on page 2... Or at least the funspot post. I definitely listened to that pinball music link though. Still, I think you might be getting a bit overly excited about this. Attributing some sort of malice to missing a two post blurb in a very busy thread seems inappropriate.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slarg232 wrote:Secret of Mana was the game that turned a nerdy jock into a full on Gamer. Despite always being stuck as the "Icky girl", it was the first time my brothers and I went through and played a game day after day to beat it together. I need to dust off my copy and play it once more.

Holy crap, SoM goes for $5,000 new......

I'm not sure why, when you can download it on the Wii. Then again, I've never really understood the "collector's" mentality.

**Bakerofish**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
Bakerofish wrote:I wouldnt call it nostalgia goggles. some games are just better played in the arcades or can only be found in arcades.

i especially love 4-player beat em ups

Xmen (Konami 1994?)
Armored Warriors
Aliens Vs. Predator (Capcom)
Dungeons and Dragons 1 and 2
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

and fighting games of course

The Simpsons
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
King of the Dragons

And not quite a beat 'em up, but one of my favs of all time...

Sunset Riders!

oooh Sunset Riders! where ya go into a saloon to get full health and come back out with a "lady" at your side

Bucky O Hare and Cowboys of Moo Mesa were also good shoot/beat-em ups in the same vein

**streamdragon**

Bakerofish wrote:I wouldnt call it nostalgia goggles. some games are just better played in the arcades or can only be found in arcades.

i especially love 4-player beat em ups

Xmen (Konami 1994?)
Armored Warriors
Aliens Vs. Predator (Capcom)
Dungeons and Dragons 1 and 2
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

and fighting games of course

I loved that game so much I went to a store in my area that deals in arcade cabinets and asked him to find me one.

He couldn't :(

**BaronIveagh**

Bakerofish wrote:I wouldnt call it nostalgia goggles. some games are just better played in the arcades or can only be found in arcades.

i especially love 4-player beat em ups

Xmen (Konami 1994?)
Armored Warriors
Aliens Vs. Predator (Capcom)
Dungeons and Dragons 1 and 2
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

and fighting games of course

Mine were mostly fighting games.

Street Fighter (back when Sagat was the final boss and being able to throw a fireball or do an uppercut made you badass....)
Art of Fighting
The Last Blade (1 and 2)
Samurai Spirits (Shodown in the US)
The King of Fighters (mostly 98)
Metal Slug

**BaronIveagh**

I'll add a little something. There are too many good fighting games that never make it to the US. This is a shame. A friend was telling me about this awesome one he got from Japan, but I'd need a modded PS3 to play it...

Edit: Huh, I wrote this as a 'Edit' not a double post. That's odd.

**KingCracker**

Hey take the +1 mate. Thats one reason to stick to NES/SNES for japanese games. Its A LOT easier to mod those systems to play their Japanese counter parts. The NES you pop out 1 pin on a certain chip and presto! And the SNES is even easier, you push open the dust cover, and chop out 2 plastic rods/screw things and boom, Super Famicom compatable

**gorgon**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
gorgon wrote:Many years ago, I actually owned a full-sized coin-op game. It was a bit of an obscure one, though -- Xenophobe. (Dr. Kwack FTW!) My roommate and I were already disgustingly good at the game when we bought it. I think we could play for an hour or more on a quarter or two? Dunno if anyone remembers the "Superman" arcade game from the late '80s, but the same roommate and I got to the point where we could go start to finish on two quarters each. The one I really wanted to own was Crossbow. Used to be able to go over a million on that one. Defender is another one I would have loved to own, but I was only a competent Defender player and not someone who'd challenge the high score. Although just being competent set you ahead of about 95% of arcade customers.

Don't mistake any of this for a brag, mind you. I think it all speaks to the fact that I probably should have gotten out more.

I think a real turning point in the industry was in the late '80s or so when video game manufacturers wised up and focused more on games with time limits or sufficient difficulty such that you had to pump quarter after quarter into machines.

Played Xenophobe a bit, though I liked the professor And the superman one where player 2 was Shazam?

Yes and no. The second player looked just like Supes, but with a mix of alternate and inverse colors (such as a red uniform, so yeah, he looked a bit like Captain Marvel). We referred to him as "1 over Superman". I dunno that it was even a great game, it was just there, so we played it.

It's funny, I just had a conversation with a clubmate a few weeks ago about the best weapon in Xenophobe. (FYI, I'm a laser pistol devotee.)

And yeah, Rampage was a lot of fun.