List Your Top 5 fav coin-ops

[Sky Breaker]

Remember those good old days when instead of logging onto the Internet to play with other people (and have to deal with being disconnected and plagued with immature losers that whine, fight and 'troll' with broken cyber lingo) you could go to a tightly packed arcade with a roll of quarters and kill a few hours with people who were generally pleasant (I don't recall ever having a bad experience in an arcade) and happy to have you playing with them or against them.

There were no patches, there were no updates or alterations, and no online forums where people whine and complain. Just games as they were. There are some coin ops I never tire of, and when I find them tucked away at some airport, bus depot, or kitschy cafe, I have to play them. For me they have not lost their magic, and they are still quality games.


Konami's X-Men ate so many of my coins. I loved this game and played through it with every character. Nightcrawler was always my personal favorite, however, I often found myself playing as Dazzler (since none of the other boys wanted to) and she kicked butt. I also remember (even at 12 and having limited X-Men comics) not really understanding why Wolverine had 'lazer claws' or Colossus possessing some sort of 'blast wave', but I was never a big fan of Wolverine, so I just accepted it as part of the game. This game was pure magic for me.


A staple in any 90s arcade. I played this game alot, but was never able to finish it. Lisa was my Simpson of choice.


TMNT was a great old coin op. Donatello was my prime turtle. I only remember playing through it once. Vaporized to milk shake!!! (you will have to watch the video to get that)


Mortal Kombat. It all started here. Raiden was the fighter of choice for me. His look combined with those great lightning effects reminded me of one of the guys from Big Trouble In Little China.

[adol]

Strider
TMNT
Ms. Pac-Man
Tron
Smash TV.

[He-bro]

I only had 3:

Tron
Bad dudes
Street fighter II

[sportsandstuff777]

The Avengers
WWF Wrestlfest
TMNT
Contra
Galaga

[Phil.Pastel]

There are way too many. Nevertheless, I will go with these five in no particular order.

Wizard of Wor
Double dragon
Donkey Kong
TRON
Phoenix

[Benedict Judas Hel]

You got some of my favorite ones Sky-B but below are my favorite time-wasters and money-takers.

1) Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers...I used to beat everybody at my college game room with Vega (including the Asian kids)




2) Marvel Super Heroes...a vast improvement over my number 5 choice because now I was able to choose my favorite Marvel fighter character: Juggernaut! Once again allowing me to school my fellow nerds in college. Shuma-Gorath and Blackheart were good too.




3) Marvel Super Heroes Versus Street Fighter...this game gave me the super drain team of Omega Red and Shuma-Gorath. I was nigh-invincible with this team.




4) X-Men Versus Street Fighter...This game introduced my favorite Juggernaut tag team partner: Sabretooth! I loved stringing 3 supers together with him and the opponent not being able to do anything about it!




5) X-Men: Children of the Atom...the one that started the Marvel Madness! I loved Silver Samurai, Spiral, Omega Red and Sentinel on this game. Dang, with playing all these games, how did I ever graduate from Clown College?




Honorable Mention: Tekken Tag Tournament...there were other Tekkens but I liked this one the best because I was able to team up my 2 favorite characters: Bryan Fury and Armor King.

[Count Marzo]

1) TMNT (best memories of this)
2) Mortal Kombat 2 (the crowds ALWAYS around this machine at the 'cade was nuts)
3) WWF Wrestlefest (This game was SOOO good and came out in the height of WWF's greatness)
4) NBA Jam (This game was almost as big as MK2 with the crowds around it. Best coin-op/arcade sports game ever, such a memorable announcer too)
5) Centipede (had to go old school with one pick and this is it. I remember playing this one at the airport often as a kid in the 80s on my regular trips to my family down in Florida)

Honorable mentions: all the Marvel/Street Fighter games Benedict mentioned above, The Simpsons Arcade game, old school X-Men double screen arcade game, Double Dragon, Paperboy, Time Killers, Dig Dug, Bubble Bobble, Galaga, Pac Man/Ms Pac Man, etc...

Also I LOVE Pinball tables. Is there a thread on them? I may have to use the search feature even though it definitely isn't my friend.

[slackrguy]

1. Crossbow - light gun action in a medieval setting. Getting new companions on the way and the death screams always standing out in the arcade atmosphere makes this my most memorable and favorite arcade game.

2. Magic Sword - again, medieval + companions because those are two things I really, really enjoy. It was a decent side scrolling button masher. I preferred to 2nd player fighter over the 1st, but you can't win 'em all.

3. Gauntlet 2 - what makes Gauntlet 2 rank over Gauntlet 1 was the ability to choose to be whichever character you wanted to be regardless of what color you chose.

4. Xenophobe - sci-fi side scrolling action game with 9 possible character choices. This Alien rip-off has a special place in my heart. From the jet-fighter type joystick to the clever use of Star Trek:TOS colors for the characters uniforms, I spent many hours wandering corridors picking up various weapons in hopes of getting the lightning gun.

5. Yie Ar Kung-Fu - an old school fighting game. I was always more intrigued by the opponents than the hero. I never did learn all the moves.

[Alexx]

I didn't play a whole lot of coin-ops; mostly because I didn't have access to many. Still...I went through the thread so far and I still can't beat most of Skybreaker's original post! So I'll copy all but the last one:

- X-Men (was at the movie theater I went to the most and watched a kid beat it)
- Simpsons (think I played that the most)
- TMNT, though I could swap that with Turtles in Time as well. Think I played the original TMNT more in the arcade while I played Turtles in Time more on the SNES

Can't say I played Mortal Kombat much, though. For my last one....man that's hard to say.

I think I'm gona go with Gradius. The machine woulda been popular when I was too young to play, but I ran into it later on (maybe when I was 9 or 10?) at a bar I went to with my dad. Dad was meeting a friend there, and the friend owned the bar (I think?). It was pretty much empty and in the middle of the day, so I played with the pool tables and eventually wandered to the obviously dusty and ignored arcade machines....and dropped an inordinate amount of quarters into Gradius so that it could kick my butt constantly.

[ICER]

This is an impossible question to answer for me.But here are a few of my favorite coin ops.
Pac-Man
Cross Bow
Gauntlet
Moon Patrol
Turbo

[DrPAYNE]

The only games I remember really pumping quarters into are:

1. Street Fighter 2
2. Mortal Kombat
3. TMNT
4. Simpsons
5. Area 51

[Count Marzo]

The only games I remember really pumping quarters into are:

1. Street Fighter 2
2. Mortal Kombat
3. TMNT
4. Simpsons
5. Area 51

Oh yeah! How could I forget! Shout out to gun games like Area 51! Loved that game! CarnEvil, House of the Dead, and other gun games were amazing too!

[wyldman11]

Just focusing on the multiplayer ones

Street Fighter 2
X-men
TMNT
Golden Axe 2
Simpsons

[coolapex]

The following games have so many great memories for me:

Q-bert
Cobra Command
Rampage
Ms. Pac-Man
Golden Axe

[adol]

My list is subject to change.....

[FAKER II]

1. After Burner
2. Rastan
3. Double Dragon
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
5. Golden Axe

[mightybuck]

x-men - it has to be the huge 6-player cabinet though. none of that 1-screened, 4-player garbage.

mortal kombat 2 - i loved the first game to death (and still do), but when the second one came out my two best friends and i were always playing it. if we were hanging out outside of school, it was huddled around an MK2 machine. if we were hanging out inside of school, it was talking about MK2.

spider-man - this was not a game i had a chance to play often. i only ever saw it at two different places. it was a beat-em-up like x-men, but it had some platforming levels here and there. besides spidey, the game had black cat, sub-mariner, and hawkeye as playable characters. i admit the reason why i'm listing it isn't because i thought it was a great game. i honestly don't remember too much about it. i just love spider-man that much. and plus it was kind of obscure and i feel like i need to tell everyone about it.

TMNT - the first arcade game, not turtles in time. i picked this one over turtles in time just because i spent much more time playing it in arcades. most of my time spent on turtles in time was on home releases.

time traveler - another obscure game, but this one should probably stay that way. i'm picking it because i loved the presentation of the game. it was all holograms! i must admit the game itself was not very fun.

[dr thunder]

1. Any Pinball machine
2. A Neo Geo 4 game machine with Metal Slug, World Heroes, Puzzle Bobble, and Baseball Stars
3. Relief Pitcher
4. Die Hard Arcade
5. Super Off Road with steering wheel and gas pedal

[GeologyMule]

I put a LOT of quarters into (no order):

Area 51
Mortal Kombat 2
Cruisin USA
TMNT
Final Fight

Guns N Roses Pinball gets an honorable mention.

[Hordaiquiri]

1) The Simpsons - always play as Lisa
2) 6 player X-Men - always play the right side of the board usually Dazzler, then Storm, then Nightcrawler
3) Turtles In Time - I like this one better than the 1st, always play Donatello
4) Metamorphic Force - this was actually taken out of the arcade I usually visited due to "Satanic imagery"
5) G.I.Joe - Got to get tough. YO JOE!

Hmm, all Konami games.

[Benedict Judas Hel]

spider-man - this was not a game i had a chance to play often. i only ever saw it at two different places. it was a beat-em-up like x-men, but it had some platforming levels here and there. besides spidey, the game had black cat, sub-mariner, and hawkeye as playable characters. i admit the reason why i'm listing it isn't because i thought it was a great game. i honestly don't remember too much about it. i just love spider-man that much. and plus it was kind of obscure and i feel like i need to tell everyone about it.

time traveler - another obscure game, but this one should probably stay that way. i'm picking it because i loved the presentation of the game. it was all holograms! i must admit the game itself was not very fun.

Don't worry, mighty-b. I know what you're talking about...






(although I played this one as Holosseum the fighting game...and yeah, it wasn't that good. In fact, it was terrible. Plus they wanted $1 to play the game!)

[spiritgunner]

Here's 5 of mine:

Pac-Man (first game I've ever played)
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Centipede
Marvel vs.Capcom 2 (played the arcade game before getting it on PS2)

[Barbecue17]

TMNT: The Arcade game, The Simpsons, and X-men always got my attention.
Area 51 was one of my favorite shooters.
The Time Crisis game which used the automatic SMGs that actually kicked and the foot pedal to pop in and out of cover. That was a great game!

[He-Dad]

Xmen
Simpsons
Tmnt
Jurassic park
Starwars (I'd love to get one of these...had all three of the original trilogy represented but the rotj speeded was my fav)

Honorable mention ..there was a super hard holographic game that used real actors that I loved. First level was cowboy and indians. The game was in a dome. Don't know what it was called but it amazed me as a kid seeing real people.

[Barbecue17]

Xmen
Simpsons
Tmnt
Jurassic park
Starwars (I'd love to get one of these...had all three of the original trilogy represented but the rotj speeded was my fav)

Honorable mention ..there was a super hard holographic game that used real actors that I loved. First level was cowboy and indians. The game was in a dome. Don't know what it was called but it amazed me as a kid seeing real people.

I think the game you're referring to is Time Traveler. A few folks have mentioned it and when I saw the cabinet Benny posted, it looked really familiar. I remember playing the game once or twice also. There was something about using "reverse cubes" or something to save yourself when you were about to die. The game always tried to sell you more cubes.