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Trying to come up with a list of the greatest arcade games of the 80s, or at least the ones everybody wasted the most time on. Are there any classics that hold special memories for anyone?

For the purpose of this, I suppose the 80s can include the late 70s and maybe the early 90s. But I'm really looking for classics of the golden age of the arcade. No console games, PC games or anything more recent than about 92.

I have a special love for Gyruss, Dig Dug (I was horrible but it was fun game anyway), Disks of Tron, and Punch Out.  I also wasted hundreds of quaters in the ringinal "pay to continue" game, Gauntlet.  

Ed
"Warrior Needs Food Badly"

Commando, Joust, and Defender. Defender was the game they had at the Minit Mart where I lived and a group of us would gather and take turns playing the game. Commando was one I would play at the mall arcade regularly. I ran into Joust at a campus arcade and became hooked. Joust is truly a carpel tunnel inducer. But my true love in arcade games has always been pinball. There is a book available called 'Arcade Fever' which covers the top 50 games of that period. The book is available at a clearance price of around $6 at edwardrhamilton.com .

I spent the most money on GALAXIA around 1983 and GAUNTLET about 1985. We own the Nitendo 64 arcade version of GALAXIA and all the other classics.

That reminds me of my favorite Christmas present this year.  It is called Midway Arcade Treasures (for the PC).  It contains Joust, Gauntlet, Paperboy, Defender, Spyhunter, Rampage,Tapper, Sinistar, 720 degrees and a bunch of others I have never played.  As far as I can tell they are all perfect emulators.

The main reason I wanted it was for Gauntlet.......I still remember blowing an entire week's allowance in about 15 minutes playing that game when I was a kid.  

"Elf needs food, Badly!"
"Wizard is about to die"

This was the money pit for myself, when I was younger.  I just made a joke about this the other day, which none of my Marines "got."  Darn whipper snappers.

"Green Elf shot the food."

"Damn it Green Elf!  Oh, hey, that's me..."

Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 I guess.

Pac Man is a classic

And so is Dragon's Lair. This was an odd game where you played a knight that would travel through different rooms but when something would flash that would mean you had to move the controler in that dirrection either do strike with you sword or move. It was like one big animated movie and was very cool. I remember the first time I played it the game starts at the castles' bridge the character starts to move across it and then a tenticale comes out and wraps around him and he dies then the game said "Game Over". When that happened I was like "WFT!?" and it caused me to think back to an episode of the Simpsons when the episode starts at the Arcade and Milhouse's game has a sea guy take a few steps across the dock and it pauses and then it says "Game Over".

That was pretty funny.

These are all great games. The reason I'm asking is that I've been looking for a winter project, and couldn't decide between fixing up an old PC I've got in the basement or doing some woodworking. Decided to put them together and build a MAME cabinet for the games room I'm planning.

For those who aren't familiar with MAME, it's an emulator that runs the software from the original arcade machines. As I understand, the games are copied out of the ROM on the old boards. Does everything the arcade games did, right down to requiring you to hit a key to insert coins. Just recently got into this, and it is amazing. But it is hard to play on a keyboard, so I'm going to do what lots of people have done and build an arcade machine replica with PC guts to play these games properly.

As for my old favourites, I did most of my playing in the sub shop downtown. For some reason, arcades never lasted too long in our small town. I used to spend loads of quarters on Exciting Hour, R-Type, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, 1942, and Gauntlet (don't know if I can afford to build a four-player machine for that one though). The shop had two or three machines that changed every few months. Always had a crowd.

Playing these games sure brings back memories. Starting up Exciting Hour was like being back in high school, and it didn't take long for all the moves to come back to me. I just couldn't stop smiling. It was magical.



Post Edited (01-07-05 10:07)

Man, you guys sure are brining back a lot of memories.  Here are some of my favorites:

Reactor
Spyhunter
Robotron
Defender (Loved the huge amount of buttons on this one)
Galaxia
Joust
Rampage
Donkey Kong
Bank Panic (YES!)

One of my most hated though, has got to be PacMan.  I know it's a classic and quite possibly one of the most successful games of all time, but it just isn't my thing.  It's too damn hard.  My wife can still sit and play it for hours on those new self contained joystick things that you plug into your TV.

As for a Mame box, that's a fantastic idea Andy.  I love seeing when people go all out with one of those.  Please include pics if you do make one.

Rampage! I used to love that game. Really simple, but loads of fun.

I loved rampage. I remember playing that game for hours. I also remember Narc and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Arcade.

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux

Rich,

Narc!  I can't believe I forgot that one!  I used to play it for hours on end at a local convience store.

I was always partial to pinball (Pinbot, Earthshaker...oh yeah...) but the one arcade game that made me go berserk was Tempest. I wasted so much time and money on that game. There was a deli about 5 miles from my house that had this game and one of my friends and I would ride our bikes there and waste a ton of quarters on our addiction. A few years ago I saw a Playstation game that contained numerous old Atari games and Tempest was one of them. I bought it without hesitation and couldn't wait to play. I was disappointed when I played it because it's just not the same without standing in front of the console and having the spinning control knob to move around the shapes. If anyone has played this game, you'll probably understand what I mean. The spinning knob was really central to the excitement and productivity on that game.

I'm a bit young to get onto the whole 80's arcade game thing properly, but alot of the early to mid 90s stuff was also pretty fun, especially japanese made ones.

I do remember a shooting game called chiller which was quite intriguing and odd which involved shooting different objects within a time limit, most of which were horror-based [zombies, witches, scenes of torture and whatnot]

I also loved all those 'Final Fight' style fighting games, and those jetfighter ones [the names completely out of my mind at the moment] with lots of lasers and just plain insane amount of enemy and ally fire flying about.  Also can't go past ones like Street Fighter 2 and Marvel vs Capcom.

Good stuff with the Mame idea, at one point I was considering doing that with my old PC, but I didn't 1:know how 2:have the time or money to be worrying about it 3:the soundcard was busted and I am too lazy to fix it.

Do you know of any good links or info on how to get the materials or how to build these wonderful contraptions. [like finding the right knobs and buttons and such] because this has rekindled my interest!

Yeah Narc was sweet. Nothing like blowing away drug dealers. I think it was a influence for me becoming a cop.

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux

Now that I'm thinking about it, I remember reading a while back that Narc is getting remade into a PS2 "GTA" style third person game.

If I recall correctly, you are an undercover cop that can use herion or other drugs to get extra strength throughout the game.  I think it eventually leads to drug addiciton though.

No I'm not joking.  Bad idea.

yeah marvel vs capcom is one of the newer arcade games but I loved that game more so I liked the second one. noone could beat me with rogue sakura and psylocke.(I picked women cause it was element of surpirse to the other played. mans old notion of women cant fight apparently extends to games also.)

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux

yeah I heard about the Skaboi. You could be a good cop and give in the drugs as evidence or take yourself and get a extra boost but brings down your cop rating. Last thing I heard it was in limbo cause of the content. It sounded kind of stupid to me.

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux



Post Edited (01-07-05 07:50)

Another good game I just remembered was streets of rage. I dont remember if it was in the arcade but I had it for sega genesis.

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux

There are quite a few good sites. Seems a lot of people who build these things take the time to document the project in some detail.

Probably the best starting point is www.arcadecontrols.com

I remember my uncle was pretty damn wealth and his basement had all this Acarde crap in it. Mostly Pinball machines that were great (funhouse, Elvira, indiana jones) but the best was the Aliens Acarde game. He had a jar of quarters next to that game I remember spending like an entire day down there just popping coins in playing it like mad  until I finally beat it. What a great movie based video game.

I also recall shovelling out alot of coinage at chucky cheese on the Simpsons arcade game and at least one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (i really need to fix my original NES)

I know this is past 92 but I used to rock the Area 51 game because my friend showed me the trick of if you shot only the humans in the first level you turn into an alien.

That's the beauty of building your own controls. You can have the proper controls for each game. Some of the panels are pretty amazing, with eight-way joysticks for some games, four-way joysticks for others, a trackball, a spinner, a flight stick, light guns, and up to eight buttons per player, all on one machine.

The last time I walked into an arcade I was frightened. I saw these kids standing on this platform dancing to this really bad Japanese Techno while these little pink fluffy cartoons went by on the screen. I guess it's what's popular now. Back in my day that'd be a good way to get your ass kicked.

My game of choice was Rastan. To this day I still have that friggin background music ringing in my head. Especially that cheezy chourus, hoo HOOOO!!!.

And I poured a small fortune into Galaga. Hell I'm still addicted to Galaga.

Just found a ROM file for Tempest, out of curiosity. Amazing! MAME duplicates the old vector graphics perfectly. Wasn't sure how that would work on my monitor. That means Battlezone and Asteroids should look pretty good too.

The only drawback seems to be that games made for a vertical monitor look pretty small on a horizontal one. I'll probably have to put at least a 21-inch monitor in this machine, or use a 25-inch TV.



Post Edited (01-07-05 10:31)

Andy,

I'd go with a 21 inch monitor.  It all depends on how you would hook it up to a TV.  I've hooked my computer to my TV on numerous occasions using S-video and standard RCA cables, and neither do a great job.  The picture is usually a bit grainy and the color is usually off.

That was actually one reason why I was considering it. A PC monitor is quite a bit sharper than the old arcade machines. I was thinking that a TV might look more authentic with these lower-resolution games.

I'm leaning toward the monitor anyway, since it would likely be easier to set up with the computer. And it looks good on a monitor. I doubt the TV would make much difference for the better.

I just have to find a cheap used one. I know a guy who sells off-lease equipment. I might see if he's got a monitor with a banged up or discoloured case. Nobody will see it.

There is a magazine published in England called Retro Gamer that can usually be found at larger bookstores that carry import magazines (Barnes & Noble, Hasings, Books-A-Million, etc.). Each issue covers arcade games, old systems (Commodore, Sinclair, etc.), emulators, etc. and comes with a CD of retro games and emulators for the PC. I have included the link to the website.


Retro Gamer Magazine (http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/)

I was sorta addicted to one that I can't recall the name of now. But you were a cop chasing the bad guys and you had to stop them by ramming your car into the rear of theirs until it was disabled.

Cool. I've heard of that, and I think I've seen it in one of the stores around here.

I've also located what could be a very helpful book, and my local Chapters store apparently has three copies in stock, so I'm going to check it out later. I bet they also carry Retro Gamer.

Bosconian
Gorf
Tron
NARC
Dragon's Lair
Berzerk
Tempest

I loved all of these.

>And so is Dragon's Lair. This was an odd game where you played a knight that
>would travel through different rooms but when something would flash that would
>mean you had to move the controler in that dirrection either do strike with you
>sword or move. It was like one big animated movie and was very cool.

The main problem with those "games" (Dragon's Lair's, Dragon Lair II, Space Ace) is that the movements you're required to make are the ones that the designers decided you should make, not necessarily the moves that make the most sense. For example, you might have to chop tentacle #1, but jump back to avoid tentacle #2, then hop sideways when tentacle #3 comes out. Most people will just try to chop all the tentacles, like in most games. A letter in a magazine once put it perfectly, "I wasted $10 in that game before I figured out that it was more fun to watch than to play".

BTW, not only have the Dragon's Lair games been released for modern computer systems, but there's also a 3D Dragon's Lair game, creatively called Dragon's Lair 3D.

>(don't know if I can afford to build a four-player machine for that one though)

One approach that I've heard of people using is to wire the controls to the guts of an old keyboard so that moving the control is like pressing that particular key. For example, wiring the left direction of the joystick to the contacts for the left arrow key. The advantage is that you don't need special drivers to handle the joysticks and you can use off-the-shelf Wico joysticks. Whatever you decide, you should at least include two sticks for two player games, and for the few games that require two sticks, like Crazy Climber and Robotron.

BTW, anyone interested in MAME should visit Free MAME ROMs (http://www.freemameroms.com).

Also, two good ROM sites are ROM World (http://www.rom-world.com) which claims to all the MAME ROMs online and ROM Nation (http://www.romnation.net). Both also have ROMs for several other systems.

>There is a magazine published in England called Retro Gamer

Check out these web-based retro-gaming magazines;

Retrogaming Times (80 issues, no longer updated) (http://tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/Retrotimes/retrogam.htm)
Retrogaming Times (continuation of the above by some of the same authors) (http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM/RTM_Home.htm)

Finally, the number one site for emulators for all systems, of all systems is Zophar's Domain (http://www.zophar.net).

>I was sorta addicted to one that I can't recall the name of now. But you were a
>cop chasing the bad guys and you had to stop them by ramming your car into
>the rear of theirs until it was disabled.

Sounds like Chase HQ (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=C&game_id=7318).

Some of the arcade games I liked;

Arkanoid
Galaga
Gyruss
Outrun
Rastan
Space Harrier
Xevious
Zaxxon

Glad you mentioned that. Xevious is way cool too. For anybody like me (meaning too cheap to actually spend good money) there are these TV Games joysticks that just plug into your TV's AV jacks. I believe Xevious is available on the Ms. Pacman 5 in 1. Bosconian and Galaxian are available on the Pacman 5 in 1. There is also a 5 in 1 out with Rush'n Attack and Frogger on it.

>For anybody like me (meaning too cheap to actually spend good money) there
>are these TV Games joysticks that just plug into your TV's AV jacks.

I've seen those. Electronics Boutique, KB Toys and others have had them. They usually get mixed reviews. It's nice to have a small, self-contained unit with a variety of games on them, but there are usually only a couple really good games on each one and the rest are filler. Also, they sometimes include paddle/knob games like Breakout, but modified to use the joystick, so the playability sucks.

Actually, if you're truly cheap, you can just download the various emulators and then download the ROMs. If you know where to look, you can find pretty much the entire library of games online for the more popular ones (Arcade, Atari 2600/5200/7800, Colecovision, Timex Sinclair/ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari 8-bit, NES/Famicon, SNES/Super Famicon, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis/Masterdrive, Turbografx16/PC Engine, Amiga, Gameboy) and quite a bit of stuff for the less popular systems (Intellivision, BBC Micro, Atari ST, Odyssey II, Bally Astrocade, Amstrad CPC, Gameboy Color/Gameboy Advance, Sega Gamegear, MSX, etc).

There are even emulators for newer systems like the Playstation and Nintendo 64, however from what I've seen, they're not nearly as well developed or compatible as the ones for the systems above. In fact, the one time I tried a bunch of N64 emulators, I couldn't even get Mario 64 to run.

Just as JohnL mentioned, there are numerous PS1 and N64 emus out there.   I never really had many problems with the N64 emus except that it's extremely hard to play Goldeneye with a keyboard. :)

As for PS1, I'd recommend Bleem.  I dunno if Bleem is still out, but it let you play PS1 games in your regular computer CD-Rom.  I have a feeling though that SCEA put a end to that.

Marble Madness
Crystal Castles
Track n Field
Jungle Hunt

all great games

>Just as JohnL mentioned, there are numerous PS1 and N64 emus out there. I
>never really had many problems with the N64 emus except that it's extremely
>hard to play Goldeneye with a keyboard. :)

What would you recommend as the best N64 emulator? As for using the keyboard, don't they let you use a joystick or other controllers?

>As for PS1, I'd recommend Bleem. I dunno if Bleem is still out, but it let you play
>PS1 games in your regular computer CD-Rom. I have a feeling though that
>SCEA put a end to that.

There were two commercial PS1 emulators, Bleem! and VGS. Both were sued/harassed out of business by Sony. I've seen copies of both floating around the net. Neither was 100% perfect emulation of the PS1. Bleem! supposedly had some grpahic glitches with many games, like having white boxes around objects. VGS was supposed to be a little better for some games, but still wouldn't run everything.

Unfortunately, it looks like most of the PD ones have been discontinued.

I never used VGS, although I remember hearing about it a while back.

I used Bleem! back when PS1s were still around.  I used to play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater with it.  Unfortunatly at the time I had on board video (archaic isn't it?) and couldn't use Bleem! to it's fullest.  It still ran pretty well.  It didn't crash much and the graphics were decent.

My favorite N64 emulators were "NEmu" and "Project64".  Both were fairly stable and ran a good number of games.  The two I played mostly were Goldeneye and Super Smash Bros.

Both had the ability to play using a joystick, but I only have a keyboard and mouse.  I'm a huge gamer but mainly only RTS or FPS games, so I don't have much use for anything other than key/mse.  

I do now have an adaptor for a PS2 controller that hooks in through USB that a co-worker gave to me for Christmas.  I have yet to hook it up being as the drivers are on a floppy and I still refuse to install a floppy drive on my PC.  Eventually I'll get around to it.

Out of all the emulators for every system though, I'd have to say that NeoRageX is by far my favorite.  It's a fantastic emulator and I'm sure I'm not the only one on the board to have used it.  Really brings back memories of playing Samurai Showdown and Metal Slug in the arcades.

Yea, Gauntlet was a biggie for me also, but I also remember playing Defender and Sinistar.  Sinistar was one of my favorite you had to kinda blast away at him then he would come at you if you didn't do it fast enough. As far as most money spent it was defenately Galaxia.

>I never used VGS, although I remember hearing about it a while back.

It's floating around the P2P networks.

>I used Bleem! back when PS1s were still around. I used to play Tony Hawk's
>Pro Skater with it. Unfortunatly at the time I had on board video (archaic isn't it?)
>and couldn't use Bleem! to it's fullest. It still ran pretty well. It didn't crash much
>and the graphics were decent.

I have VGS and Bleem!, but don't have any PS1 games to try on it. I'd like to get Silent Hill though. They released all the rest for somputers, but not the first one!

>My favorite N64 emulators were "NEmu" and "Project64". Both were fairly stable >and ran a good number of games. The two I played mostly were Goldeneye >and Super Smash Bros.

I'll have to try them. I have a bunch of N64 ROMs that I grabbed off one of the newsgroups a few months back when someone decided to post the *COMPLETE* N64 ROM list.

>Both had the ability to play using a joystick, but I only have a keyboard and
>mouse. I'm a huge gamer but mainly only RTS or FPS games, so I don't have
>much use for anything other than key/mse.

I like the mouse for FPS games, but for space or driving games I prefer a joystick. Unfortunately, I don't have a gameport at the moment. I've seen a USB adaptor at Radio Shack, but it says it's not 100% compatible with all the fancy features on programmable controllers. I don't have any fancy controllers, but I've been thinking I might want to get one eventually. I'll probably end up getting a cheap game port card.

>I do now have an adaptor for a PS2 controller that hooks in through USB that a
>co-worker gave to me for Christmas. I have yet to hook it up being as the drivers
>are on a floppy and I still refuse to install a floppy drive on my PC. Eventually I'll
>get around to it.

I like having a floppy drive. Someone I know got a new Dell recently, with no floppy drive. There are times I want to take a small text file, list of URLs, etc, over there, but I don't want to waste a CD for a couple hundred K. I usually end up emailing them instead. I suppose I could get one of those USB thumb drives, but I never had enough need for one before.

>Out of all the emulators for every system though, I'd have to say that NeoRageX
>is by far my favorite. It's a fantastic emulator and I'm sure I'm not the only one on
>the board to have used it. Really brings back memories of playing Samurai
>Showdown and Metal Slug in the arcades

I've only ever seen a couple Neo Geo games. The one multi-game machine that the local arcade had, required two tokens a game, so I usually passed it up in favor of the single-token games.

I think I brought up my centipede wizard days in another topic. I was also quite partial to Beezer, and hearby gratuitously link to the post I made about that on my blog:

http://davemunger.blogspot.com/2004/02/at-last-i-have-proof-that-there-was.html

Played a lot of Q*Bert, just read a description of the game the other day that makes me realize how bad I am at it, I've never seen a whole buch of the things that are supposed to try to kill you on the higher levels. Anyway, I managed to find an online version that my 'puter will let me play, and that came up on the blog too:

http://davemunger.blogspot.com/2004/06/can-anyone-figure-out-how-to-play-this.html

That link is really gratuitous, because I could have just linked to the game.

>I was also quite partial to Beezer

Beezer is listed as one of the games MAME now supports.

Picked up the first major component of the MAME box. Went to see the used equipment dealer I know, and got a 21" monitor for $60. He just happened to have one that was handled a bit roughly. It has a cracked bezel and a broken base, but is otherwise OK. Perfect for me, since all but the screen will be covered.

Now, I just need to track down a suitable motherboard, and order my arcade components. But first, I need to pay a $500 garage bill.

AndyC,

What type of processor are you looking for?  Most of the time if you want a cheaper motherboard that'll run decently, try a Soyo.  I had one in another computer and it worked great with the P4 I had in it.  I replaced it with an Elite motherboard with a new, faster P4 and the new motherboard is currently dead....should have stuck with the Soyo.


JohnL,

You're missing out on NeoGeo.  Fantastic games.  Some of them are great actioners such as Shock Troops, Metal Slug.  Also some of the best fighting games around.  But, as with all Japanese media, there are quite a few strange games.....

If you're curious about NeoGeo or any other console check out:

http://mobygames.com

I love emulators! I only had an Amstrad CPC when I was a kid and in the recent years I've been using them a lot, trying to catch up with the other people who had consoles. My fave emulator is WinUAE (CBM Amiga). Loce to play Lotus or Turrican in my PC. It is a little difficult to get it working (that is, unless you visit www.back2roots.org), but emulation is almost flawless.

I play N64 and PSX as well (try 1964 and ePSX: they're the best for these two systems), but lately I am mostly into arcade. MAME is fantastic! I just can't get enough of those old Konami (Green Beret, Yie ar Kung-Fu) and Sega (After Burner, Out Run, Golden Axe or Thunder Blade) games. Those particular Sega titles were my favourites when I was on my teens, together with both Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderball and Cabal.

Already have a lead on a used 900MHz Pentium 3 CPU and board, for about the same price I paid for the monitor.

Considered putting a new board in it, but decided against it for a couple of reasons. A P3 should be more than up to the job, and I have ample SDRAM lying around here without a purpose. A new board would require me to buy DDR. Even without buying RAM, I'd be looking at quite a bit more money for even a cheap board and processor. The more I save on the guts, the more breathing room I have on the special bits, like joysticks. I've got to keep this within a reasonable budget or my wife will kill me :)

Still wrestling with the question of whether I can save any worthwhile amount on my control interface by hacking a cheap keyboard, or should I just order a specialized encoder for 40 or 50 bucks. Based on everything I've read, I'm leaning toward the latter. Less work, fewer problems.

Three of my favorites from the early 80s were Mappy, Dig Dug, and Joust.

Going into the late 80s-early 90s I liked wrestlefest a lot. I'd really like to play wrestlefest again actually.

>You're missing out on NeoGeo. Fantastic games. Some of them are great
>actioners such as Shock Troops, Metal Slug. Also some of the best fighting
>games around. But, as with all Japanese media, there are quite a few strange
>games.....

The two King of the Monsters games looked interesting. Eventually I'll probably get around to getting all the emulators. I may end up contacting the free MAME burners and get a complete set of MAME and Neo Geo games.

>If you're curious about NeoGeo or any other console check out:
>
>http://mobygames.com

Ah yes, I'm quite familiar with Moby Games (htt://www.mobygames.com).

>My fave emulator is WinUAE (CBM Amiga). Loce to play Lotus or Turrican in my
>PC. It is a little difficult to get it working (that is, unless you visit
>www.back2roots.org), but emulation is almost flawless.

I liked the first and third Lotus games, but didn't care for the second one too much. If you like them, check out Jaguar XJ220, it's very similar and even includes a simple track editor. As for Turrican, I liked the second one best, although I couldn't get very far in any of the Turrican games without using a trainer for unlimited lives.

I was going to mention a site that has almost every Amiga game, but it seems to be offline at the moment.

>Going into the late 80s-early 90s I liked wrestlefest a lot. I'd really like to play >wrestlefest again actually.

Wrestlefest is listed as being supported in MAME.

JohnL wrote: I liked the first and third Lotus games, but didn't care for the second one too much. If you like them, check out Jaguar XJ220, it's very similar and even includes a simple track editor. As for Turrican, I liked the second one best, although I couldn't get very far in any of the Turrican games without using a trainer for unlimited lives.

Yeah, I know Jaguar, but it just isn't thesame. I actually prefer the second Lotus game over the rest myself. It has an "OutRun" feel the first one doesn't, plus is not as easy as the third one. Now that I think of it, it is only the difficulty level that I have problems with: it is almost impossible to make into the third level. I agree on Turrican, though, the second one is the best of the lot, providing more eye and ear candy than the first.

These emulation things can bacome really involving. I've written myself several tutorials on MSX and CBM Amiga emulation, and lately I've joined the community at http://amstradcpc.foro.st/ . It is a spanish Amstrad CPC board and with some help from other members I've managed to convert most of my old tapes (they still work after 15 years! you can't say that of many CD-ROMs) into emulator-friendly formats. It's a riot to load, say, "Psycho Pigs UXB", one of the most addictive games ever, into an emulator and listen to the usual tape beeps and whistles.

JohnL,

You are correct about King Of The Monsters.  Fantastic game.  I never played it with a NeoGeo emu nor on the arcade machine, but I used to play a version of it on the Super Nintendo.  Still, great gameplay.  

I don't know why I like the NeoGeo so much.....it seems to hold some type of magic for me.  Maybe because I pined after the home console for years.  Kinda hard to own one that costs apx 400.00 with games in the 200.00-300.00 price range.  :)

I know a couple of years ago Neo Geo try to to come back with a handheld called Neo Geo Pocket. It was pretty good it had better graphics than the Game Boy at that time. It never picked up here in America thought at lasted 2 years.

 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux

>Yeah, I know Jaguar, but it just isn't thesame. I actually prefer the second Lotus
>game over the rest myself. It has an "OutRun" feel the first one doesn't, plus is
>not as easy as the third one. Now that I think of it, it is only the difficulty level that I
>have problems with: it is almost impossible to make into the third level.

The difficulty was what I didn't like about the second Lotus game. After not getting very far at all, I used a trainer/cheat mode to play through the game. Some of the later levels are next to impossible. You have tractor trailers rushing across the road in front of you in at least one level and there's no way to avoid them and keep up the speed.

>I agree on Turrican, though, the second one is the best of the lot, providing more
>eye and ear candy than the first.

It was also much less confusing! I remember the first time I played the first Turrican, I wandered around the first level for probably half an hour trying to figure out where the exit was. I think the second level probably took me an hour!

Either I really suck, or the Turrican games just weren't fair. I'd know there was some type of enemy down in a pit, but no matter how carefully I'd drop/jump down, or how quickly I fired, I'd still end up getting hit by them 90% of the time. Not to mention the spots where you come to a hole in the ground and there's a 50/50 chance that it's either the way you're supposed to go, or certain death. I had the exact same problem with two other Amiga games that everyone else seemed to love; Gods and Magic Pockets, both by The Bitmap Brothers.

>These emulation things can bacome really involving. I've written myself several
>tutorials on MSX and CBM Amiga emulation, and lately I've joined the

Are your MSX tutorials online? I know next to nothing about the MSX.

>community at http://amstradcpc.foro.st/ . It is a spanish Amstrad CPC board and
>with some help from other members I've managed to convert most of my old
>tapes (they still work after 15 years! you can't say that of many CD-ROMs) into
>emulator-friendly formats. It's a riot to load, say, "Psycho Pigs UXB", one of the
>most addictive games ever, into an emulator and listen to the usual tape beeps
>and whistles.

I like the fact that emulation lets you play with systems that you never had access to before. Like the X68000, which was only available in Japan and which had better graphics than the Amiga around the same time period. Or the Acorn Archimedes.

I have emulators and a few games for each, but really haven't gotten into them too much. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of software for either available online.

>I don't know why I like the NeoGeo so much.....it seems to hold some type of
>magic for me. Maybe because I pined after the home console for years. Kinda
>hard to own one that costs apx 400.00 with games in the 200.00-300.00 price
>range. :)

Yeah, I remember when it first came out, I thought they were crazy. That was the reason it never really caught on, although at the time, it was like the Holy Grail of video game systems.

Check this out:
http://www.everyvideogame.com

My MSX tutorials are sort of on-line, but if you want to learn about the MSX, the best you can do is download blueMSX (maybe the best and easiest to use emulator right now). You can then solve your doubts via the help and a page called Ultimate MSX FAQ. I mostly write about openMSX and, in the computeremuzone.com phorum, how to load games.

>Check this out:
>http://www.everyvideogame.com

Looks interesting, but you need to allow Java and ActiveX and all that other crap to play. I turned all those off after the second time I had my homepage hijacked.

>My MSX tutorials are sort of on-line, but if you want to learn about the MSX, the
>best you can do is download blueMSX (maybe the best and easiest to use
>emulator right now). You can then solve your doubts via the help and a page
>called Ultimate MSX FAQ. I mostly write about openMSX and, in the
>computeremuzone.com phorum, how to load games.

I downloaded BlueMSX, but haven't used it (never seem to have neough time). The last MSX emulator I used, I just loaded a couple cartridges through the menus.

This one is even easier to use, you'll like it.

Galaga
Zaxon
Donkey Kong
Gauntlet
Pac Man
Mortal Kombat

I have a Game Cube ( LOVE IT ) and you can get some really good retro games for it.

"MIDWAY ARCADE TREASURES" has Spyhunter, Gauntlet, Defender, Defender 2, Joust, Joust 2, Super Sprint, Splat, Toobin, Paperboy, Smash TV, Marble Madness, Rampart, Vindicators,  Roadblasters, 720o, Blaster, Bubbles, Root Beer Tapper, Klax, Rampage, Sinistar, Robotron 2084, and Satan's Hollow (I think I got them all)

"MIDWAY ARCADE TREASURES 2" has APB, Arch Rivals, Championship Sprint, Cyberball 2072, Gauntlet 2, Hard Drivin, Kozmik Krooz'r, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, NARC, Pit Fighter, Primal Rage, Rampage World Tour, Spy Hunter 2, Timber, Total Carnage, Wacko, Wizard of War, Xenophobe, and Xybots

"NAMCO MUSEUM" has Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, and Pole Position

I also have the 'newer than those but still retro' "Sonic the Hedgehog Megacollection" with versions 1 thru 3.  I was a Sega whore when I was a teenager.


One of the great things about these games: they run about $20.

>This one is even easier to use, you'll like it.

Usually, if the emulator provides a way to load an image file and autorun it, I do fine. Where I run into trouble is when the files are in a format that mimics the real thing, like disk images, and you have to know what commands to use to load & execute files.

I haven't done much with emulators on this system yet because I still need to get a game card so I have a place to plug in a joystick. Playing 99% of action games using the keyboard sucks.

Wow Kory, thanks for the rundown of the games.  

Xybots.....damn that brings back memories.  I remember going to an arcade in the early 90s in Atlanta that was going out of business.  They had Xybots for sale for apx 450-500.  I used to love playing that game.

I too have a GC, and I do believe I'll have to pick up some of those collections.  Thanks for the info!

Are you kidding JohnL? Most MSX games work fine with cursors+space. Actually, many original MSX users preferred to used those instead of joysticks.

About loading MSX games, it is very easy. Just folow these steps:

1) Recommended: Swith to adequate MSX mode (MSX1 for MSX1 games, etc.)

2) Carts load automatically after the next reboot.

Tapes load with BLOAD"CAS:",R or LOAD"CAS:",R

Discs (those which won't load automatically after reboot) load as follows:

FILES (You'll get a filelist, look for the smallest files with either BAS or BIN extension)

Then: RUN"FILENAMEDOTEXTENSION"

If they fail to load and you are sure you did everything above right, reboot and press LEFT CTRL (1 for Turbo-R machines) while the MSX logo appears. Then retry.  

Hope this is useful.

>Are you kidding JohnL? Most MSX games work fine with cursors+space.

Nope. Looking at some of the games I have, Elite, Xevious, Zaxxon, etc, I can't imagine playing any of them using the keyboard. For the record, I also hate gamepads, in equal measure because they're all left-hended and because (the older ones anyway) they use directional buttons rather than a joystick.

>Actually, many original MSX users preferred to used those instead of joysticks.

Yes, and according to many articles I've read, using a mouse is the best way to play Breakout type games, but I still prefer a paddle/knob controller. In fact, it's for this very reason that I prefer the C64 version of Arkanoid (on a real C64) to the Amiga version. Too bad they removed paddle support from the sequel.

I've also heard people claim that the mouse is the best controller for playing Elite. I spent one afternoon trying to learn to play the Amiga version with the mouse and gave up in disgust. I also had no luck using the keyboard.

As for playing action games with the keyboard; It's too hard to quickly change direction, since you have to deal with four separate keys for movement and use two at a time for diagonals. With a joystick, you just move your hand in the direction you want to go.

>About loading MSX games, it is very easy. Just folow these steps:

Thanks for the advice, I've saved it for future reference.

My favorite game was the Double Dragon series, I first played it on the Master System and then played it on the arcade, neo-geo and so-forth.

I've also played all the sequels, including the crappy 3rd installement and that  abbhorent streetfighter clone (the 5th one).  I recently had a go of the Game Boy Advance version (DDAdvance) and I realised that it was just the same as DD with elements of Super Double Dragon put in it.

DD was really big for us kids, mainly because in every fight at school all the kids at our school would always use the "knee to the stomach" move that the DD twins used - but it soon ended when somebody learnt tocounteract this by watching that guy who looks like a Morlock with the purple hair/trousers.

But all the sequels were pretty crappy and just more of the same.

I was also attracted to that River City Ransom game, but I didn't like how there wasn't a "big" villian, just two twin dragon punks who kidnapped a girl for some reason.

I also liked Commando, and its really crappy Amiga clone "SAS Combat simulator"  - but after playing X levels of doing the same thing it really got boring.

I also played a lot of "Project X" on the amiga, which is still amazing - even today and "Sensible World of Soccer - which is, IMO, still the best football management game today.

>I also liked Commando, and its really crappy Amiga clone "SAS Combat
>simulator"

Commando actually came out for the Amiga, although I guess the port wasn't very well known. It was done by Elite, who used to make good games, but they kind of dropped the ball with it. The graphics were fine and it played ok, but it had slow, wimpy music. The C64 version was better just because of the music. They also ported Speed Buggy/Buggy Boy to the Amiga and it plays ok, but for some reason, you never get the same impression of speed you do from the C64 version.

>I also played a lot of "Project X" on the amiga, which is still amazing - even today

I've never played this. I downloaded a copy a while back, but never got around to trying it. I think it was like 7 disks.

I've always thought the Amiga version of R-Type was great. Of course I can't get past the first level without unlimited lives, but I still like it. Everyone claims the sequel has better graphics, but to me, they look more cartoony.