Greatest Arcade Games

[StatCat]

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.

[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.....

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.

>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.

[Neville]

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.

[Mr_Vindictive]

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.  :)

[BeyondTheGrave]

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

[JohnL]

>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.

[Dave Munger]

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

[Neville]

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.

[JohnL]

>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.

[Neville]

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

[Kory]

Galaga
Zaxon
Donkey Kong
Gauntlet
Pac Man
Mortal Kombat

[Kory]

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.

[JohnL]

>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.

[Mr_Vindictive]

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!

[Neville]

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.