Top 5 Arcade Games
April/02/2008 03:13 PM Filed in: Random
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So I watched this video, which is awesome, and it reminded me of Street Fighter at the arcade. I remember the days when every arcade game cost a quarter. Well a quarter soon became fifty cents. Fifty cents soon became 75. Games went from 2-D joystick fun to sit down, stand up, Wii style action. You need a coddamn pre-paid card just to play anything anymore. I digress.
I started thinking about the best arcade games. I started thinking about all the classics. It lead me to one conclusion: that I needed to list them so you could help me reminisce about the best of the best. I decided that maybe I should do a list anyway because there are a lot of TMRB list worthy things out there. So, this will be the first list. The top 5 arcade games of all time are:
5: Pac Man
Since I'm 23 years old, people were playing Pac Man at the arcade before I knew how to spell arcade. I'm pretty sure this is my mom's favorite game, which just goes to show that Pac Man brings generations together. I honestly think she is better than me at it. I have a terrible habit of getting the coddamn power pellets too early because I'd panic if a ghost got too close.
4: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game
I'm not sure, but I think this was the first game to have four person co-op action. Whether it was or wasn't, it was still the first game to teach children all about dangerous weapons, genetics, The Renaissance, and pizza. Donatello had the long range, but slower attacks. Leonardo had the flashy sword and a non-nonsense style, while Raph and Mikey were quick and ruthless. If you got hurt, all you needed was a slice of Pizza to get you going again. If you got really hurt, you might need to find that whole pizza to save the day. Got 3 friends and 4 quarters? Take on the foot in this epic arcade game. Dont forget some extra quarters because a continue or two will be necessary to keep all four together.
3: NBA Jam
Left, Right, A, B, B, A. Left, Right, A, B, B, A. That was the code I always entered to get the full court dunks going on my SNES. The arcade version was different though. Still, you wanna talk about a great game. The graphics son!? The graphics!? No way did they have real looking faces on these players. Three makes in a row and you're on fire. Want to play as the Vancouver Grizzlies? Then it looks like you've gotta hook up with Shareef Abdur Raheem and "Big Country" Bryant Reeves. No MJ on this bad boy, but you could take BJ Armstrong and Scotty to the top if you knew what you were doing. In fact, why not enter a code and play as Frank Thomas (Chicago White Sox) and pair him with scotty. Game, set, match, bitch.
2. Street Fighter II
This may have been the first game to try to bring together all of the worlds cultures, only to have them beat the $#!T out of each other. Take it to Brazil with Blanka, keep it sexy with the Spanish flair Vega brought to the table, or fight the good fight with Guile. The odd the thing about this game was that you very rarely fought in the street. If you were Guile, you fought in front of a ship which I always referred to as the "USS Beat Down." Blanka fought in front of his jungle home. Vega was a straight up cage match waiting to happen.
Street Fighter II was the first and only game that I could never win. My Hadukens were too weak. My E-Honda fast hands were too slow. My Blank electrocution move always left me assed-out. Still, this game was so hot, they turned into a movie starting Jean Claude Van Damme. I was already inspired by Blood Sport, but then he did this, taking Street Fighter to the next level.
1: Mortal Kombat II
I still remember the day I first discovered Mortal Kombat. The fat kid that my brother was friends with had a GameBoy and brought it over one day when I was 8 years old. Next thing I know, I'm at the Arcade wasting the quarters I took from the couch trying to perfect my moves.
As good as Street Fighter was, Mortal Kombat was even better. Street Fighter proved to be conservative and dry compared to Mortal Kombat. Blood was everywhere, and fatalities changed the game forever. And let's not forget about those graphics son! The graphics!
There was no internet back then, so the only way to know about the fatalities was to buy the official Prima strategy guide. After my friend got that guide, we picked our characters based on how solid the fatalities were. Mortal Kombat introduced fatalities, but what people tend to forget about MKII is that there were now "Friendships" and "Babalities." Babalities were really, really lame, but Friendships, if executed with the right character were nothing short of amazing. I hated playing as Johnny Cage, but if I did, and I won, please believe I was gonna friendship your ass in a heartbeat. The deep voiced announcer would say "Friendship! Friendship!" Then Johnny would whip out a photo of himself, autograph it, and display it so that your opponent could know that there were no hard feelings and that you could still be a fan and a friend.
HONORABLE MENTION:
Donkey Kong, Centipede, Dance Dance Revolution, Tekken, Space Invaders, The Simpsons.
This is my list, if you think youve got a better one, don't hesitate to put it out there in comment form. Hollar.
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