Best Arcade Game of All Time!

ZMan wrote:

Egg Shen wrote:
However, if I'm being objective...it's probably Robotron 2084 or Joust.

I vote for Robotron 2084.

And Berserk.

Kudos to Elevator Action. And may others. Asteroids, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Pac-Man, etc.

Elevator Action and Dig Dug were fantastic. I'd still play either of those readily.

ZMan wrote:

Egg Shen wrote:
However, if I'm being objective...it's probably Robotron 2084 or Joust.

I vote for Robotron 2084.

And Berserk.

Kudos to Elevator Action. And may others. Asteroids, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Pac-Man, etc.

Zev, you just rattled off pretty much most of my favorites! All of those games are timeless classics. If I had the room I'd buy a few of them for sure.

Egg Shen wrote: Zev, you just rattled off pretty much most of my favorites! All of those games are timeless classics. If I had the room I'd buy a few of them for sure.

You could always get a MAME cabinet. If I have the room and means when I'm retired, that will be one thing to put on my bucket list of hobby activities.

If I'm allowed to pick outside of that initial list, I think my favourite arcade games were

Steel Talons - playing head-to-head chasing each other through canyons is about as much as fun as you can have in an arcade

Top Landing - endorphins would fire off when I'd see this in an arcade

Empire City 1931 (my dad's favourite arcade game, I have amazing memories of spending entire afternoons together in Winnipeg when I was a kid with him playing this game and I'd be on Ms.Pac-Man or something) - I love this game and i get choked up when I play it

(also I agree about elbowing in Double Dragon, that's all I ever did. It was boring. Although the bat was fun)

I grew up in an arcade. There was nothing to do in our town except play in the woods or go to the bowling alley/laundry mat/ arcade/restaurant (yeah, one place) which was owned by my buddies parents. So many days were wasted there.

Defender was the first game to really blow my mind. I loved Robotron, Ladybug, Dig Dug, and Karate Champ.

Dragon's Lair was cool to look at because of the legitimately great animation. But that was about it for me.

But when Gauntlet came out four of us could play at once, as a result it got played more than anything. It was such an awesome feeling to just have a big party and all work together, it completely changed how I looked at video games.

So if I have to choose from your list that is what I'd go with. It wasn't technically the best game of it's time but everything from Double Dragone to Gears of War owes it a little something and the social aspect was through the roof. It was, basically, the most fun I had in an arcade.

Technically while I loved Double Dragon, I enjoyed playing Golden Axe more.

Zev- did you ever check out Elevator Action 2? It was even better... 2 person co-op.

For the curious, here is a gallery detailing the construction of my mame cab.

Xenophobe, because 3 broke college students can play for a very long time on one quarter a piece, even if high.

Double Dragon had a flaw whereas you basically could elbow to death every opponent and they had no counter.

Besides Gauntlet, the scroller I spent a lot of time on was Black Tiger.

• MS PAC-MAN is forever awesome. PAC-MAN is great, and MS PAC-MAN is strictly better. I love this game. My wife plays this. That's a testament to it's power.
• STREET FIGHTER II: CHAMPION EDITION is the best fighting game ever. Balance is amazing throughout and they fixed Guile's hacks. I couldn't count on Dhalsim being automatic anymore with Vega in the mix.
• TOURNAMENT CYBERBALL 2020 is the only game to come close to getting more money out of me than SF2. With two screens and four players, this is an awesome experience.

I'll throw a vote in for Robotron 2084. However, I think if you get good enough at it, you can get to where you're getting guys faster than the robots are killing you, at the highest setting. I was never that good, but my brother could play it for hours, until he got tired of playing.