What Are The Hidden Gems of the 80's & 90's Arcade?

[4ppleseed]

PuLiRuLa is an awesome, cute-ish side-scrolling platformer/beatemup from Taito. think it saw a brief US release. Even if it didn't, I think it's uncommon and really great.

I played thru this last weekend, was great. Thanks for the tip

[racketboy]

bump!

[marurun]

Willow and PuRiLuRa are my two nominees. They've already been mentioned, but I have to hype them again. I don't know that I played many other arcade titles that were under-appreciated or under-distributed. Maybe X-Men, Children of the Atom. That one wasn't as well known as other Capcom fighters, or perhaps Cyberbots.

[CRTGAMER]

How about this old pre-shump.

TAC-SCAN
Beautiful Color Vector graphics movement with a paddle knob.

Only home release is on the rastar low res 2600.
Luckily can be played on Mame and
an unlock of PS2 Genesis Collection.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Excellent Topic!

Here's one: Daioh (Great King) - vertical shmup from Athena/Atlus 1993.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daioh

Video Footage:

I found it in the cafeteria at my old college. Basic shmup but it's still a lot of fun.

[elvis]

Juno First. Awesome 1980's faux 3D, and insane shooting action. There's few other games from that era as fast paced, hectic, or fun.

For some reason it was never as popular as Defender or Robotron, but I consider it right up there.

[Octopod]

Hot Rod - Sega

Best top down racer ever made. When I was a kid one of my local arcades had the awesome 4 player machine. It also came in a two player cab.

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... me_id=8148

[CRTGAMER]

Another oldie.

BLASTO
No not the PS1 game, the Arcade two player game

Players control movement of the ships with not a direction pad or stick, but the direction and fire buttons Asteroids style. Later models switched to a joystick which I think lost the novelty. Plays like Sierra Crossfire keyboard controls on the PC. Very cool how the ship will spin at a tap of a direction fire button. Holding button down will first instant spin to given direction and like your keyboard slight delay then zip across the screen like a stuck key, but very quick. Limitations of technology at the time actually a plus in how the spaceships instant spin and controlled. Idea is to shoot the minefield for points, as well as the opponent. Certain large mines explode in a domino affect, risk of getting caught in the chain reaction explosion. The cool strategy is one gets fixed on racking points in clearing the mines, losing track of the opponent. End up getting caught in the explosions.

The joystick Arcade version
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... me_id=7147

Shameless plug, my inspired color homebrew version.
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 67#p278767

Arcade version:


Two player delight:

[J T]

Chelnov: Atomic Runner (read my review)
Three Wonders (3 games in one by Capcom)
Numen Athletics (futuristic Track n Field style game)
Super Sonic Blast Man (you had to physically hit a punching bag to test your your strength and get your character to defeat giant monsters attacking the city)
Time Killers (great little ultra-violent fighting game)

[CRTGAMER]

It's a bit easier to come up with a list of hidden gems for a console since there is a reasonable number of games to browse through, but the arcades in the 80's and 90's had tons of games to choose from.

Try to think of arcade games that were top-notch, but a lot of people don't know about...

How about Twin Stick Arcade games.

Sure, the known ones are Virtua On, Battle Zone, Smash TV and the great Robotron.

Maybe these uncommon ones?

BLACK WIDOW
Robotron style game play using Vector color screen.


SPACE DUNGEON
Again Robotron controls but with an Venture Arcade type of room search.
Only home release is on the Atari 5200, 5200 sticks actually work fine with this one.
..... Atari 5200 version (Below)


CRAZY CLIMBER
Left stick-Up Right Stick- Down, Left stick -Down Right Stick- Up! Pull up, grab, pull again!
Really feels like you are climbing
and grabbing the window edges.