Classic Arcade Video Game Experiences

After watching the the following clip on Classic Arcade Video Games death I was going to write my experiences with video arcade games.

I first started player video games in the late seventies when the first pong arcade game was installed at the local pub and we sneaked in to play the game as kids.

Pong

Pong is based on table tennis and we first played these on table tops in local pubs. Latter games such as Arkanoid and breakout were based on pong and I played them on our hanimex.

Space Invaders
Space Invaders came soon after Pong in our small country town but for some reason, I never played the arcade Space Invader version that much due to cost. In our hanimex (atari competitor) we played it so much that the joystick busted and just played with the steel part of the joystick.

Pac Man
Pac Man was another game that I didn's play that much but was interested in all the media associated with the game and the pacman competitions.

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong was one of my favourites when we moved from a small town to a big city. First week in the city my mother took us to Video game arcade which would become one of our favourite places growing up.

Asteroids
Asteroids was also one my regular games in the Video Arcade

Track and Field
Played this game alot at our local fish and chip chop. Was champ in 100m sprint until some people used icepole sticks to aid them in the sprints

Galaga
Galaga is video game that I would say have played the most. Majority was at Fish and Chip shops. Getting two ships and trying to get complete 100% bonus is still a good memory.

Which brings up another story when I was in form two, I would stay overnight with my friend. We would sleep outside in a hammock. When everyone asleep we would go to town to the video arcades.

Xevious
Xevious was a fun tabletop game that I played in a lot of arcades up to when i was in university

Missile strike
Missile strike would have special controller like a ball. Different controller was fun.

Joust

Probably the most memorable arcade game when I first went to arcade games.

Karate Champ

Mainly in Arcades interesting because one of first fighting games that I felt was realistic for its time and used 2 joysticks and no buttons. Loved this game as I was a big martial arts fan.

Pole Position

Really first racing game that I regularly played.

Outrun

One of the best racing games when you were in those racing rigs and actually thought you were a racing driver before getting L Plates.

Tetris

I spent a significant amount of University breaks between lectures playing Tetris in the food hall. Thought I was smart by being one of the Tetris champs must have been a geek. But my favourite was 3d Tetris for PC

1942

1942 was one of the first top-down overhead airplane shooters. As the screen moves vertically, the enemy airplanes emerge from the top and bottom of the screen. Interesting but I died to early in this game.

Altered Beast

Altered Beast is a good example of an arcade game that borrowed heavily from Double Dragon (beatem-up co-op), but I liked the graphics and the experience better in Altered Beast. But picking up steel pole and wacking people never got old for Double Dragon

Punch-Out

My favourite figthing game as never got into street fighter but loved boxing.

Really good memories in writing this post and the reality is I have been playing computer games for more than thirty years. The later games have much better graphics but some of my best experiences was those early games e.g Gridiron fight vs Madden.

Now thinking about it I think it was mainly the prestige of beating your friends in that particular video game.