Gauntlet
Inventive, overhead dungeon roamer with impressive synthesised speech from the machine’s Texas Instruments sound chip – which was also used on many of Atari’s games of the time. One of the first coin-ops to feature four-player simultaneous play, characters needed to co-operate over keys, food and magic while taking on a breadth of enemies among the puzzling labyrinths.
Publisher Atari
Yie Ar Kung Fu
The slimline grand-daddy of one-on-one brawlers, where would Streetfighter 2, Mortal Kombat and Tekken be without this pioneering title? Oolong, the main protagonist, could deliver up to 16 unique moves, on his journey past 11 different opponents, each with varying fighting characteristics.
Publisher Konami
Operation Wolf
One of the first titles to provide players with a light-gun - this one swivel-mounted on the cabinet with innovative rumble feedback built-in. Wonderfully apolitically correct by today’s standards, the game sees you shooting the Taliban’s long-lost cousins as well as the odd farm animal – this replenishes ammunition supplies, obviously. Classically adored action with three sequels, and most home platforms of the day had a conversion.
Publisher Taito
Next page: R-Type
COMMENTS
This is an outrage
No Afterburner on the list? For shame, sir!
Bestest Game Evar!
I suspect the 'best' coin-ops were the popular ones when you were 12-16 years old, however old you are.
(unless you're under 20, in which case you can just f*ck off back to your console)
Space invaders, yes, of course
But where was Galaxians? Space invaders that attacked you from behind - spent far too much money on that one.
And Gorf: "SOME GALACTIC COMMANDER *YOU* MAKE"
Showing my age, I know. I got bored with video games after then, never got into PC/console gaming at all.
Others
The definitive list will never be agreed on, but here are my faves from the era:
Bubble Bobble (I mean, come on! 100 levels, hidden portals, easter eggs galore)
Wonder Boy (I can still hum the music)
Shinobi
1943
