What 1980s-90s arcade games were you best at?

[MTVike]

I was probably best at Defender although I had a definite ceiling.

Took a while, but I could usually play indefinitely on one quarter. (back in college, when I was being true to my gal back home...). The challenge then was to get on the high score board. The problem was that at a certain point late in the game just about every thing you hit resulted in a new ship, making it very difficult to die off and get "high score" since you'd go over a million points or whatever it was and be at zero. Finally figured out how to hyperspace my ships into oblivion and end up under the 1,000,000 point ceiling.

I still have a callous on my thumb from the joystick. No shit.

 

[SDGuy73]

Space Invaders

 

[SDGuy73]

R-Type

 

[SDGuy73]

Pole Position

 

[SDGuy73]

Hard Drivin'

With a force feedback steering wheel and a shifter with a clutch, there were plenty of people who felt they learned to drive on Hard Drivin'.

This game was awesome!

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

Pole Position

Awesome...loved this one.

A few years back at a yard sale, I bought my kids one of those plug-n-play consoles that had about 7 old school classics on it. Pole Position was one of them, along with Galaga, Xevious, Ms. Pac-Man, and a couple of others.

 

[Rockinkuwait]

NBA Jam was my best. I wasn't bad at that Smash TV game...

 

[Payton]

NBA Jam was my best. I wasn't bad at that Smash TV game...

Yeah, at college I used to hang out in the arcade and there would always be a line of challengers on NBA JAM playing four players (two v two)... Me and this other dude for shits and giggles always took the Lakers (Anyone who remembers the original game knows the Lakers were NOT a good or sexy team to have in that game), and he would rain 3's with Vlade Divac while I would pull off really lame dunks with a geriatric James Worthy... We kicked ass with them though...

I remember the Hornets and the Heat were two of the most popular teams that everyone took... I don't remember who the pair was for either, Glenn Rice and Kendall Gill maybe for the Hornets?

 

[Clayton]

Yeah, at college I used to hang out in the arcade and there would always be a line of challengers on NBA JAM playing four players (two v two)... Me and this other dude for shits and giggles always took the Lakers (Anyone who remembers the original game knows the Lakers were NOT a good or sexy team to have in that game), and he would rain 3's with Vlade Divac while I would pull off really lame dunks with a geriatric James Worthy... We kicked ass with them though...

I remember the Hornets and the Heat were two of the most popular teams that everyone took... I don't remember who the pair was for either, Glenn Rice and Kendall Gill maybe for the Hornets?

Depends on the version of NBA Jam.

Spurs, Suns and Bulls were the best IIRC. Bulls didn't have MJ but Pippen was given Lebron stats for some reason. Suns were the best shooting team IIRC. Spurs had 1 3pt dude and David Robinson.

Jam TE added a lot more relevant teams. You could use almost anyone IIRC. I forget NBA Showtime but that game was a bit silly.

 

[Cyder]

My brother and I beat this game back around 1988-89. There was a Sheetz that had just this game back in the corner of the store a few blocks from our house. Basically robbed every member of my family of all of their quarters they had saved up to feed the habit that week. We both got grounded once everyone noticed their quarters were gone but it was worth it!


I had 1 really good run playing Galaga once in the early 1990s and haven't come close to duplicating such an amazing achievement playing that game.

Those were 3 of my favorites. Great games

 

[Payton]

Depends on the version of NBA Jam.

Spurs, Suns and Bulls were the best IIRC. Bulls didn't have MJ but Pippen was given Lebron stats for some reason. Suns were the best shooting team IIRC. Spurs had 1 3pt dude and David Robinson.

Jam TE added a lot more relevant teams. You could use almost anyone IIRC. I forget NBA Showtime but that game was a bit silly.

Hornets were LJ and Kendall Gill, Heat had Seikaly and Rice and the Magic with Shaq and Skiles... But yeah, the Spurs with Robinson and Elliott were good too... Keep in mind that I played at an arcade at FSU, so the team choices were slanted toward the Florida teams. Just so happens they were both pretty good too..

 

[night]

I posted top scores on most of the games that had those plastic guns with them. Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam were a ton of fun too.

 

[Montecristo Jones]

 

[USCDoom]

 

[outofyourmind]

I could go forever on Pac Man.

I got to be undefeated on this stupid Football Arcade game.
I ran the Wishbone of course and couldn't be stopped.




Had a buddy that could play Missile Command all day long.
I could never master that one.

 

[Ojb81]

I could only beat arcade games when I had the determination and enough quarters.

I loved playing Spy Hunter, but never beat it. The two games I recall beating were TMNT: The Arcade Game...

and The Simpsons Arcade Game.

And I played those games mostly because I could get the occasional help from my brother or one of my sisters.

I was obsessed with that TMNT arcade game as an 8 yr old kid. I literally mastered the nintendo version of it, i wish i could play it right now lol

 

[Ojb81]

In 1999-2000, there was a Fox and Hound that had NFL Blitz '99. I found a play that was basically a "hail mary" that worked EVERY SINGE TIME so naturally I would destroy the high score and at the time, I never thought about if maybe the game was connected to the internet so I "COULD" had had the best score ever? I would beat teams by 80+ points every time. It was quite boring actually.

Ya know, I actually bought that game for my N64 in the late 90's and that mf'ing game would NEVER let you completely annihilate it, the computer would ALWAYS come back and have the game come down to the last play, no matter what you'd try to do. Used to piss me off royally because i knew it was coming and I still couldnt keep it from happening

 

[obxyankeefan]

The store on the corner was too poor to afford Pac-Man. So I got pretty good at Ladybug

 

[USCDoom]

 

[USCDoom]