20 Underrated ARCADE Games from the 80s and 90s
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- My home away from home. Anytime I was anywhere on vacation or even just stores around town, always wanted to know arcade games they had. Here's a list of some of my favorites over the year.
Arcade Games Featured:
Willow
G.I. Joe
Blue Print
Cowboys of Moo Mesa
A.P.B.
Quartet
Crime Fighters
Congo Bongo
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Roc'n Rope
Mr. Do's Wild Ride
Devil World
Guzzler
The Real Ghostbusters
Jungle Hunt / Jungle King
Missing in Action (M.I.A.)
Kangaroo
WWF WrestleFest
Crystal Castles
Reactor
Games Featured in the Opening:
Dragon Breed
Bag Man
Haunted Castle
Hook
Kickle Cubical
Domino Man
Journey
Assault
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The BEST games available on iiRcade - th-cam.com/video/jZREcuh0wEE/w-d-xo.html
Roc'n Rope was one of my favorite games of all time
Remember when we carried coins in our pocket.
Then we would go to the pay phone and call for a ride and while waiting go to the News stand and pick up a magazine... Pepperidge Farm remembers😂. Man it's weird when you could start a history class for youngsters on what a dial up Modem, Pay Phones, and Rotary Telephones are among other things!
Forget about the coins in our pockets. What about the the dollar to coin machines we all used??? Or dollar to tokens?
Still do because I'm Welsh/British 😂 we have £2 coins which is about $2.40
Bezerk remembers...'COIN DETECTED IN POCKET'
Narc was a funny game
Man I miss the arcades. Remember going to the mall each week blowing my allowance.
Arcades are back in the form of barcades, but I'm not sure if its a trend, or here to stay. Its not like it used to be though. I remember back when pizza hut was an actual restaurant, mine had a mini-arcade and an analog juke box lol.
Edit: for the sake of the recent-years' burgeoning of interest in gaming history, i feel that i should add that arcades never went out of fashion, in Japan!
Even then, I just miss arcade machines in general. There was a diner I used to go to fairly often back when I was a kid, and I'd always be on the King of Fighters that they had near the front door. I don't remember which KoF it was, but it was probably 95 or 98.
I mean, sure, I can emulate all of these games on my Xbox Series S, and my PC. No big deal. In fact, I do. Regularly. But, there's just something about shoving a quarter or two into the machine and seeing how long you could manage to play. Even more fun if you're in a full arcade, and you have people in line waiting for their turn. Even if you weren't doing particularly well, you'd gather a few people watching you play while they wait. It was just...fun. Fun to play with and against people, fun to have people watching when you play solo, and fun to sit and watch others play.
And don't even get me started on fighting games, where the winner would stay on, and you'd be swapping in and out trying to beat the previous winner. At that point it was a coop game where everyone wanted to beat the current champ.
Man I miss public, social gaming. Nowadays it's all online, and barely anyone uses a mic. Might as well just be playing by myself at that point.
And then, on top of all that, it's $50-60 or more, just to get a half decent arcade controller to plug into your Xbox or PC, just to even attempt to get the same feel.
Good to see Cowboys of Moo Mesa getting some love. That game was fun but never gets talked about.
Blueprint was an early game from Tim and Chris Stamper who went on to become the founders of Rare (Goldeneye, Donkey Kong Country etc..). Before that they were Ultimate, who are probably most recognised as a top UK home computer developer of the early 80's.
Wrestlefest... easily my favorite wrestling game of all time. Nothing is better than seeing your characters grapple and slamming the buttons as fast as you could! It was one of those games you could tell people were playing from across the bowling alley just from the sound of all the button-slapping.
Punch, punch, back up to dodge the return punch. Move in for the third punch then special move. Wash, rinse, repeat. Once you learned this, you mastered the game.
In spite of this, I played anyways cause it was fun. All the wrestler selection.
I like the words “enjoy someone’s art” spot on.
The one game I always looked for in the arcades was Crazy Climber. The dual stick set up for each side of the body was very different.
It's funny how, while arcades aren't nearly as around as they once were, my nieces and nephews still love to play arcade machines when they are available, whether at movie theaters, bowling alleys, Top Golf, etc. Even though they have Xbox and Switch which both offer far superior games these days, the fascination of dropping quarters into machines isn't completely lost on modern day children.
the home consoles just can not compare to the thrill of beating a level on an arcade machine and having a bunch of strangers cheer you on
I remember going to the arcade in the 90s and having PC games at home. The change clerk at the arcade once asked me why I still came. The home versions of the arcade games sucked then.
That arcade is now a Scientology office…
The video rental store around the corner from my house, had Saturday Night Slammasters (which me and all my friends got together and played Friday & Saturday Nights) & Quartet, which I spent more quarters on then I can count; & thanks to your channel (in a different video)helped to remember the name of it after 20yrs! We also had a bigger arcade at our local mall, where Centipede, my all time favorite arcade game, kept my high score before it finally shut down.
I watch the old Starcade game show and see my old favorite games that are no longer around. Man I do miss old arcades.
I remember that too. It broadcasted from San Francisco, only 30 minutes away from where I grew up. I so wanted to be on that show. Used to watch it every weekday afternoon after school on WTBS.
They never showed up in arcades near me, but I played the hell out of the Atari 2600 ports of Kangaroo, Crystal Castles and Roc N Rope. I remember playing Guzzler once in Florida in 81/82 - I was there on vacation with my grandparents, and there was some remote gift store/alligator farm that actually had that inside. The wide range of establishments where you could find arcade games in the '80s was nuts.
Finally! Someone remembers Devil World. I've been trying to remember the name of that game for so long. It's one of those forgotten games that I actually loved playing. The thing is, no one ever knew what I was talking about when I'd bring it up. Now that I've done a Google search, I think it may have been called Dark Adventure when I played it, but still the same game.
Three Wonders always gets overlooked. Solid game.
Word.
Love that one! Have it on my Capcom collection for PSP
not overlooked at all
I agree. I think it's because the machine had 3 games and they don't know how to categorize it.
Nice to see Congo bongo get some love. I like that game so much it is my keyring
Arcade Games Featured:
Willow
G.I. Joe
Blue Print
Cowboys of Moo Mesa
A.P.B.
Quartet
Crime Fighters
Congo Bongo
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Roc'n Rope
Mr. Do's Wild Ride
Devil World
Guzzler
The Real Ghostbusters
Jungle Hunt / Jungle King
Missing in Action (M.I.A.)
Kangaroo
WWF WrestleFest
Crystal Castles
Reactor
Games Featured in the Opening:
Dragon Breed
Bag Man
Haunted Castle
Hook
Kickle Cubical
Domino Man
Journey
Assault
John thank you so much for this video! Your video helped me to remember playing an arcade game I loved at my local rental store back in the 90's, Quartet! I had been unable to find anything about that game & I couldn't remember the name of it or even a picture trying to figure out what the heck it was called & it drove me crazy for years to remember it! You are the man!
I thought Willow was available on SNES
Bucky O'Hare was dope too and dungeons and dragons.
I remembered this as if it was yesterday. Thanks for the video!
Solomon's Key. Not on the list but one of the best.
One thing younger folks will never understand is how gritty a lot of arcades were. You could buy alcohol in some states at 18 until 1984 and they didn't even enforce that. Arcades were filled with cigarette smoke and drunk teenagers. Being in a busy arcade at night at 8 or 10 years old felt so awesome (and maybe a little scary, I was from the suburbs).
Enjoyed the video...wow didn't know Rush Attack had a sequel...
Thanks Big JR some classics there i had totally forgotten about!
I think i've spent so much money in wrestlefest as kid that i could have bought one.
Same
haha, I'm with you. Earthquake solo, but my tag team was always Jack Roberts and Mr. Perfect.
I was always a Dibiasi and Warrior tag team guy. I’m curious as to how Retromania is going to be since it’s a spiritual successor to it.
Loved it, but I was always pretty gutted my boy Ravishing Rick Rude wasnt in it.
@@JohnRiggs there was one guy playing it in an arcade and during the final match against Legion of Doom inserted another quarter and selected them and carried on his playthrough with them. Legion of Doom made the game seem pretty easy. It was one of the best wrestling game back then and even now.
WrestleFest was my favorite Arcade game growing up. Definitely dumped a lot of quarters into that one.
Sure did brah 🤜
I spent so many quarters playing great games like Bubble Bobble, Gauntlet, Black Tiger, Magic Sword and Rastan. The arcade I went to had Rastan on really loud. The music was epic.
Quartet is a game that I've been trying to remember the name of FOREVER! Thank you so much for this video.
Same here. It took me decades to find out the name.
Reactor was in the Arcade?!?!?! I had that game for my Atari and, for something so simple, it was very addictive!
It was! Trackball game if I remember. I had it for Atari 2600, too.
Jungle Hunt was an arcade game? I always see that game mentioned as a 2600 game.
i loved Kangaroo! I was so stoked that my sister bought me this game for my Atari 5200!!!
I had it for mine too! Loved it. Unfortunately I also had Congo Bongo on my 5200 as well. To this day one of my most hated games. So glitched.
Boogie Wings is a good one that most people don't know about.
I really do miss arcade games being just everywhere. From our Straw Hat Pizza where we played Crystal Castles and Cloak n' Dagger (where the movie was derived), A&W Restaurant with Phoenix, 7-Eleven where we had Gyruss, Elevator Action and Donkey Kong 3 to our local Safeway which had a Jungle Hunt. The 80s were really one of the best decades to be alive!
Hey John. I'm loving this Must Play series that you've started. Tons of fun games that don't always come to mind, and some I've never heard of. It's making me want to go play them.
This is what I love about your channel. I'm building a cabinet and will definitely be playing a lot of these! I love your underrated game videos
I’m loving these retrospective videos John.
KANGAROO!!!!! WRESTLEFEST!!!! 👍👍
Oh man ... I just got transported back to being a kid for a few minutes watching this ... thanks for the nostalgia ... and now I HAVE to find versions to play on an emulator.
a game you never hear about is Rastan 3. Not part 1 or 2 but 3. It had 2 monitors and the sprites were huge. I loved playing Rastan 3 in the arcade. And also "Do Run Run" is another game that is always left out when people talk about Mr. Do games
Had cowboys of moo Mesa at pizzahut, love that game.
Your video is right on time John! Made my own 2 player bartop arcade. Took me some time but now it's ready I can check most of these games out! Where I live, there were no arcades but I can remember the Bubble Bobble arcade game at the local fastfood joint. Really loved it.
Fantastic list. I actually modded a vertical screen Arcade1Up recently and was having trouble separating the wheat from the chaff since the image I used had so many roms. I was more of a 90's arcade guy, so I knew about the classics, like Galaga and Donkey Kong, but never knew about stuff like Guzzler, Roc'n Rope, and Congo Bongo. Those are all on my vertical cab, so I'm definitely going to check them out now.
Awesome arcade games! I’m hoping most of these are on My Pandora’s Box 12 Arcade stick plug n play coming soon :)
Awesome video!
Many of these (if not all) are on mine so we'll hope so! Along with 52 varieties of King of Fighters and Street Fighter :)
Good list. Nice to see Wild West C.O.W Boys of Moo Mesa and Crime Fighters get some love. I played the hell out of WWF Wrestlefest too, whenever I could find it.
You are the only other person outside of my friends from grade school that Ive seen mention Mr. Dos Wild Ride! My local grocery store in the mid-late 80s had this cabinet. The only time Ive ever seen it. I loved this game and the nostalgia it brings back from those days is crazy. I know I sunk well over $100 worth of quarters into it over a few years as a kid. I was addicted.
My favorite Do game is Do Run Run. The little clown had staying power!
Great video. The sound effects are like a time machine, that take you back in time, being a teenager having an awesome time.
Great list, glad someone else remembers games like Blueprint, Quartet, and Roc'n Rope! Crime Fighters is excellent, seems to get overlooked when talking about beat em ups. Hadn't heard of Devil World. Thanks for sharing!
Cool video. I have played a few of the games on your list, but thank you so much for including A.P.B. I used to love playing that game, it had a unique feel to it.
This is a really good video! I played a lot of Kangaroo and Jungle Hunt in arcades as a kid. There was also a Jungle Hunt in a Ground Round restaurant we used to go to many years ago. I still play them on the 2600 and ColecoVision. APB I have on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for PS2. That's a tough game.
For me its a shooting game called Beast Busters, zombie shooter that was only at one arcade far from where i lived, and anytime i got to go i would dump so much into that one game. One that plenty have heard of was Mad Dog McRee, the Full Motion Video games, on PC especially, was my youth.
GREAT video man! Wonderful trip down memory lane ... God, I hadn't thought of Congo Bongo or Jungle King in decades!! Lol
Between Congo Bongo and Ikari Warriors, I'm pretty sure I paid the rent a couple months for Straw Hat Pizza in Spokane Valley. LOVED WWF Wrestle fest too!! Outstanding work sir!
I love the name Straw Hat Pizza. We didn't have one in Yakima.
Konami's "Devil World" arcade game shouldn't be confused with Nintendo's Famicom title "Devil World", which was actually a maze game like Pac-Man, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, no less. It was released in PAL territories for the NES, but was never officially released in North America.
Thank you for the cowboys of moo mesa nod. My friends and I still talk about it to this day. It was at Fuddruckers in Fargo ND when I was a kid. Sadly both are gone now
Just be thankful you got to experience that man, it was slim pickins getting someone who was headed towards Jamestown, ND for me to play the paltry few games they had and I remember those 80 mile round trips fondly😁
OMG, APB, I loved that game so much, played it a ton in the arcades back in the day. It's one of those games that is difficult to play well today and feel right due to the controls.
I loved the murmmered voice.
10:48 Gottleib cabinets always seemed to have beefier sound than other games :) I have similar fond memories of another Gottleib arcade game called "Mad Planets" which had this incredibly bassy synth-riff going on and the kind of raw synthesized sound effects that are pure arcade nostalgia-fuel for me.
Sadly that game never saw any home versions (iirc) due to it having a non-standard control method: a combination of a joystick to move & shoot and a spinner to turn your ship to face any direction instantly. Home systems simply couldn't replicate that back then, but it would be pretty easy nowadays with twin-stick controllers being standard on most home systems.
Mad Planets had amazingly good gameplay IMO. It has the same controls as Tron which would make it a great addition to a Tron/Satan's Hollow Mame control panel.
I really loved Smash TV and Trog.
Probably my games I’ve pumped the most quarters on into, aside from Street Fighter 2.
TROG!! Great call.
Thanks for including Reactor! My local arcade also had this game cranked. This game had great sound effects esp. the bonus chamber bouncing noises and the reactor shinking noise, so cool.
The pacing of the video and your comments is great! Much better than the other videos that play the games too long and don't have anyone speaking.
Thanks for bumping this Riggs. Missed it when it came out. I'm in your age group and going to those dark, smoke filled arcades of the 80's was the best. I became a pro at Karate Champ and Time Pilot at the corner store as well! My school lunch money went right into the cabinets! Good times and good memories.
Great video. Brought back many great memories. Just subscribed. 😁
Great video. Glad you mentioned Crystal Castles I love it so much.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I've always liked going down the arcade and I've always liked arcade games. Some really good games in this video.
Hey thank you for all you do for the retro community !!!! Your vids are always playing in my store!!!!!
Great list Riggs😁 Can't wait for the next video, I love this series.Smash TV was one of my go to games back in the day.
love those twin stick shooters.
Oh man you just took me back! I loved APB as a kid. Probably only got to play it a handful of times but I remember it...so unique!
Wow, I'm glad I watched this, I totally forgot half of these.
Very good list. Good to see APB get some love! One of my favorite lesser known games is Lucky and Wild.
I use to loooove The Real Ghostbusters arcade machine at my local Bullwinkles. So happy you mentioned it!
I have not seen (or heard of) many of the arcade games on the list, but they look really cool. Thank you for the video.
You have some great classic games on here! Nice video!
Oh John, you just wing me back to my childhood. Loved all the Mr. Do! games, although the original was still my jam. Roc'n'Rope.... you played this too? Way too much fun! Yet more reasons why the 80's were amazing!
Crime Fighters!!!! Thank you! I’ve been trying to remember the name of that game forever! It was at the pizzeria when I was a kid, and I’ve never seen it anywhere else since
Thank you for covering Blueprint! I played that once about 30 years ago, and it's one of those games I'd love to see on something like the Switch again!
Totally!
Loved APB, spy hunter, wrestlefest and kid nikki in the arcades when I was young.
Thanks for the video. Totally hadn't thought about Cowboys of Moo Mesa since it was on TV when I was a kid. Wow, memories. Had no idea that it was an arcade game also.
You have some good ones here dude. I spent a lot of time in Funspot growing up, which has most of these. Roc'n Rope is one where I always remembered playing it, but could never recall the name, so thanks for that!
My childhood dog was named Montana after Moo Montana... Loved Cowboys of the Moo-mesa... 😁
Bag Man was a arcade game that I played a lot when I was a kid. Very simple concept but it was tough as nails. Nice list brutha
Best part of APB for me was just driving off into the wilderness. Wrestlefest was brilliant fun. And seeing Express Raider inthe intro brought back some of my earliest arcade memories. Good times
Thanks for a great list of games I've never played before! My favourite is definetely Cowboys of Moo Mesa, absolutely love it!!!
Oooohh yes! The arcade game room was one passionate past time for me! The smell emitting from those machines was pure bliss! I also loved playing the non-mainstream games: Crazy Climber, Bump n' Jump, Space Firebird, Bara Duke, Looping, and Tutankham!
Bump n Jump was fantastic...
APB takes me back, apparently I had totally blocked it from my mind.
I remember playing it late at night in a downtown Seattle arcade.
Thanks for the memory jostling!
Happy Holidays ☃️ Riggs family
Thanks for the Congo Bongo discovery. I never knew about this one. Awesome
Love these reviews. Wish it was longer. Thanks for sharing.
20 is plenty of games at one time, but there'll be a part two sometime.
@@JohnRiggs it's what i meant. I want more series. Can't wait. Long live John Riggs !!!!!!
You could make a pretty good selection of awesome obscure arcade games by just looking at the Colecovision library. They did an impressive job of finding licenses that Atari had ignored or overlooked, often because they were arcade busts or modest successes.
Cosmic Avenger, Ladybug, Venture, Mr Do, Carnival, Looping, Pepper II, Front Line, Frenzy, Victory, Buck Rogers. None of these was Pac-Man or Defender, but they were terrific games.
Thanks for this list. I'm always looking for good lesser known arcade games!
Willow is one of my favorite arcade games, I don't hear people talk about it almost at all. I have a copy on my Pandora's Box along with the Cow Boys of Moo Messa you mentioned, which is also great.
For me others I'd include are Black Tiger, 3 Wonderers, Combatribes, Off Road, Super Qix, and the arcade version of Tetris by Atari
YES! The Willow arcade game was fantastic. Could never beat i think the 3rd stage though :(
Yea that was a favor of mine I found it after I saw the movie
I’m really glad you covered Devil World aka Dark Adventure. A lot of people don’t know about that game. I used to play it a lot back in the day.
holy moly! I completely forgot about Quartet but then when I saw it I was immediately brought back to my childhood! THANK YOU!!!!!
Thank you for mentioning the arcade game Guzzler. I played the game at a roller skating rink in fourth grade. I tried to find the arcade game on Google inputting the objective and describing the game. Failed. I smiled when I saw Guzzler in the video.
So many treasures forgotten over the years. When I think of all the arcade game art and music assets and gaming concepts that didn't get their due (even in their day) and remain obscure, largely forgotten, it makes me a bit sad. Glad we have content like this to remind us. NICE
Awesome video! Oh the memories... many of these are on my list as well.
Kongo Bongo was hard, had that for the Atari 5200, never played it in the arcade though.
Super Turbo is an arcade game I still play to this day, and try to get better and better.
It a game I could never get tired of.
Fantastic, not played Hook or MJ Moonwalker before, just completed them both, great video!
Excellent video!!! I really miss arcades.
I can't tell you how many quarters I pumped into the local pizza joint (Pappy's Pizza) in the 90's after soccer games playing the arcade Shinobi.
OMG John you took me waaaaay back with several of this titles another of mine was Rocky & Pocky…thanks for this video
Bagman! Dude, nobody ever even shows a snip-it of Bagman, nice. Also, great selection, couldn't agree more on your choices.
Bagman is like my favorite classic arcade game, so much so that I in fact own an original arcade machine. 😄👍
This is pure nostalgia for me. I'm 48 years old and absolutely love arcade games. I have a huge collection, with Hyperspin front end, and X-Arcade dual joysticks.
One game I played a lot at a local roller skating rink was a game called Zookeeper. The zookeeper runs around the outside perimeter of the wall replacing bricks in the wall, while the animals inside the walls are knocking chunks of the wall out and escape. In some ways the gameplay is similar to Tempest. If animals do escape, you have to jump over them or wait until a net appears and you can use the net to throw the animals back into the zoo. I spent many quarters on that game. They announced an Atari 2600 version of the game and possibly even a 5200 version of the game but that was basically when the video game crash happened. So the game never did get released.
Believe it or not, there was actually a third version of Jungle Hunt called Pirate Peter, where all the graphics were changed to a pirate theme, but otherwise was the exact same game. Look it up, it's insane and Taito approved.
Some really interesting relics in this. I played several of these as a kid, but there were several here I'd never even heard of. Always fun to learn of the more obscure stuff that's still worth playing today.
Great selection. Some new ones for me to try out. Thanks.
My God, I miss arcades. 😭
2:43: Oh sh*t! No you did not bring up Cowboys of Moo Mesa. I loved that game.
Such a beautiful era…. Such charming and gorgeous visuals!