So cel wasn’t too mad at jefbot for getting rid of a couple kids who may or may not have spent more money at the arcade (JEFBOT.275), but now that the Cornfather is eating away profits, can she still keep her cool? I think jefbot may have to do some fast talking in the next strip.
And as an informal poll (which may turn into a more official one if I get enough responses) I’d like to ask: what’s your favorite game from the arcades? No console games (which means no choices from your Atari 2600, Intellivision, NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast, etc. libraries), only arcade games. A few of you have already mentioned Galaga, Centipede, Dig Dug, Burger Time and Pac-Man. Any others? My favorites are probably (in no particular order): Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong Jr., Star Castle, Discs of Tron, and Dragon’s Lair. Let me hear your faves!
yay!!
Oh that wacky Cornfather!! Love how you did the background in panel one!!
thanks! glad you noticed and liked the background. it’s kind of sad putting a lot of time into drawing those backgrounds, which mostly get obscured anyway. but i think they add to the quality of the strip, even if only on a subliminal level. 🙂
I agree
thanks, dude. 🙂
congrats on firsting, ESQ! and within a minute, too. most impressive.
wear these with great rejoicing: 😎
there goes cornfathers chances of a employee discount
but he’s still holding out hope, Drakeye!
now i want a pretzel!
mmm… pretzels.
I would say my favorite is either Tron or Terminator Salvation.
which Tron, NNinja555? the original with the lightcycles, mcp cone, etc?
I’m all about giant pretzels, too, so I’m with the CF, here.
Does Area 51 count, if I’ve only played it in the arcade? In fact, a little after I first discovered the machine, I hired a random twelve-year old wizard to coach me (paid him in quarters for his half of a two-player–for three hours). Worth every penny.
It worries me a little, how much I enjoy the shooting games . . .
actually, Area 51 was one I was going to mention. I have a fondness for old school, sure. Dig Dug was a favorite, and I recall an old Simpsons game as well, but I barely remember more than the fact of its existence. my real heyday in the arcade was in my late teens and (fortunately for me) even into my very early twenties, when consoles were quite prominant and the arcade was just the first stage of a games release cycle and gaming mags still had an arcade reviews section. we would play a lot of Street Fighter II (and eventually things like Tekken and Virtua Fighter) or incarnations of the Gauntlet series, but what really drove us crazy were Area 51, Time Crisis 3 (remeber the little foot pedal for ducking behind cover?) and House of the Dead. My friends and I would play anything with a light gun attached. My cousin was actually quite a pacifist, even a bit anti gun in real life, but you put a light gun in her hand and give her a hostile alien invasion to deal with and she was all over it. good times.
that Simpsons game was actually one of my favorites of those side scrolling, beat-em-up games, Jed! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was pretty fun, too. and i sunk a ton of quarters into Street Fighter II – mainly because they had one in a little liquor shop near my friend’s place, and we used to challenge each other all the time. that probably has to go down as one of my all time favorites, actually.
i didn’t play a whole lot of Area 51 or House of the Dead, but i did love those Time Crisis games – yeah, that little foot pedal was pretty cool. ever play the Terminator 2: Judgment Day or Operation: Wolf light gun games? they were pretty awesome, too.
Oh man, the Simpsons game! I’d forgotten all about that one….used to play it at this one movie theatre lol…Bart with his skateboard was epic.
i love those giant pretzels too, Sarah W, though they always seem to be on the expensive side when i’m craving one. i think the pretzels they sell at movie theaters around here are like around $5 each. but then, everything’s expensive at theaters these days.
Area 51 totally counts! i’ve only played that one a few times, but liked what i experienced of it. and i’d say that’s pretty resourceful of you to get a coach to come in and help you finish that game.
and as far as your “worry” goes: better to shoot pretend things at a screen with a light gun, then real things in the real world with a real gun. 🙂
better to shoot pretend things at a screen with a light gun, then real things in the real world with a real gun
So true! Plus, no repetitive recoil injuries. Or GSR . . .
Three favorites:
1. When I was a kid: Tailgunner 2 (the sit-down version)
2. Favorite Shoot’Em Up: Terminator (came out just after the second movie – I loved shooting endoskeletons and HKs)
3. Favorite Pinball: The Addams Family (movie based)
Thanks for reminding me, how could I have forgotten about my all time favorite vector graphic game, Tail Gunner! I loved that game.
1) like Skeptible, i totally forgot about Tail Gunner, J.M.! loved that game. wow, that takes me back.
2) yes! that T2 light gun shooter was AWESOME. my friends and i fed that game many quarters.
3) yes, yes! that The Addams Family pinball machine was the bomb! i still remember the flippers flipping in time to the two “snaps” of The Addam’s Family theme song. and Thing’s hand coming out of the box to take the ball. awesome pinball game for sure!
great choices! 😀
I agree with ESQ. The background in the first panel is awesome. Wow, cel didn’t freak out at Jefbot. That’s a surprise. She must really like him! The Cornfather is too funny. I didn’t see that one coming. 😀
I think the only games I ever played were Ms Pacman and Galaga, but I enjoyed watching Dragon’s Lair. That was like a different world compared to the other games when it first came out. Once again, I must admit that I wasn’t (and still am not) much of a gamer. I’m more of a spectator to my son and husband’s play.
By the way, my son and daughter got two little toads from a friend yesterday. Taran’s is the fat one – he named it Chubman. He couldn’t convince his sister to name hers Scrawn, but he tried hard!
thanks, shanna! the background in today’s strip is a little less complex than the one i illustrated for JEFBOT.274, since i drew the people as silhouettes and colored the machines in a more simple way, but i actually think it’s more effective in that the silhouettes and similar colors allow the foreground to pop more. glad you like it!
Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga are classics, plain and simple. you definitely experienced a couple of the best games from that time. 🙂 and yeah, Dragon’s Lair is as much fun to watch as it is to play.
ha! you must send in pics of “Chubman”!!! aww, too bad he doesn’t have a skinny companion to fight crime with, though. heheh. tell Taran i give him the thumbs up and feel honored that he bestowed that name on his pet! 😀
I do notice the complexity of #274’s background…but even though this one is less complex and darker, it stands out to me even more…not sure why…It just kind of slapped me in the face *BAM* Lookit the background! Yep…hmmmmm…
just goes to show that “complex” doesn’t always mean “effective,” ESQ! i’m always looking for ways to cut down on the time it takes me to draw the strip, so keeping these things in mind when i sit down to sketch is a good thing. 🙂
My all time faves were 2D fighting games, so I was heavily into Samurai Showdown, King of the Fighters, ANY Street fighter, and Killer Insinct. Oh, and I could never ever ever forget the Xmen arcade game (and by association, TMNT).
the only 2D fighting game i really got into was SFII, Charles, but i did have a lot of fun with Tekken and Samurai Shodown. didn’t play much Killer Instinct, but i did like the character designs and gruesomeness of that game. and i probably only played King of Fighters once or twice, but i have some friends who were fighting game afficionados, who absolutely LOVED that game!
and yeah – TMNT and that X-Men game were rad. i have a funny story about some friends and i playing the latter at UCLA, but can’t relate it here because it involves much profanity. 🙂
I love my giant soft pretzels with mustard or cheese depending on the day. But poor CornFather is going to be fired before he was even hired on. DX
mMMmm… yeah, mustard or cheese on a hot, soft pretzel, is all good, DJ. cinnamon sugar on a pretzel makes a nice combo, too.
now let’s hope that the Cornfather doesn’t get fired. cel and jefbot’s relationship is tenuous at best already!
I put many a quarter into Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Marvel vs Capcom. I could beat either one in single player on a single quarter.
I loved Forgotten Worlds. Collect the coins and the buy upgrades. Fast paced. Good bosses. It wasn’t as popular as some of the others, but to me, it was one of the better ones.
And Xybots. Again, not as popular, but I liked it.
XYBOTS! YEAH! I have that one in my MAME… 😀
woo! Xybots!
you could beat SFII and MvsC on a single quarter, SQLGuru!? nice! i never got very good at MvsC – there was way too much going on on the screen and i didn’t play it enough to figure out the strategy. was always amazed at the gamers who rocked at that game, though.
oh, wow – Xybots. another awesome game my friends and i dumped too much money into. loved the co-op nature of the game!
Um, do shooters count? ^^;; I’m not very good at most games in general, but give me a plastic gun a short distance from a screen and I’ll have the high score in five minutes.
yep, shooters count, Maruul! as long as they’re arcade shooters. 🙂
Poor Cel. It doesnt seem like she will make any profit. Jefbots expresion on second panel and Cels in third are great!
Well as or my favourite arcade game, its either Space Invaders or not so classic arcade version of Alien vs Predator 2.
yeah, jefbot and the Cornfather better get their acts together before cel gives ’em the boot, Maryz! and, thanks: glad you liked those expressions. 😀
hells yeah! i should’ve listed Space Invaders in my faves, too. everything about that game – the sound fx, the controls, the gameplay, totally takes me back. i downloaded the modern version, Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, to my iPhone, and while good, it doesn’t hold a candle to the original. awesome pick.
My favorite of the classics would probably be Pole Position (I think one of the first arcade games to feature a wheel), Pac-Man, and Galaxian (the precursor to Galaga which everyone seems to forget about).
However, all time favorite status would have to be a toss-up between House of the Dead (original), Time Crisis 2, and Area 51. Greatest arcade shooters I have ever played, nothing else has come close.
i remember the first time i played Pole Position, DerelictJet – it was at a Chuck E. Cheese’s and they had the cockpit cabinet for it. i remember being amazed at how smoothly the road and car animated and loved the way the car exploded. heheh. and Galaxian is still loved, but i think Galaga just improved on its gameplay so much that it’s a bit forgotten these days, as you said.
another gun-game gamer! looks like you and Jed (above) would’ve been arcade buddies. 🙂
haha, yeah…I’ve played Area 51 enough that I’ve more or less memorized where all those annoying friendlies pop out, and if I pick up both light guns on House of the Dead, I can make it all the way to the final boss without continues xD
ha! i’d love to see you “double gunning” your way through HotD, DerelictJet! 😀
OMG i need a pretzel! NOW!!!!!
Lucky JB. No more black eyes dog gone it!
*gaspities* Bad Bad BAD CF!
Oye what am I going to do with you two?!
I adored BurgerTime (as you know) and Dig Dug was the poo. I also loves Ms Pac Man and Baby Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Paperboy and Frogger.
ha! i think i still have some pretzels from my flight to vegas you can have, Pixie, but they wouldn’t compare to those warm, soft ones the Cornfather’s gorging on. 😉
and yeah, no black eyes for jefbot… yet. the storyline is still young! heheh.
all those games you mentioned are awesome, though i never did get very good at Paperboy. loved the “handlebars” controller. and Baby Pac-Man was a weird one! 1/2 video game, 1/2 pinball machine – thought it was such a strange hybrid when i first saw it. unfortunately, i didn’t get to play it much, as it didn’t last long at my arcade.
I remember seeing Pacman for the first time… man, that was more than 30 years ago? Now I’m depressed.
I played ’em all back then, though I definitely had my favorites– Tempest, Defender II (Stargate), Robotron, Millipede, Missile Command, and Tron.
I got so good at Robotron that at one point I was making far more extra lives than I could expend– I had to stop playing after three hours because I had to go to work the next morning and I had maxed out the number of extra lives… I told some kid who was watching me play to take over, and I’m sure he got wasted pretty fast at level 99 or whatever.
Nowadays, I’m lucky if I even get into an arcade once a year.
ha! don’t think about the years, Dngrsone! i try not to, and it keeps me young. paraphrasing Indy, “it ain’t the years, it’s the mileage.” 🙂
Tempest was a total quarter-sucker! and i loved Stargate, but i never saw it around much – arcades around me would always have Defender but rarely have its sequel. and wow, you’d totally blow my scores away at Robotron. i’d actually love to play it now, seeing as my skills at those “twin-stick” shooters are probably better now than back then. did you subsequently get into Robotron 2084 or Smash TV?
The one I remember playing a lot is Pengo.
ha! they had that game at the market near my parents’ house, Vik-Thor. i’d squish multi-colored globules with my penguin as my mom shopped for groceries. fun game. i wouldn’t mind having that one on my DS.
oh man, I cannot think of the name of the game but you were either a guy in a white Karate Gi or red and you used two joysticks to control them. Depending on the directions of the sticks determined what move or block you did.
I kicked a lot of but with that game. I also really, really, really enjoyed Mario in the arcade. For some reason it just didn’t have the same draw for me on the console.
i remember that game, theBean! i used to play it at the movie theater in the northridge mall. it was called Karate Champ, and was basically the precursor to games like Street Fighter, although it was much more slow and methodical. remember how you’d have to hit a charging bull at the exact, right time in the bonus round? or how your opponent would instantly crumble if you hit him in the gut or did a roundhouse to his face? good times. 😀
and i get what you mean about Mario games in the arcade (except for him in the Donkey Kong games, which don’t really count since he was “Jumpman” then.) loved the original Mario Bros. in the arcade, but was bored with it on the home consoles. although the opposite was true for Super Mario Bros., which i loved at home but didn’t play much in the arcade. hmm.
I loves me some Centipede! Not a particularly innovative game, but I think the sounds resonated with my brain somehow.
i loves me some Centipede too, Stan! and yeah, the sounds of all those games are totally burned into my brain. i can pretty much identify any of those old games with just a sound or two.
Oh man, Dragon’s Lair, Xmen Arcade, TMNT, how could I have forgotten to list those ones?
sadly, i don’t think i’ve seen those three games out in the wild since the 90s, Jed! well, maybe TMNT.
The typing of the dead.
ha! never saw that one in the arcade, Mugdha, but i did have it for my Dreamcast. best typing game ever! 😀
Aside from the previously mentioned Tail Gunner, I really liked Spy Hunter. I also liked Missile Command even though I wasn’t terribly good at it.
Oh f**k yes, Missile Command frakin’ obsessed me, constantly kicked my ass. I even had if for the Atari 800! Another later game I dug was Joust, because it was so damn weird.
Later on the Atari I got kind of addicted to their flagship title Star Raiders which shipped with the 800 along with the Basic Programming language.
dude, Joust is up there in my Top 10! and you’re right, it was crazy weird – riding flying ostriches, gathering eggs and fighting pterodactyls in hell!? we definitely don’t see game premises like that anymore. heheh.
and i never owned Star Raiders, but my friend had it, and i thought it was so epic. totally wanted that one.
loved Missile Command, Skeptible, but i remember getting my hand pinched by the trackball a couple times. heheh. and thought Spy Hunter was amazing when it came out, but that game was freaking hard! you barely had time to see stuff coming from the top of the screen! but going into the weapons van was always kind of a thrill for me cuz it looked so cool. 🙂
The original Tron and Q-bert.
both fine choices, Kcassidys. Q*bert was another one of those weird games that defied explanation. so you’re an orange, furry guy with an anteater nose and no arms, that hops around a pyramid changing the colors of the tiles while globs and a big purple snake try and kill you. oh, and sometimes you swear and hop on a flying disc. wha?
The irony is that these days, the Cornfather would probably be at the salad bar eating just lettuce with a side of mustard for dressing 😉
so very, very true, JM. jefbot would be more likely to eat those pretzels, really. 😉
Oh… I love Cel, so calm and patient! …and HOT! I’m glad she’s back! I hope that The Cornfather doesn’t come between you… Just keep the snack bar stocked! Excellent Jefbot! As always!!!
cel’s all those things, and more, Funnyshaffer! and yeah, let’s hope the Cornfather doesn’t screw things up for bot. 🙂
Great strip amigo! love the expression on CFs face!
To answer your poll, I think I would have to stick with Galaga. I used to love that game sooooo much.
thanks, man! and yeah, Galaga is awesome. still holds up to this day!
Donkey Kong and then later on X-Men the later of which I spent so many quarters on it’s not EVEN funny!
gotta love Donkey Kong, Bananas Foster! such a classic. i want to play it again, right now. did you happen to see the documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters? great movie! and yeah, X-Men was rad. i mostly played as Wolverine or Cyclops.
There used to be an small corner store that had a game called Blaster. I couldn’t get enough of it, I played it so much I eventually finished it which I have never done with a game before, or since.
But, if I go somewhere and they have Tekken 2, 3, or tag I’ll play it with no problems. My muscle memory for all of Lei’s moves are still there and I can still kick some butt with Yoshimitso.
hmmm… i’m familiar with Road Blaster but not Blaster, Tim. at least nothing comes to mind. what kind of game was it? now i’m intrigued. i might have to Google that one. 🙂
and it’s funny you mentioning “muscle memory” when it comes to old games – i played the original Super Mario Bros. again recently, and was amazed i still knew exactly where all the hidden/special blocks were, and where all the secret paths and warps could be found. awesome!
Fave Classics? Marble Madness, Blasteroids, Robotron, and… there was another one, with tank controls… I can’t remember its name… 😛
And… And… Those poor pretzels… they never saw it coming!
great games, Tanya! i remember seeing Marble Madness for the first time and feeling a bit intimidated. eventually got it for a home console, but it just wasn’t the same without that trackball. and yes! haven’t thought about Blasteroids in a long time, but that was a lot of fun, too. And might you be thinking of Battlezone, that vector game with the tanks and UFOs?
and yeah, poor pretzels. i guess you could say those pretzels were (wait for it) a-salted. haha… ha. *cough* um, yeah. sorry.
Battlezone was the one where you had the HUD like scope you looked through… that one was okay, but the one I’m thinking of is where you collect stars from blowing things up, and you spent the stars to upgrade your tank, and you had to find the key to open the door at the end… 😛
Hmmm A-salted Pretzelssssss Yummmms.
YES!!! i remember that game! i only ever found it in two places: one at the UCLA arcade and one at the 7-11 near my house. that game was SOOO awesome and none of my friends knew what i was talking about when it came out. grrr… can’t remember what it was called. i remember you would “drop in” when the game started, and the ground would zoom up on you, kinda Mode 7 style. and when you got to the end of the level, you would go through a warp hole and fly through space and then land in another area. had a control function where you pulled the sticks apart to target and launch a huge bomb from your cannon. is that the one you’re thinking of? wow. that’s gonna drive me crazy until i think of the name of that game!!! AAARGH! very cool pick, Tanya! if you think of the name, let me know. 😀
and those a-salted pretzels pack quite a punch! *groooooan*
now that i’ve thought about it – the tank game with the stars and keys was a game called Vindicators, Tanya, and the one they had at my arcade had two sets of controls so you and a friend could play co-op. yeah, that was a fun tank game, too!
but my enthusiasm remains for that other tank game that i still can’t remember the name of! can anybody help me out with this? i’m sure i won’t sleep until i figure it out. grrr…
ASSAULT!!! the game i’m thinking of was called Assault, and it was rad. okay, now i can go to bed with a clear head. 🙂
Wow… I remember that… Sooo. Wow. 😀 I also remember my mom coming down to the arcade with a pair of bolt cutters, taking my bike off the rack and throwing it on the back of the truck, and dragging me out of the arcade by my pigtails because I was Wasting my Money. heh.
Vindicators! Yeah! That one was SOOO fun. 🙂 (I haven’t reloaded my mame backup since upgrading my OS.)
wow, you must’ve been spending some serious time and money in that arcade! i’m afraid to ask what your mom did when you spent too much time on your home consoles! 😉
Vindicators seems like it’d be perfect for XBOX Live Arcade for some online co-op. i’ll have to check to see if it’s available.
I started on pinball games before video games came out, then played asteroids when it first came out, also space invaders, missile command, and some tank game who’s name I cannot remember. Later favorites were Defender (didn’t like defender II), Joust, Galaga (still remember the music), Centipede, 1941 and Sinistar. I still remember “I live”, and “run, run”, and frantic moments of terror trying to destroy him with the bombs before I got killed; didn’t kill him very often. I later got Sinistar on computer or gameboy, I cannot remember which, but it was not as much fun as playing the console. I dream of being able to afford one of those retro consoles that have all old games in them, but don’t have the space and $4000 is a bit steep right now, but one day…
Space Invaders, Missile Command, Defender, Joust, Galaga, Centipede, 1941, and Sinistar, Roborat? you’re an old school gamer after my own heart! heheh. all classic, and all awesome games you picked there. and as i mentioned to Tanya (above) Battlezone was probably that tank game you’re thinking of. (another great game, btw.)
Sinistar was amazing, and i had those “frantic moments of terror” just like yourself. nothing scarier than when Sinistar gets assembled and starts chasing and yelling at you! and i downloaded it to my XBOX 360 a year or two ago, and, although it was pretty good, just didn’t have the exact same feel as the arcade version. gameplay was still fun, tho.
This awesomeness:
X-men Arcade:
and this awesomeness:
Star Wars
oh, man – that i didn’t list Star Wars in my initial blog post is a crime, Ecna! one of the best arcade games, period, and an awesome pick!
X-Men’s cool, too – it’s had an extremely strong showing in these comments!
I’ll always hold a soft spot for Mrs. Pac-Man. When my then-fiancée and I were bumped off a flight home from Ohio while the rest of my family got to board the plane, we spent a lot of the time waiting for our flight bouncing between the Mrs. Pac-Man machine and the Indiana Jones pinball table.
There wasn’t exactly a lot to do in an airport in Ohio.
ha! love the airport story, Joe. Ms. Pac-Man is just all kinds of rad. although Pac-Man holds more nostalgia for me, Ms. Pac-Man has the better gameplay, hands down. ever play the super-speeded up version? way cool.
I never thought I’d just stare at some of these strips and go “Wow…” But yeah…. good job jeff! Can’t blame cornfather though, those giant pretzel things are delicious. Dunno what they’re made of, probably that stuff you pull out of your couch, but yum!
I never beat it, but i was always a sucker for the house of the dead games. I remember the first arcade cabinet I ran to was the virtual on games, something about weird techno and giant japanese robots fighting… and lasers! I remember the simpsons one, that was terrible but i still played it for some odd reason… Oh there was this one where you had a tiny car on a screen and you had the steering wheel and a brake/gas pedal, and you had the race track on the screen, that was stupid fun.
I wanna go to an arcade now…lol.
thanks for staring, Steve! always happy when readers take the time to notice the artwork. and yeah, those pretzels are DElicious! 😀
Virtual On was great! pretty much any game with fighting robots is cool, but the fast speed and controls of Virtual On set it apart. The Simpsons was cool, too. always played as Bart with his skateboard, but loved Marge and her vacuum cleaner. heheh.
if i had to guess, i’d say the game you’re thinking of is Super Sprint (or Championship Sprint), Steve. did it have three steering wheels for three players? so much fun!
three or four, I know snes has a spin off of it. still great though.
For actual arcade games I’d probably go with Tron (the original) or Pac Man for classics, and the TMNT/X-Men multiplayer cabs for more recent stuff. I’ve always been more of a pinball person though. Addam’s Family, Tee’d Off, too many others that I can’t seem to recall off the top of my head. If there’s a row of pinball machines, that’s where most of my arcade money ends up 😀
wow, another vote for the X-Men game! yeah, i loved it too, but i never thought it would rank so high with you readers. awesome, nuurgle!
good choices for Tron, Pac-man and TMNT. and while i was never a pinball wizard, i did play the hell out of those things. would love to have a real The Addam’s Family machine at home, for sure.
I always played Ninja Turtles or the Simson’s Arcade game. Though recently I’ve been wanting to play the TRON game I missed out on. I remember the movie and loved it as a kid and now that Legacy is coming out I’m “investing” in TRON stuff hehe
looks like The Simpsons and TMNT are making good showings with you guys, too!
and the original Tron game was good, but i think it ranks so highly with me more out of nostalgia than anything else. each of the games for it were more like mini-games, really. if i could choose, i’d rather have the Discs of Tron coin-op on my deserted island. 🙂
Soul Fighter!
the Dreamcast game, FelixOmni? i never really got into that one. was it good?
Oh CF…. Cel looks like she’s gonna snap a little…
she just might, Rinthia! heheh. but probably not. they are doing her a favor, after all.
OH Maybe it’s CF’s turn for a black eye?
heh. yes! 😉
How could i have forgotten Golden Axe! I loved that game. I still have a PC version somewhere in my computer room.
Columns, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Simpsons, and a whole host of others you guys reminded me of. Thanks for the memories guys!
Does no one else remember Asteroids and Missile Command? Drifting my little ship icon through the boulders and shooting them into bits… Spinning the trackball madly to shoot down the missiles and protect the cities. Centipede was cool too, it had color!
Asteroids, Missile Command and Centipede are all remembered fondly, naleta! i used to draw that little “A” ship and all the boulders from Asteroids all over my papers at school. sure my teachers were like, WTH? heheh.
I koved that old Spider-Man game. the side-scroller where you could play as Spidey, Black Cat, Captain America (for some reason), or (if I recall correctly) the Sub Mariner. And when you fought Venom he (inexplicably) grew to be 5 stories tall somehow. That was years before I started collecting comics, though, so I didn’t know how bizarre it all was.
I was also a fan of TMNT – and was bitterly disappointed in the console port they made of it from the NES. The X-Men side scroller was awesome, too.
In later years, the original Marvel vs. Capcom drew me to it a lot (I always played as Spider-Man and Wolverine), and I also had a soft spot for Soul Calibur. I wasn’t that good at fighting games, though, so I didn’t play those as often.
I remember I had a birthday party at the Aladdin’s Castle arcade at the local mall one year. Had to have been when I was 5 or 6. That was awesome. I got, like, 2 whole rolls of tokens to play with.
i think i rented that Spider-Man game, Taellosse! it was a beat ’em up, right? kind of like Final Fight, if i remember correctly. and i remember that console port of TMNT, too. it was nothing like the arcade game, so i shared in your disappointment, back then. loved Soulcalibur, but could never get very good at Marvel vs. Capcom.
another vote for the X-Men arcade game!
Hey, they have that X-Men game at the movie theater here! I’m probably never going to play it because everyone is money- and time-restricted, so that kinda sucks.
it’s good to know that game is still being played somewhere, NeoDarklight!
Hrrm, hard to choose… X-men: Children of the Atom is the game I played the most in the arcade, but I don’t consider it a real *classic*… ie, I had my own car by then.
For truely Old School, would have to say Golden Ax. So many childhood afternoons at the local bowling alley, not bowling, but swearing as those damn gnome/imp things that stole my potions…..
yeah, i only played Children of the Atom a couple times, EcchiKitty. mostly because they didn’t have the coin-op at my local arcade, and i wasn’t that into fighting games (except for SFII, of course.)
but Golden Axe! now there’s a classic! i can still remember the opening “cinematic” of that game. poor Alex…
I have to confess at my age, I was around when the vid games first invaded the arcades, so I have a real soft nostalga spot for some of the WAY classics. Seriously Computer Space and the vector games Asteroids and the demonically hard Lunar Lander. Somehow Space Invaders and Pac Man never really did it for me. Later games that buzzed my head were Defender, Reactor, Tron and Discs of Tron, Star Wars, Robotron, Cyclone and there is a special place in my heart, and hell, for Dagon’s Lair and Space Ace.
never saw a real Computer Space cabinet in person, SamuraiArtGuy, but you have my respect for actually playing one! i did play lots of Asteroids and Lunar Lander, although i never had enough patience for the latter. i’d always just let the lander fall at high speeds towards the moon’s surface, and then accelerate too late. 😛
and all those other games you mentioned are great, too. have i mentioned that i have the Blu-ray of Dragon’s Lair signed by Don Bluth? i totally need to get the same for Space Ace!
Asteroids and Pac-Man, of course… but then I became a Williams fan. Besides Defender (which I sucked at; the kid was right about the controls), they made Robotron, Joust, and most of all SINISTAR! The incredibly-tough and never-popular game was something like a cross between Asteroids and Robotron. An expert might last ten minutes; and those ten minutes had more action than an hour of most videogames. Robotron and Sinistar may still be the most fast-paced, adrenaline-laden games ever made. And the Sinistar’s evil maniacal laughter as it swooped in from nowhere and chomped your spaceship into fragments is still one of the scariest moments in videogames.
Much later, there was a PC Sinistar3D, which of course sucked.
IIRC Defender was Steve Wozniak’s favorite game. I once saw him play on John Romero’s Defender console until it gave up and shorted out.
man, i agree: Sinistar was awesome! and luckily for me, a little pizza place near my parents’ house had that game all the way up until the early 90s! but yeah, that evil robot face and booming voice still haunts my nightmares. and there was something cool about mining those asteroids, too. not sure why, but i loved that little mechanic of the game.
Steve Wozniak playing John Romero’s Defender machine!? wow! totally jealous, Phil. how’d that come about!!?
Galaga and Galaxia were fun space shooters for me. Almost any pinball machine will tickle my fancy, except the broken ones that never get fixed. >:O
I need to get Street Fighter II Turbo for my SNES again. I’m still mad I got rid of it. Bad idea.
Area 51 was favorite of mine along with a lifelong friend of mine. We once dumped a ton of money in and played through the game something like 3 times. Cruising USA was a good one as well. I miss Spy Hunter though. Played it a lot on my C-64. Oh and centipede. Ahhhh.
there’s nothing more sad in an arcade than a pinball machine in disrepair, TCG. hate that. but yeah, Galaga and Galaxian are some solid shooters!
and as far as SFII:Turbo goes: fear of that regret is exactly why i never get rid of any of my old video games!
reading through these comments, it looks like Area 51 is a favorite among you gun game afficionados. and i loved and cherished my C64! had Spy Hunter for it too, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as the arcade version. still, i played the hell out of it. heheh.
Dude, it took me forever to figure out how to use the oil slick / smoke screen on the C64 version of Spy Hunter. I think you had to press M while driving around, and possibly holding the single button that the joystick had. Oh those were the days.
Man I could really go for a good night at a good arcade right now. Guess I’ll have to buy some Microsoft points and do the x-box live arcade thingamagig. 😀
ha! yeah, i remember those crazy controls for some of those C64 games, where you had to hover the joystick over the keyboard so you could hit a key with your pinky at the right time. heheh. yeah, those were definitely the days. 😀
i’ve downloaded quite a few of those XBOX arcade titles, and have been pretty happy with it so far. been really disappointed with the XBOX Game Room, though. seems microsoft has slowly been abandoning that initiative, and it seemed like it was gonna be so cool.
Oh, and let’s not forget Pole Position. Played that game whenever I could on my Atari 2600 and at the arcades. I actually had the high score on the sit down version years ago. I was so freaking proud of myself. 😀 😀 😀
yeah, Pole Position was rad. i remember how blocky the 2600 version looked but i didn’t care ‘cuz i was playing effing Pole Position at a friend’s house! 😀
Galaga was the beez kneez
100% agree on Galaga being the knees of those bees, Eptha! seems a lot of readers agree too, as it looks to be in the top 3 of games mentioned here. totally deserving.
I remember being able to play Space Invaders when it first came out, Pac Man as well. I may have had to wait for Donkey Kong to come out, but before I digress too much:
Spy Hunter (sit down), Star Wars (sit down), Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace.
I’m just wondering if Lazer Tag would count?
mmMMmmm… Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. i love ’em all!
and yeah, the “cockpit” for Star Wars would be a treasure i would love to have when i buy a house and have an arcade basement, Bl4ckw0lf! and yes, Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace rock, too.
hmmm… i played a bunch of Lazer Tag back in the day, but, no, i don’t think it should be considered in the pantheon of video games.
Ok, in the way of classic arcade games, only counting the cabinet games…the Dungeon’s and Dragons quiz game was always fun…the original (glowly blue stick) Tron…and in the way of newer ones… Silent Scope 2, always fun for vs games 🙂
ha! a D&D Quiz Game, Fel Da Cabbit!? never played that one but now i must! was it just a bunch of questions? did it have graphics?
Tron = awesome. and yeah, didn’t play too much of SS2 but totally dug the original! who doesn’t love being a badass sniper!?
Oh boy, a poll! Hmm… Of the games I’ve played in an actual arcade, I would have to say Galaga, Bubble Bobble, Bust-a-Move, and Sunset Riders top the list. (I am an expert at BB, having played it on many different platforms.) Joust by Williams is another of my faves, though I’ve never played it in an arcade.
My dad’s favorite (via emulator) is Gravitar, an (indirect) ancestor of a fun multi-player space war game called XPilot.
(On another note: I would LOVE to be in an arcade like that. Ones like that are too few and far-between around here.)
yay, polls!
Bubble Bobble is super cool, Insectoid! have they made that for the PSP or Nintendo DS, yet? a lot of my friends don’t even know that game – they’re more familiar with Bust-a-Move. and i haven’t thought about Sunset Riders in a long time, but i played all those games on a Neo Geo cabinet at a restaurant near my parents’ house. 😀
Joust is just pure awesome. love it.
and yeah, sadly, there are no arcades like cel’s around in my neighborhood anymore. *weep*
BB on PSP/DS… Not that I’m aware of, though it WAS ported to the GBA. (I have two copies of that, so my brother and I can beat the game.)
The Sunset Riders I played was indeed a cocktail-style cabinet at a pizza place near here. (Funny how things like that work out, huh?) Liked it enough that I bought a copy for the SNES on eBay that same evening. 😀
i didn’t know Sunset Riders came out on the SNES! i’m a big fan of the Metal Slug series, and i seem to remember the gameplay with SR being similar. might have to check eBay myself, soon!
was just thinking about the comic and thought you should make a paperback version of this and sell it defenitly bring more veiwers of the comic and help to maintain the website
of course its already a popular comic
funny you should mention that, Drakeye – i’m hoping to have a print version of JEFbot out in the next couple months! when it gets closer to release i’ll be blogging about it on the site. 🙂
a mistake of epic proportion. never let cf man the food court
lesson learned, jf#300! 😉
OK Jeff, here’s a pic of the toads: Hungry and Chubman. I’ll attempt to embed, but I’m adding a link too in case this doesn’t support embedding images.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25428243@N06/5014980628/in/photostream/
HA! GREAT shot, Shanna! looks like Chubman and Hungry totally have THE POWER OF CHUB!!! thanks for the post. 😀
Every time I go to a theme park or a mall, I treat myself to a pretzel. They are the greatest things on earth. I can’t blame The Cornfather!!!! Brilliant, yet again, jefbot!!!!
thanks, Annie! yeah, those soft pretzels are pretty irresistible. cel and bot should really blame themselves. heheh.
Oh geez, Tetris is my favorite. I can (and have been known to) play that bad boy for hours on end, and still have a pocket full of tokens/quarters. But then, when time’s running short, and I gotta go, I have to scramble to use up the remaining tokens. (Not quarters.)
Which brings me to my second favorite: Ghosts and Goblins. Which I suck at, but I still come back for more.
Oh, and pinball’s always good. For ten minutes per dollar. -_-
Tetris is one of those simple but brilliant and addictive games, qinop! i’ve probably only played it a couple of times in the arcade, but have logged countless hours on multiple handheld and tv-based consoles, across many iterations. i think my mom counts this as the game that got her into gaming! a true classic.
oy. Ghosts and Goblins is crazy hard, but awesome, nonetheless. finished the NES version but never conquered the arcade version.
yay, pinball!
You seem to be answering posts at this very moment so I thought I’d just say Hi!
hi, Shanna! so many comments this time, i’ve been going through them during breaks at work to answer them all. love all this enthusiasm for these classic arcade games!!! 😀
I’d have to say the D&D arcade games (4-player ones only) take the top of my list, with centipede, galaga, and pac-man close behind.
yeah, i remember playing Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom, and thinking it was pretty cool, Bard. kind of like Golden Axe or Final Fight but with better graphics, story and more RPG-lite elements. didn’t play much of it, though, so never got close to finishing it. if i had a few friends who were into it, i’m sure i would’ve put more time into that one, especially since it was D&D and all!
and the other three games you mentioned are all hall of famers!
Golden Axe and DDR
thumbs up on Golden Axe, jjmblue7! talking about this game in these comments has totally made me want to play through this again. might have to download it for the 360 or Wii soon. 🙂
and i didn’t play much DDR in the arcade but did have the dance pad and game for the PS1 and played the hell out of it. was quite a work out! heheh.
Theres only a few games I remember from the arcades but my number one favourite was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. I remember spending one whole night pumping coin after coin into to it to complete, running to find my mum for one more 50p on the last boss (who was bloody annoying doubnle Shredder that you had to take out at the same time).
The T2: Judgement Day lightgun game was cool as well,but if you’re talking lightgun games then its got to be Operation Wolf for me.
We never seemed to get any real great arcade games in the ass end of Scotland though…just the cast offs from the bigger arcades. I do remember a Cowboy Holographic arcade game which if I remember was basically walk around and shoot, but all holographic. Looked amazing at the time! Anyone remember that?
i have a lot of great memories of that TMNT game too, Tommy G. i remember when it first came out, it was difficult getting to play with my friends all at the same time ‘cuz it was so popular. glad to hear you took down double Shredder. heheh.
loved both T2: Judgment Day and Operation Wolf! not sure which one i liked more. probably T2 ‘cuz i was such a Cameron nut at the time. 🙂
i totally remember that holographic game! it was called Time Traveler over here, and the holograms were kinda cool but i remember the images being pretty small and the gameplay similar to Dragon’s Lair but less involving and cool. first saw it at an amusement park called Knott’s Berry Farm but haven’t seen it again in a loooong time!
Sigh time to show my age. Gonna have to say Pac Man or the orginal Mario. You know the one with the ape on the top of the stair/maze. That damn game ate sooooo many of my quarters lol.
both Pac-Man and Donkey Kong are in my top 10 too, Will B! i’m pretty sure DK is the all time champ for taking my money, since it was pretty much everywhere i used to hang. (grocery store, arcade, 7-11, etc.) 🙂
Silent Scope
*diabolical laugh of doom*
why does your pick not surprise me, Sonitan!? i’m scared.
I cant believe noone mentioned Crossbow or Elevator Action. I used many a quarter in those games.
i played a ton of Crossbow whenever i was at Magic Mountain (an amusement park near me), Sirviolin! that was definitely a cool one. Elevator Action rocked, too! played a lot of that on my Commodore 64. 🙂
Well, that answers my question.
Dang! I don’t see how you took the time to respond to all these comments sometimes.
was a bit of a challenge with so many comments this time, Fijiman, but i count myself lucky that JEFbot readers are so active with their feedback. as this webcomic continues to grow, i know i won’t be able to respond to each comment forever, but i’m enjoying it while i can!:)
Don’t forget about “ALIENS” or “Escape from the Planet of Robot Monsters”!! Oh man… If I hadn’t used so many credits I’d own a Lamborghini by now… though I’d rather own an “ALIENS” original arcade… or perhaps “G-Lock”…
Aliens was indeed awesome, Manocat! Aliens was (and still is, actually) one of my favorite movies so i was stoked when that game came out. and i’m not familiar with Escape From the Planet of Robot Monsters as they didn’t carry that at any of the arcades i frequented, but i take it it was good? the title sounds wacky yet i’m intrigued. and yes! they had G-Loc at Disneyland with the flight simulator, and it was pretty awesome (though pretty expensive, too.) if you owned that game i’d ask to come over to play it right now. 🙂
Btw: Congrats on a splendidly funny webcomic.
‘Aliens’ is indeed an awesome film, an icon of my childhood, I still remember taping toy guns together to play badass Sigourney (a male version, though). I certainly DON’T own a G-Lock arcade…sadly… even though now, in the dawn of my adulthood, I’ve become a rivet-counter hardcore flightsim fan and my computer is constantly strapped with joysticks, throttles, pedals, and stuff that make the G-lock arcade look like a two button NES controler.
Ahem, hopefully there are pinball machines at Cel’s arcade…I mean some of the sounds and graphics and doodads inside of the machines are awesome!! Elvira Mistress of the Dark, most any show of the time had them…Yep, that’s where you’d find me, a stack of quarters, swearing at the little silver ball LOL
not to worry, ESQ – cel has a whole section full of pinball machines! wouldn’t be an awesome arcade without them. and watch you don’t tilt the machines too much while you’re swearing at the ball. 🙂
This is hysterical, bot! It really made me laugh out loud. Aside from the comedy, I love the dark colors in the coloring of this strip and the background, too! And those pretzels do look might tasty! 😉
the predictability is kind of sad.
Okay, one more. Technically, its not a video game but it *is* a game in arcades and I loved to visit the arcade after a hard day at work just to play this one a few times to work out my frustrations before moving on to the other games:
Whack-a-Mole!
I wonder if cel has that one in her office to avoid giving black eyes to employees and customers.