My Favorite Arcade Games, God yes.

by Mark Waters



Remember Going to any Pizza Hut or Circus Pizza, even Grand Slam as a child? Or how about staying at various Holiday Inns, or Howard Johnson's across the country? Although Pizza, Batting Cages, and Pools are all incredibly awesome, their video arcade games were even better.

There were few better feelings than having a pocket full of quarters and a sweet arcade game full of adventure, excitement, and sweet ass-kicking weapons. Of course Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Invaders revolutionized arcade games, I was too young for them, and they are boring as hell. Well, I tell you something that isn't boring. More like five things that aren't boring.

I know we just did a top list for movies, but too bad. Here's a list of my 5 favorite arcade games.

5. Star Wars. This was one of the earlier arcade games where you could actually sit inside of it. It took place during the last battle of a new hope, when you attempt to blow up the death star. for 1983, these graphics were amazing, and the feeling of sitting in an xwing fighter was a great concept.
There were only three stages, making the game seem short, but if you completed the final stage by blowing up the death star, you would start over at a higher difficulty (like Mario Bros).










4.Final Fight. Guy, Haggar, or Cody? I always enjoyed being Guy and Hagger, because a dude named Guy is just a total bad ass, and Haggar was ripped and had awesome wrestling style attacks.
Although I never came close to beating this game, it was always fun to get sweet weapons, and beat the shit out of people in hand to hand style combat. You even got to fight multiple Andre the Giants,




3.NBA Jam. Boomshakalaka! My God, need I say more?




2. X Men. When you could actually get 6 people playing at once, this game was unbelievable. There would be lifeless enemy bodies flying in every direction. My character of choice was Kitty. Her mutant attack was forming a gun with her hands and shooting an explosion across the board. I also really enjoyed being nightcrawler, cuz he was just flat out cool. Great action, great attacks and special powers, challenging bosses, fun worlds.



1.Golden Axe. Hands down my favorite game of all time. You could choose to be the hot chick, the dwarf, or the barbarian dude. I was usually the barbarian, but the dwarf had his moments. There are two things that made this game what it is. The Dragons you could jump on, and the magic attacks. Every now and then throughout each level, a bunch of little hobbits with sacks would run through the screen. You tried to attack as many as you could, and after each successful strike, they would drop a potion bottle. The more bottles you obtained, the more powerful and awesome of an attack would occur. This worked great for bosses. Its a short game (only 5 levels) but the carnage makes up for it.



What were your favorites?