Best classic arcade games never released on home systems

[Kid Ice]

I don't understand how people can even say that "anything" released "after the crash" (1983) is not classic. Are you freaking kidding me? Super Mario Bros is not classic?

IMO it's not classic in the way that Space Invaders and Pac Man are.

I'm sorry, I respect Atari/Colecovision/AStrocade/INtellivision/insert other systems here, but that's plain naive. Eventually it's going to happen.

Eventually what's going to happen? If some people don't consider a console that's 20 years old a classic, you think another 20 years is going to make a difference?

You think Guns N Roses from 1986-87 just started playing on the "classic" rock stations lately for no reason? They will become classic. They will become vintage. It's a matter of time.

But not in the same way as The Beatles or Elvis or other bands and artists that were there at the beginning of rock and roll.

The better way is to filter it like comic book do. The "Golden" Age of Video Gaming, the "Silver" age, stuff like that.

So would that break down something like this?

Golden Age = VCS, O2, Intellivsion etc

Silver Age = NES, SMS, etc

Bronze Age = Genesis, SNES, etc

Where do we go from there? When the PSX and Saturn are 20-30 years old, do we come up with another precious metal since those systems will be considered "classic"? When does it end?

If we are going to use some kind of time stamp, does that mean the CD-I, Pippin, and FM Towns Marty become "classic" simply because time has passed?

[Arcade Antics]

I wish Mikie would have come out on console. I love that game. There's a LOT of Konami stuff not released on console. Missing in Action? Boot Camp?

Mikie kicks ass, pun intended. Pretty sure Boot Camp came out for the C64, granted, it's not a console.

The less common arcade games that I liked a lot might be fairly uncommon in home versions, but exist -
Star Castle, Marble Madness & Pleiades come to mind.

Marble Madness has had a ton of home console releases: NES, Game Gear, Genesis, SMS, GB, GBC, GBA... and it also came out on all the home computers of the day too.

[DreamTR]

IMO it's not classic in the way that Space Invaders and Pac Man are.



Eventually what's going to happen? If some people don't consider a console that's 20 years old a classic, you think another 20 years is going to make a difference?



But not in the same way as The Beatles or Elvis or other bands and artists that were there at the beginning of rock and roll.

Kid Ice: The Famicom (NES) came out in Japan in 1983, so if you are putting Intellivision in there, NES definitely needs to be there.



So would that break down something like this?

Golden Age = VCS, O2, Intellivsion etc

Silver Age = NES, SMS, etc

Bronze Age = Genesis, SNES, etc

Where do we go from there? When the PSX and Saturn are 20-30 years old, do we come up with another precious metal since those systems will be considered "classic"? When does it end?

If we are going to use some kind of time stamp, does that mean the CD-I, Pippin, and FM Towns Marty become "classic" simply because time has passed?

Kid Ice: The Famicom (NES) came out in Japan in 1983, so if you are putting Intellivision in there, NES definitely needs to be there.

And you know it's not the same thing. To call the NES "silver age" when IT is the very reason video games are what they are today is ridiculous. It came out around the same time as Coleco/Intellivision, but in Japan. It "saved" the video game market. As much as I respect the previous systems, Nintendo actually put arcade games on a home console (graphically anything from the VS. Unisystem series)

[Kid Ice]

Kid Ice: The Famicom (NES) came out in Japan in 1983, so if you are putting Intellivision in there, NES definitely needs to be there.

The Intellivision came out in the U.S. in 1979. The NES came out in the U.S. in, what, 85 86? They're not even in the same generation of consoles.

And you know it's not the same thing. To call the NES "silver age" when IT is the very reason video games are what they are today is ridiculous. It came out around the same time as Coleco/Intellivision, but in Japan. It "saved" the video game market. As much as I respect the previous systems, Nintendo actually put arcade games on a home console (graphically anything from the VS. Unisystem series)

I agree the NES saved the video game market...after that first generation of "classic" consoles was finished.

If you want to go by Japan/Famicom, you could very well say it was the first classic console...in Japan.

[Chainclaw]

I don't know how you guys can have any sort of argument about what is classic or not here. The official DP definition is right there on the forum listing, and it is "Today, classic means 'before PlayStation 2'"

[DreamTR]

Kid ICe: Famicom architecture is 1983. It came out in 1983. Therefore it is classic. At this rate, the 5200 should not be classic. If the NES took 2 years to get to the USA, so be it, it still came out in 1983. Heck, the Colecovision came out in 1982.

[Kid Ice]

I don't know how you guys can have any sort of argument about what is classic or not here. The official DP definition is right there on the forum listing, and it is "Today, classic means 'before PlayStation 2'"

You're right. I was just giving my personal opinion.

It's not relevant to Adam's question anyway.

[Vectorman0]

I don't know how you guys can have any sort of argument about what is classic or not here. The official DP definition is right there on the forum listing, and it is "Today, classic means 'before PlayStation 2'"

That is just to clearly differentiate between what topics get posted in Modern gaming, or Classic Gaming forums.

The "Classic Gaming" forum used to be for every single game of every single era, however it became too crowded. It was decided to split the modern gaming off into its own forum.

If you look at the description for the Modern Gaming forum, you will see "As we always say: it doesn't have to be OLD to be CLASSIC."

[Aussie2B]

I think the whole "nothing after the crash is 'classic'" argument only exists because gamers that are old enough that they were children/teenagers prior to the crash are highly nostalgic about the games they grew up with, so they look at everything that came later with some level of disdain. And the easiest way to reflect that is by denying everything else the term "classic", as if they're a lesser form of gaming.

Really, I think it's all silly. If this was still the 80s or even possibly the 90s, there might be some argument there, but when we're talking games that are all 25+ years old, is a difference of maybe 5 years at the most really night and day? Is a 1982 launch Colecovision game that different from a 1983 launch Famicom game? One is "classic" and the other isn't?

It's like looking at two elderly men, one 75 and the other 70, and saying "Man, that guy is old!" about the 75-year-old and "He's practically a baby!" about the 70-year-old.

[Kid Ice]

I think the whole "nothing after the crash is 'classic'" argument only exists because gamers that are old enough that they were children/teenagers prior to the crash are highly nostalgic about the games they grew up with, so they look at everything that came later with some level of disdain.

I don't look at anything with disdain. I just said the NES is responsible for the comeback of gaming. My biggest collection is for the 3DO. My favorite system is the Playstation. I own all 3 current consoles and a DS and a PSP.

And the easiest way to reflect that is by denying everything else the term "classic", as if they're a lesser form of gaming.

Don't we have to draw the line somewhere? Or is every single game ever made going to become a classic, after say, 20 years? I just said the Playstation is my all time favorite system. Having said that, in my eyes, it will never be a classic system. It's not about greater and lesser, it's about classic or not classic.

Really, I think it's all silly. If this was still the 80s or even possibly the 90s, there might be some argument there, but when we're talking games that are all 25+ years old, is a difference of maybe 5 years at the most really night and day?

Yes it is, because there was a clearly defined period of time in the U.S. when there was no video gaming, as it had been dismissed as a fad. Why should it matter to me what was going on in Japan?

Is a 1982 launch Colecovision game that different from a 1983 launch Famicom game? One is "classic" and the other isn't?

Now who's being silly? Who in 1983 was playing a Famicom game in this country?

It's like looking at two elderly men, one 75 and the other 70, and saying "Man, that guy is old!" about the 75-year-old and "He's practically a baby!" about the 70-year-old.

Come up with all the analogies about old men and Guns n Roses you want. Look at any credible piece of literature about the history of gaming. You'll find that the NES is separated into a different era than the 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, etc. Now if you feel the NES is a classic console, that's absolutely fine with me....although I disagree, I'm probably in the minority. But don't try this "the Famicom was released in Japan in 1983 so it's a contemporary of the Colecovision". It doesn't make sense, it has nothing or little to do with the U.S. gaming scene, and it's not even particularly relevant to this argument.

[NoahsMyBro]

I've got to say that I agree with Kid Ice in this discussion. I'll try to explain why I feel the same way, and maybe it will illuminate things.

Having grown up in the '70s and '80s, I was there when videogames really got their start. I played Pong & Breakout in movie theatre lobbies, Death Race 2000 was in a hometown pizza parlor, and once I played Air Sea Battle on a friend's VCS, there was no force on earth that would prevent me eventually owning a VCS.

Kids of my generation endlessly debated whether the VCS or the Intellivision was the better system, and we all felt a little bit sorry for the kid with the Odyssey2.

Videogames changed between the Colecovision/5200 and the NES/SMS. With the emergence of the NES/SMS and later games, the games didn't look the same, play the same, or feel the same.

There is a definite break in style. To me, that is why the earlier systems 'feel' classic, and everything that comes afterward doesn't.

This ISN'T a qualitative judgement, and it cannot be measured. It's simply a feeling. The games from the era I'm considering classic usually don't have multiple screens. There are very minimal stories - usually the only story is on the cabinet facade, control panel, or bezel, or an intro screen before the game begins. The primary objective is to score as high as possible, and live as long as possible before losing all of your lives. Many of the games, if not most, have comparatively small player characters, and the background is usually solid black. Hand-eye coordination is paramount.

'Continues' spoil the challenge. There aren't save locations. Usually there isn't a Boss to take on. There is rarely any sort of plot to work through. These games don't really have an ending, and you never really win.

After the NES hit the scene, things changed. There were more involved and relevant storylines, background graphics came into their own, you could continue so you didn't lose your progress, and you could actually beat a game, eventually seeing an ending. It seems to me that hand-eye coordination mattered less (excepting 'shmups', and btw I hate that word!). Players didn't really pay much attention to score, if the game even tracked score.

So, at least to me, there is a definite difference between what I, and I'm guessing Kid Ice, consider a 'classic', and what I would consider post-classic. It isn't a function of age or quality. I like the Dreamcast as much as I like the Atari 5200, but I wouldn't call the DC a classic. (Those are my 2 favorite systems.)

[Buyatari]

My buddy had a game where you ride on a train.

At the start you can pick your weapon. whip,punch or gun. You got the most points per kill with gun. When you punched someone they would slide back and anyone hit by then also died. Anyone know the name?

[CosmicMonkey]

Aliens vs Predator - CPS2
Progear no Arashi - CPS2
Scud Race - Model 3

[DreamTR]

BuyAtari: that almost sounds like Renegade!

NoahsmyBro: You said it. You "grew up in the 70s", and that was your basis for the argument. I'm 33 years old. I'm an arcade rat, I was playing Pac-Man back when I was 4 years old and continually went to arcades obsessively in the 80s. What were the most incredible looking games at the time? Nintendo games. VS Unisystem games were amazing to me, and when were those released? About 1983-84. These were already out on Famicom in Japan, but for some reason we can consider Colecovision a classic, the Atari 5200 a classic, and to almost everyone else, the 7800 probably falls under that as well, but the NES? Oh no. It's "neo" classic. 23 years in the US and 26 years worldwide and it's a NEO CLASSIC? That's just being silly not grouping them together. Most of the Atari heads just don't like Nintendo because they did not grow up with it. I grew up with all of this stuff, and my first system was an Astrocade. I chose NOT to get a 2600 because after playing it at my cousin's house, nothing stood up to the arcade. Colecovision was fun, but even then.....I just don't see the difference in 3 years of a system being RELEASED in the USA, and less than a year when a system is released worldwide turns it into a Neo Classic system.

[boatofcar]

What's classic or not is about as pointless an argument as defining what punk is--it's entirely subjective. Of course people who grew up in the early 80's aren't going to look a newer systems as classics, any more than people who grew up in the 50's look at films made in the 70's and 80's as classics.

Now, if you want to classify "classic" games as games before the crash, that's no different than calling them "golden age." And as for people running out of metallic names, comics have been around a heck of a lot longer than video games, but they use that classification quite well.

[Kid Ice]

My buddy had a game where you ride on a train.

At the start you can pick your weapon. whip,punch or gun. You got the most points per kill with gun. When you punched someone they would slide back and anyone hit by then also died. Anyone know the name?

Sounds like Express Raider:

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7735

[FOnewearl]

I know it goes against what the OP is considering to be "classic" but I'm throwing out a few games I enjoyed playing way back when that AFAIK never came out on a home console even in some form on a "retro" collection. I might be able to think of a few others if I thought about it but these are a few games not mentioned yet here that come to mind right away that I always wanted to see released on a home console, Black Tiger could be included on this list if not for being included on a few of the Capcom collections.

Rail Chase (adding this although it realisticly couldn't be 100% recreated on a home console)
Wrestlefest
Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder
Solar Warrior - This one came out in '86 so it's close to the era that the OP was looking for Mix between run and gun & shoot 'em up for anyone who's never played it before.

[kingpong]

I've always been of the pre-crash = classic, post-crash = something else mindset. While things never completely stopped, for all practical purposes there was a clear break in the videogame industry. That's a perfect delineation for "classic".

Anybody who isn't an idiot knows that that the Famicom came out in 1983, but typically only big Nintendo fans try to argue that it should be considered a pre-crash/classic system. One has to remember that the industry looked a lot different in those days. While Japanese games were a big part of the arcade scene, the console scene was virtually non-existant. Sure Atari released the 2600 and later tried the repackaging as the 2800 and Bandai released the Intellivision, but the home systems that were dominant in the rest of the world didn't do squat in Japan (funny how we still see symptoms of this today). You can't build a timeline that combines the Japanese home market and that of the rest of the world because the lines didn't intersect until after the crash. The Famicom might have been released in Japan in 1983, but it didn't impact the worldwide video game scene until 1986 - despite being released in the US in 1985, it was limited and it didn't make a splash until a year later.

Before the crash the industry was dominated by the US. After the crash Japan would dominate. Stuff from the US dominated era is classic, things from the Japan era and today's mixed yet separate US/Japan era are something else (I don't have a good name for it - I kind of see everything post-crash as one continuous thing anyways as there's never been a major paradigm shift, so it is all modern stuff).

Perhaps the use of "classic" was a poor choice back when we started using it in the early 90s. But look at any other use of classic to describe something - it almost always refers to something of a certain time period or style, so something does not become classic with age. Every time someone tries to expand classic through the passage of time it raises a stink, no matter if it is classic video games, classic rock, or classic cars. When the use of "classic" in conjunction with games came into vogue it was used to distinguish the post-crash, Japan centric industry from the pre-crash, US dominated video game world. Despite being available in Japan at the time, nobody considered the Famicom a part of that world.

Since we've had the tired Famicom is classic argument brought up, anyone want to bring up the equally incorrect Euro centric argument that there was no crash, that people just moved to gaming on computers instead of consoles? I always get a kick out of how people in the US started making that argument after the WWW took off and they saw how good the stuff in Europe was in the mid to late 80s.

[DreamTR]

kingpong: I'm talking strictly dates here. "Crash" or no crash regardless, the TECHNOLOGY is what I am referring to. It makes no sense to call the Colecovision a classic when the NES technology upon worldwide release was less than a year later, and call that a "neo" classic.

I was fully aware of arcades/consoles since I was going to the arcade 7 days a week back in the mid 80s, and Zody's (a crappy department store), had a Family arcade next to it, and every single grocery store/casino/pizza parlor within a 2 miles radius of me (and there were numerous) had arcade machines.

This "crash" is just really referring to the ET Atari 2600 game, and a lot of companies were dumping "some" games, but it wasn't as crazy as you think. People still carried games normally (in my area) and not everything was dumped. The 2600 was reboxed later on for $49.99 in that red box in the mid to late 80s right around the time the NES was in full distribution, but those 2.5 years of supposed crash might have affected retail, but arcade still remained decent. Sure, it fell off slightly, but there was an even BIGGER crash for arcades in the 90s and for some reason video games as a whole are only referred to market crashes for console.

The point is, the NES technology was already in arcades. The system came out in Japan. I don't care if it came out in Antarctica, most of the VS arcade games came to the NES later, so to determine that the technology does not fit in to the same category because of ET failing to sell is ridiculous.

I was there through this whole thing, and I have to say not everyone thought video games were a "fad" still from retail. Arcades were still around, people were still releasing games, console stuff was just stagnant for a bit, but that does not denote that the technology was not classic by any means, and I was around through this whole mess....I know our department stores sure didn't have a blowout of all Atari games for $1 in 1984-85....

[Sanriostar]

Regarding DreamTR's post:

Its a question of naming and Capitalization, methinks.

"Classic" is pre-crash.
"classic" is just a good game no matter when it came out.
so games can be "Classic" and "classic" like Robotron or Tempest
"Classic" but not "classic' like Mythicon 2600 carts
or "classic' but not "Classic" like Star Control 2, Halo, ect.

We've all been using this method, and I think it's just stuck on us. The core of us are refugees from rec.games.video.classic; old habits, hard to break, ect.

EDIT: this was posted before I noticed there was a 2nd page, and the corresponding dialog.

[jcalder8]

Buyatari: What did you mean by "classic"? I thought of classic in terms of how good it is not in terms of era.

[Buyatari]

Buyatari: What did you mean by "classic"? I thought of classic in terms of how good it is not in terms of era.

What did I mean by "classic" well isn't it obvious.

lol

::Grabs the popcorn and enjoys the rest of this::

Anyway the game was called Iron Horse and put out by Konami.

[jb143]

Buyatari: What did you mean by "classic"? I thought of classic in terms of how good it is not in terms of era.

Is a Gremlin or a Pento considered a classic car?
Is Nirvana considered classic rock?

The term classic applies to both date and quality/style.

[Kid Ice]

This "crash" is just really referring to the ET Atari 2600 game, and a lot of companies were dumping "some" games, but it wasn't as crazy as you think.

Now we got the crash in quotes, ehh?

The industry was in such poor shape that Nintendo had to release the NES with A ROBOT so people would not notice it was a video game console.

You're not talking dates. But we got two posts of "THE NES CAME OUT IN 83 IN JAPAN!"

And Guns n Roses, etc, okay, okay, okay.

I still think the argument for the NES as a classic is reasonable. Just not reasonable in the manner that YOU are presenting it.

[Game Freak]

i want to say Tapper, i dnot have it for console, so idk. I also dont have Carnival...

oh and Zoo Keeper! (no, the DS one is completely different)