Rare arcade games you've seen

[retrorussell]

Quartet was pretty rare; a mid-eighties Sega 4-player scrolling shoot-em-up. Hmm.. might have to add that to my YouTube videos.

Do you have a link to your vids? Thanks.

My videos

No problem! Hope you enjoy them.

That link just goes to users account.

Oh, right.. duh. Try this:

My link

[Crazy Climber]

I finally saw/played a Zwackery at the MGC. I didn't really care for it but I didn't give it much of a chance. It had a HARD learning curve!

[Skylark68]

There was a Sears Surplus Store in S. Houston off of I-45 south that would sometimes have some fairly uncommon games. Route 16 was one of the more uncommon ones they had there. It was kind of like Rally X in that you were trying to run away from other cars.

 

The arcade called "yesterdays" at San Jacinto Mall in Baytown, TX had some really unusual games that I never see anymore. Omega Race, Eliminator, Crazy Climber were just a few of the ones that I have never seen since those days back in 1982 or 1983.

 

A local movie theater had some other fairly uncommon games. I remember they had a whole wall dedicated to arcade games when I was a kid (it was a long wall). Astro Battle, Space Odyssey, and Astro Fighter were pretty cool games, I really liked Astro Battle with the voice. That was a super hard game to play.

 

There was a restaurant near where my Grandmother lived that had some really good chicken fried steak called James'. They even served crinkle cut fries which are super hard to find eating out nowadays. They had a Moon Cresta and a Piranha back in the day. Even back then I knew Piranha was a huge rip off of Pac Man. It never looked like it was working properly either, but I guess that was just how it played.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Skylark68

[wavelflack]

Hmm. I think the rarest game I've played, in my experience, was Top Secret. We used to make fun of it because it had 8 segment led displays all around the bezel. It seemed half-assed to us, and I never saw another unit. This was at a MGP in Overland Park, KS.

[Syzygy1]

OK, I have to reply to all this.

 

I just remembered some more:

Krull (local swimming pool, wasn't there long)
Major Havoc (Pinball Pete's, no longer there)
Discs of Tron - Evironmental (local mall, long gone)
Rally Bike (MSU student union, played it all the time)
Alcon (MSU student union, almost beat it)

Red Baron (3 of them at Cedar Point in the 90's)
Star Castle (Cedar Point as well)
I, Robot (can't recall the arcade now, but it was cool at the time)

The rarest game I ever saw though was probably Star Wars Arcade. This is not the Atari game, and it's not the Star Wars Trilogy that you still see in some arcades, but it was the game they ported to the 32X (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9775). I saw this in an airport in England in the late 90's. The game was fun, but very hard and cost a Pound to play IIRC. I never saw one of these ever again.

Tempest

For DoT, remember Sark's voice? That was awesome.

 

Very cool topic

Back in the day....

Reactor (played it all the time at Chuck E Cheeses)
Discs of Tron (environmental) at Six Flags over Texas
Speed Freak (Six Flags also). Man did I LOVE that game. Can't be a vector cow...
Dragons Lair II, was only at the arcade one time I went and then it was gone.
Smokey Joe (mind you, not rare in the 70's, but RARE by 86 to see on location!)

Modern/Last 10 years...
Videotopia has just about everything you could imagine....
Major Havoc
Computer Space (had that one in the basement for MANY years...)
Subs
ESB cockpit
Lunar Lander
Indy 8
tons more I cannot think of.

Ones I have owned:
Computer Space (one and two player)
Trak 10 (the smaller cabaret sized Gran Trak 10).
Pong cocktail table (serial number was crazy low, like 80 or something)
Drag Race
Sprint 2
Night Driver cockpit (owned 2 of them)


Worst conversion I have seen:
Qix converted to a Street Fighter (or some such nonsense...it killed me a little to leave that arcade)

CN

There's actually a redemption game called Reactor at Chuck E. Cheese now. Imagine how the children would have felt if you told them there was another Reactor game at CEC.

 

Well.. maybe they weren't rare in my part of the world, but growing up I always played the Taito version of Defender (it had the reverse button on top of the joystick).

defender.jpg

Also of course my favorite Taito Space Invaders part 2 in which the cabinet, backgrounds and artwork differed quite a bit from the u.s.-made Midway Space Invader Deluxe And I often played Puckman and thought it was a bootleg of Pacman

Were you Japanese?

 

Oops.. meant to actually reply to that one.
Splash! was by Gaelco, and from what I recall was sort of a soft-core porn game with nude pics revealed by playing a Qix-like game.
I used to play quite a bit of Turtles.. I remember seeing it on the Magnavox II.
I believe Nintendo's first arcade game was Space Firebird, which was also licensed to Sega/Gremlin.
I BARELY heard of Manhattan.. there were some good games on the DECO system but mostly crap.
Thanks for the memories! Keep 'em rolling!

I thought Sega was Nintendo's rival.

 

The two rare games I used to play (that I loved) were Star Fire and Zwackery. Star Fire is a great, ignored first person shooter, ala Star Raiders. It was a great year with the 2600 homebrew got released. It's still the my favorite homebrew

Zwackery is one of those ultra obscure games that just doesn't emulate. Buttons, spinners, joysticks, and a quirky 'everything but the kitchen sink' games that isn't like anything else. Good stuff!

I also used to play Discs of Tron in one of those super rare (and unbelievably awesome) stand-up environmental cabs. You have to have played one to understand.

I loved the speech in that game.

 

The Jamesway in Culpeper, VA would get weird stuff up along the wall in the front. Only place I ever saw Super Cobra. The most unusual one I recall was Zoo Keeper. The arcade in town was pretty good about adding in less known games into the popular ones, so that's where I played a lot of Reactor. Some drug store had a Space Duel set up near the front.

The arcade in the Charlottesville, VA mall had a bunch of unusual titles for a fairly small room, like Satan's Hollow, Major Havoc, Cloak & Dagger, and Krull.

The arcade at King's Dominion, outside of Richmond, VA, was huge and full of all kinds of strange stuff, including Discs of Tron (environmental cab), Venture, and Leprechaun (they had a minicab set up elsewhere in the park for little kids with the Pot of Gold ROM at an insanely easy difficulty level).

The arcade in the Steubenville, OH mall had quite a line of vector games including Armor Attack, Lunar Lander, Star Castle, and one where you controlled a knight from an overhead perspective who had to fight another knight while avoiding falling into two pits/wells on the screen (technically I think the wells were on an overlay). It's also where I encountered just about the rarest game I have ever seen, Zwackery.

In the mid-90s when I lived in Matsuyama, Japan, I saw a bunch of very exotic stuff in those arcades: Dig Dug II, Elevator Action II, Rolling Thunder 2, and a bunch of stuff I have no idea what the names in English might be.

Rolling Thunder 2? WOW!

 

Well, I don't think I have encountered too many rare ones. Here are some I can think of..
Crazy Climber
Tron Enviromental (after reading this topic they do not seem that rare though)
The ninja warriors (cool 3 monitor cabinet)
Dedicated Metal Slug Neo Geo with Metal Slug side art/marquee, etc..
Double Donkey Kong
Polaris
Red Baron
My Hero (way too hard to be fun)
A strange dodge em style game (was at the MGC in 06 if anyone remembers?)
Joust 2

I am sure I have played or seen some pretty obscure stuff but here is the thing about them. The rare and obscure stuff, at least most of the time, is not very good. When a game is not very good, it is not very memorable.

what is Double Donkey Kong? Never heard of it!

 

There was a Fernandez Fun Factory near me that used to get all kinds of rare stuff: Cliff Hanger, I Robot, Scud Racer, Tac Scan, Subroc 3D, Discs of Tron Environmental, Sonic Blast Man (I saw Tommy Morrison, who was the WBO Heavyweight Champ at the time, play this one and he broke the machine), Joust 2...probably nearly every game mentioned here. I miss those places...

Darn, the '90s.

 

Not sure if anybody said this, but when I was in Disney World back in 2002, they had DisneyQuest. It was a dream! They had an entire FLOOR to classic games. Some machines that were rare. Like Space Wars, an Environmental version of Discs of Tron, Major Havoc, a working Warrior, and a few others.

WOAH! also congrats on finding a Major Havoc! I always wanted that game!

 

I remember playing the stand-up Discs of Tron game... albeit when I was too young to fully get up there!

Other games I remember playing are Baby Pac-Man, The Three Stooges, Galaga 3 (better known as Gaplus,) Herbie Goes To The Olympics, Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns (the arcade version made by Sega,) and a few others I can't think of.

Y'remember the voice in the game? (sorry I keep mentioning Sark's voice)

 

I remember the environmental Discs of Tron. The 3D and movie-style colors were just jaw-dropping at the time.

And the speech!

 

I always liked when Major Havoc whacked his head on something, and he'd shake his head trying to shake off the pain. At the time it was innovative personification of a video game character.

Pirahna: Lame Pac-Man clone by GT in 1981.
Spiders: Okay shooter by Sigma in 1981, which some creepy goth chick winking at you after a few stages. That's my reward for getting this far?
The Electric Yo-Yo!: Major failure by Taito, 1982. They've had plenty enough success to allow disappointments like that.
Space Odyssey: Okay but unmemorable multi-stage Sega shooter from 1981. Understandably lost in the shuffle of better shooters (i.e., Scramble, Super Cobra, Astro Blaster, Galaga, etc.).
Jump Bug: Far and away my favorite Rock-Ola game. You drive a jumping VW Bug over various terrains, shooting enemies and collecting diamonds and gold bags. Oh, and you jump on clouds for points too. So whack it's enjoyable.

I just watched Spiders. What's with the big purple spider eatin' you at the beginning? Also Major Havoc goes in the same category as Space Harrier in my book for video game characters.

 

More..
Super Bagman, Stern 1984. Actually pretty good sequel (you can shoot, set bombs, and jump across gaps). Unfortunately, the home gaming consoles were taking major business from the arcades and Super Bagman disappeared.
Exerion, Jaleco/Taito 1983. Nice parallax scrolling of landscapes below as you fly around shooting enemies by either one shot at a time, or a steady stream of shots by holding down fire (but it eats your shot supply quicker). A bit monotonous after a while but enjoyable.
I think someone mentioned Zzyyxxyyzz earlier. I saw it as "Brix".
One that was semi-rare and I love to pieces is Taito's Halley's Comet, 1986. Great shooter; graphics are not that good but the action really delivers.
Strider 2, 1999 Capcom. ABSOLUTELY AWESOME game!!! The panoramic viewpoints when you are scaling skyscrapers just totally floor you. You feel like you're right there.
Nichibutsu's Radical Radial, 1982. You are a TIRE, shooting at enemies. Oh, those kooky Japanese!
Mag Max, Nichibutsu 1985. It wasn't totally rare but I didn't see it too often. Loved it though. Building yourself into a powerful robot as you fought enemies and picked up body parts was a cool concept.
Samurai Nihon-Ichi, Taito 1985. Kung Fu Master with swords, and killer birds. Funny anime-like exaggerated expressions on you and your enemies when killed.
Ninja, Sega 1985. Pretty good game with a female ninja protagonist! (novel for its time) You shoot shurikens at foes as you scroll usually upwards to the final enemy (always the same guy). When she got hit (one-hit kill), she fell to her knees and cried. I felt bad for her.
Return of the Invaders, Taito 1985. Pretty unremarkable sequel to Space Invaders. SI 91, and SI 95 were much better (and FAR more humorous!).

A female protagonist. That's dedication.

 

I, Robot was a sweet game. My second favorite arcade game to Galaga. They had an I, Robot cabinet at my local Aladdin's Castle for quite some time when it first came out.

Remember the music? "BUM BUM BUM DUM DUM DUM" Reminds me of Dark Cave from Pokemon Gold/Silver.

[nshollingsworth]

I've played Polybius.

[CreeB]

Sorry to bump this thread.. it hasn't been active in seven years,,, but i have some contenders.

 

MAJOR HAVOC (first saw it at my local chuck e cheese's,, then at my local arcade a year later.. i agree,, how he shakes off the pain is very cute)..

ENVIRONMENTAL DISCS OF TRON (this was in my local arcade for a few years.. i had a crush on sark so i loved the speech)..

ROBOT BOWL (this was also at my local arcade for many years.. could never play this alone except if i were feeling brave)..

VIDEO PINBALL (at my local arcade in the early days.. loved it)..

RADAR SCOPE (same as video pinball.. became donkey kong)..

SOLAR FOX (at my local arcade,, removed round 85)..

PACLAND (at my local arcade)..

[Tornadoboy]

I've been lucky to have had a lot of really oddball games come through the local arcades, here's the ones I can remember:

 

Kyros (LOVED that game)

Son Son

Us VS Them

I Robot

Warrior (Always broken)

Sundance 

Marvin's Maze

Mission X

EDOT

Subroc 3D cockpit

Pop Flamer

Star Blade

Sonic Blast Man

Major Havoc

Professor Pacman

Boxing Bugs (Same as Warrior, always broken)

Seicross

Super Bike

Time Traveler (broken)

Beast Busters (played the hell out of it)

Halley's Comet

Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters

MACH 3

The Pit

Taito Samuri 

Swimmer

Naughty Boy

Stratovox

Granny and the Gators

Baby Pacman

Trog

Caveman (Or whatever it was called, it was a combo pinball-video game like Baby Pac) 

Shoot Out

Shooting Master (God that had annoying sounds!)

Leprechaun

 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Tornadoboy
I'm an illiterate bastard

[GraffitiTavern]

Massive free play arcade in York, PA called Timeline

 

They had a Polybius cab, but since that was an urban legend I have no idea what the repro was

https://www.facebook.com/timelinearcadeyork/videos/polybius/411369636805691/ 

 

They also had a largely operational The Ocean Hunter deluxe set up, although I am fairly sure they were running an emulated board the actual set up was legit (one of the enclosed units)

Played that one with my friend from beginning to end.

 

They had a Top Skater set up as well, although I didn't have time to get to that one.

 

EDIT: Wanted to add a Round1 I was at at the North Lancaster Mall had a sizable candy cab selection, including one Vewlix running Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 from 1996

Edited September 27, 2023 by GraffitiTavern

[Steven Pendleton]

Here is an unreleased game in one of my local arcades. It's in my other local arcade, too.

 

 

Aside from this, this same arcade has Saidaioujou. There are only about 500 Saidaioujou PCBs known to exist.

 

I have also seen and played Repulse.

 

I myself have a very rare PCB as well. It's Kyuukyoku Tiger, which itself is quite common, but I have an extremely early version of the PCB that was produced in very small numbers before they changed the PCB to a slightly different version. It's apparently likely to be one of the first 300 Kyuukyoku Tiger PCBs made.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Steven Pendleton

[CreeB]

What was BOXING BUGS???? I remember it

[CreeB]

Ah yes,, looked it up and now i remember.. CINEMATRONICS game from 1981,, is it extinct now????

 

Feel like i've seen QWAK in person,, but this was back when i was SCARED TO DEATH of video games.. 6 maybe???? The reason why i was scared was because of their BLACK AND WHITE GRAPHICS AND STRANGE NOISES,, eek!!!!

 

BURNING FORCE was at my local bowling alley.. it was like a jukebox in that i'd put a quarter in and jam out.. AWESOME SOUNDTRACK..