What games did you not know were arcade games?

[Keatah]

What games did you first play on one of your home systems and only later discover it was an arcade port?

 

For me, not a whole lot, but some. One of them was Threshold on the Apple II. And only many years later, through emulation even, did I discover this was a home clone of the coin-op arcade game AstroBlaster!

 

There are others but this one came to mind right away.

 

ARCADE

 

HOME / APPLE II

 

 

 

 

[AtariLeaf]

I did a lot of gaming on the Tandy Color Computer in the early 80's and played a lot of games that I didn't know at the time were based on arcade games

 

Astro Blast (Astro Fighter)

Draconian (Bosconian)

Clowns and Balloons (Circus) - Of course at this point I still didn't know Circus Atari was based on an arcade game either

Mudpies (Food Fight)

Marble Maze (Marble Madness)

 

Probably others but I already knew they were ports.

[Pixelboy]

Last year, when I reached a deal with Lemonize to publish Majikazo for the ColecoVision, I thought it was an original creation, but it turns out that Majikazo is a "re-imagining" of the arcade game Toy Pop. I learned this many months later.

[+FujiSkunk]

I recently learned Astro Chase was turned into an arcade game following its home release. I also didn't know Pitfall II and Boulder Dash had been turned into arcade games until I was doing some research on them for my web project.

[NE146]

Space Dungeon is one for me.. didn't realize it was an arcade game until much later.

 

Aside from that one.. there's not much since I am proud to have been a latchkey arcade rat from the late 70's and on. I was that little 9 year old kid walking around without any adult supervision wherever there were arcade games, so I knew a large amount of them.

 

Being from Guam, my experience was a little different where I could NOT find some famous early arcade games that I wanted to play, so I had to use the home port to finally experience it. e.g. Willliams games like Joust and Robotron I guess were primarily developed and distributed in the States so were hard to find locally. So my time with Joust was mostly done on the 5200 while I could only see the arcade version in magazines. I eventually did find a Joust machine for the record.. on a military base.

Edited April 21, 2016 by NE146

[opeygon]

For me it was Rygar. I LOVED this game on the NES when I was growing up. Just like Keatah, I never knew it was an arcade port until I was an adult and discovered it through emulation. For the record, I think the NES port is way better to me.

 

Also, and this relates to a couple of threads in the Emulation forum, I never could beat Rygar on the NES back in the 80's. It was and is one hard ass game to beat! It wasn't until the modern era that I was able to beat it on an emulator using save states. Yes I know it's cheating, but I always wondered what happened at the end of this game so it was totally worth it to use save states to beat it. So tha'ts one of the advantages of emulation that Keatah so eloquently described in the Emulation forums.

[Cynicaster]

Sky Skipper. Had the 2600 version as a kid, and only learned of the arcade version through MAME a few years ago.

[+FujiSkunk]

I wonder why many children of the NES would be surprised to learn Contra was originally an arcade game? I only ever saw the arcade cabinet once. Ditto Super Mario Bros. (though the "Vs." games are a tad debatable).

[+wongojack]

Rygar and Contra are both games that I didn't know were in the arcade. I still have it on my list to go back and complete Rygar with some emulation help, so you aren't alone there opeygon.

 

In the NES category, Bionic Commando is another . . .

 

For the 2600, I had no idea that MegaMania was based on an arcade game (also based on AstroBlaster). Warlords was one that I also discovered after getting Mame fully configured. However, I understand that the arcade version was actually released AFTER the home version. (Didn't look that up to confirm). I've still never seen a Circus arcade machine (and I don't want to). The home versions of that little franchise are enough for me.

[AtariBrian]

I never knew about Astroblaster until after it was made for the 7800 recently. It's a great game and I would love to have the arcade cabinet.

[leods]

Probably most arcade ports I played, since I had my NES and didn't really know much about arcades at all.

 

Not sure wether I new there was a Pac Man game in arcades when I first got it. I certainly didn't know Mario Bros or Contra were arcade games first time I played them. One game I only discovered was an arcade port way later was Rolling Thunder.

[mbd30]

For me it was Rygar. I LOVED this game on the NES when I was growing up. Just like Keatah, I never knew it was an arcade port until I was an adult and discovered it through emulation. For the record, I think the NES port is way better to me.

 

Also, and this relates to a couple of threads in the Emulation forum, I never could beat Rygar on the NES back in the 80's. It was and is one hard ass game to beat! It wasn't until the modern era that I was able to beat it on an emulator using save states. Yes I know it's cheating, but I always wondered what happened at the end of this game so it was totally worth it to use save states to beat it. So tha'ts one of the advantages of emulation that Keatah so eloquently described in the Emulation forums.

 

I beat Rygar for NintendoAge's "Beat every NES game in 2016" thread. I ordered the cart and then played it for like four hours straight in order to beat it. Gamefaqs helps.

 

Then I swore to myself that I'd never play the damn thing again.

 

I never got into the NES game as a kid. But I was familiar with the arcade game first. It was a fairly common machine at the time.

Edited April 21, 2016 by mbd30

[+FujiSkunk]

For the 2600, I had no idea that MegaMania was based on an arcade game (also based on AstroBlaster). Warlords was one that I also discovered after getting Mame fully configured. However, I understand that the arcade version was actually released AFTER the home version. (Didn't look that up to confirm). I've still never seen a Circus arcade machine (and I don't want to). The home versions of that little franchise are enough for me.

 

Circus hit the arcade twice, once as Circus and once as Clowns. Both came out before the 2600's Circus Atari.

 

A lot of 2600 black-labels were based on '70s arcade games. Everyone knows about Pong and most people know about Warlords and Breakout along with Tank and the other games that went into Combat, but Air-Sea Battle, Starship, Indy 500, Dodge 'Em, Space War, Sky Diver, Outlaw, Canyon Bomber and Night Driver are all either ports of arcade games or close enough to be considered clones (though in Space War's case the arcade game was also a clone). You can arguably add Basketball to the list, since Atari's arcade Basketball and their 2600 game play very similarly.

[Blazing Lazers]

The RCA Studio II stuff- before I began looking into it I never would have guessed it began as an arcade unit, or at least in some form. It certainly explains how the eventual console was slightly behind the cutting edge when it reached retail.

[BassGuitari]

The RCA Studio II stuff- before I began looking into it I never would have guessed it began as an arcade unit, or at least in some form. It certainly explains how the eventual console was slightly behind the cutting edge when it reached retail.

Weren't most of the Studio II games actually coded around 1974?

[opeygon]

 

I beat Rygar for NintendoAge's "Beat every NES game in 2016" thread. I ordered the cart and then played it for like four hours straight in order to beat it. Gamefaqs helps.

 

Then I swore to myself that I'd never play the damn thing again.

 

I never got into the NES game as a kid. But I was familiar with the arcade game first. It was a fairly common machine at the time.

 

 

Well the frustrating thing is I had been to the final boss many times back then but I could never beat him. Rygar didn't have a save feature or password system so once you shut it off, you had to start all over again. I hated that! In fact, I recall at least one occasion where I left my NES on all night and half the next day while I was at school just because I din't want to start all over again!!!

[AtariLeaf]

Sky Skipper. Had the 2600 version as a kid

 

You poor bastard

Edited April 22, 2016 by AtariLeaf

[GameGirl420]

I had no idea Section Z was an arcade game until I tried it lately. Imo it sucks compared to the NES version.

 

Also I had no idea Castlevania was actually a port of an arcade game called Haunted Castle by Konami until recently. Again not as good as the NES version imo.

[VectorGamer]

 

Circus hit the arcade twice, once as Circus and once as Clowns. Both came out before the 2600's Circus Atari.

 

A lot of 2600 black-labels were based on '70s arcade games. Everyone knows about Pong and most people know about Warlords and Breakout along with Tank and the other games that went into Combat, but Air-Sea Battle, Starship, Indy 500, Dodge 'Em, Space War, Sky Diver, Outlaw, Canyon Bomber and Night Driver are all either ports of arcade games or close enough to be considered clones (though in Space War's case the arcade game was also a clone). You can arguably add Basketball to the list, since Atari's arcade Basketball and their 2600 game play very similarly.

 

Clowns on the C64 is pretty arcade accurate. I remember playing the arcade game and liking it.

 

Dodge 'Em is based on the arcade games Crash and Head On.

 

I'm guessing Air-Sea Battle is based on Anti-Aircraft?

[mbd30]

Is Dodge 'Em the first game to have collect the dots style gameplay? It preceded Pac-Man.

[NE146]

Yeah I think the whole "Head-On" dodge the cars thing was the first type of game for collect the dots since they were in the B&W era. However in my opinion the one game that pre-dated Pacman that was even closer to the gameplay was Taito's Space Chaser since it was also a dot-eater, but you could also control the direction of your player in a maze.

 

 

It's always been debatable whether to call a lot of the early 2600 titles as "ports" of arcade games. e.g. video olympics (pong), combat (Tank), air-sea battle, Circus etc. Because yes they pretty much were, and no they pretty much weren't. By that I mean of course it was obvious that they were meant to approximate certain arcade themes of games of the time, but they weren't "officially" ports, as in "Play TANK at home. Only from Atari!". It was just a different time in the 70's and was all just loosey goosey.

Edited April 25, 2016 by NE146

[VectorGamer]

Here's the KLOV entry for Space Chaser

 

Here's a video of the game play. Notice the yellow guy is a character in Sega's Astro Blaster as one of the enemies. It's interesting after all these years of learning about games I haven't heard of from BITD

 

[NE146]

Something is all kinds of wrong with that video because at 1:16 he dies but the game glitches the video and then acts like he cleared the stage. Must be via emulation with some cheat enabled.

 

Another reason Space Chaser is similar to Pacman it totally had patterns, One funny story is I remember at one store where we played the game, the local Security Guard would stand there and tell us all the patterns he'd learned by standing around all day and watching people play

Edited April 25, 2016 by NE146

[madhatter667]

I knew that SMB was an arcade game before a home console port, but that is only because a bowling alley had the cabinet. Part of what sold us on getting the NES back in the day. Lol.

However, like others... Rygar. Didn't know that one. Galaxian, for a very long time. Had the Coleco tabletop mini. Donkey Kong Jr. Picked this up during the Atari 2nd wave/red label releases. Still to this day have yet to see an arcade cabinet of it.

[VectorGamer]

About halfway thru this video you'll see Todd Tuckey show off his Route 16 cabaret - another arcade game from BITD I've never heard of.