Most underrated arcade games

[Chuck D. Head]

A few immediately came to mind (the first two have been mentioned above):

 

• Rescue
• Bagman
• and Armored Car - it's a bit archaic, but I keep going back to it.

[Crimefighter]

You can find a bunch of these on that 60 in 1 board - or Galloping Ghost Arcade or Underground Retrocade.

[Zonie]

Hmmm...

 

• Star Castle
• Reactor
• Star Fire
• Tailgunner
• Space Wars
  
  
  ...Seems I tend to prefer the Vectors (well, not reactor)

[Cynicaster]

• and Armored Car - it's a bit archaic, but I keep going back to it.

 

 

Great pick... I enjoy that game a lot. Very addictive and approachable.

[Mingy Jongo]

Rally-X
Bosconian

Time Pilot

[Ramses]

I've been playing Snake Pit quite a bit lately. The controls are pretty unique. It's really fun with a trackball!

 

 

 

I also want to add Chameleon - would have been somewhat of a unique platformer at the time it was released. Not bad. Extremely rare. I've never even seen a picture of the cab or marquee. It was surprisingly ported to the Casio PV-1000 though.

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Ramses

[ChildOfCv]

So, there's one arcade game I used to like, but it's apparently so "underrated" that I can't even match it back to its title. It's basically a re-skin of Xevious from around 1985, using an F-14, with even variable geometry wing animations. You had a shoot button and a strafe button, so that you can attack both aerial enemies and ground targets. It had "stages", though it just flowed from stage to stage with no real "congrats" screen. Kinda similar to Section Z in that respect, but always a vertical scroller of course. One of the attract mode screens starts at the point where you have to navigate a hail of missiles, shooting what you can't dodge.

 

I wish I could find anything about this one, but I've only seen it at the local supermarket way back when.

[Mingy Jongo]

Oh, I forgot about Colony 7! One of my favorite arcade games and incredibly underrated.

[Inky]

Uncle Poo

[+cvga]

I think Food Fight and Bump N Jump were both underrated.

[Zonie]

There was a first person jet fighter game that scrolled vertically. I think it was black and white, but had a light blue overlay. Late '70's. Was at the ski lodge. played it a lot.

[Crimefighter]

So, there's one arcade game I used to like, but it's apparently so "underrated" that I can't even match it back to its title. It's basically a re-skin of Xevious from around 1985, using an F-14, with even variable geometry wing animations. You had a shoot button and a strafe button, so that you can attack both aerial enemies and ground targets. It had "stages", though it just flowed from stage to stage with no real "congrats" screen. Kinda similar to Section Z in that respect, but always a vertical scroller of course. One of the attract mode screens starts at the point where you have to navigate a hail of missiles, shooting what you can't dodge.

 

I wish I could find anything about this one, but I've only seen it at the local supermarket way back when.

 

Flak Attack by Konami ?

[ChildOfCv]

 

Flak Attack by Konami ?

 

Wow! While that fits the description I was able to remember pretty well, it's not that. So close though!

[+x=usr(1536)]

There was a first person jet fighter game that scrolled vertically. I think it was black and white, but had a light blue overlay. Late '70's. Was at the ski lodge. played it a lot.

 

Atari's Sky Raider? This link shows the blue-tinted bezel, BTW, which the video below doesn't.

 

Only ever saw this once in the flesh. For the time, it was very impressive.

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

One more for the underrated category: Atari's I, Robot:

 

 

Although never a commercial success, this was a good game whose downfall can largely be attributed to being ahead of its time. Innovations include:

1. A very early use of polygon graphics in an arcade game. There's some question as to whether I, Robot or Simutrek's Cube Quest got there first, but Cube Quest only used them for its sprites, relying on laserdisc footage for the playfield; I, Robot generated the entire game in polygons.
2. Camera angles that were adjustable by the player during gameplay, with bonus multipliers being based on their positioning.
3. The inclusion of the 'Doodle City' non-game drawing mode, in which you could use your credit to draw on the screen using game objects instead of playing the game itself. This mode was time-limited, though it was possible to escape back to the game in the first 30 seconds or so.

Gameplay essentially alternated between being a 3D platform shooter (with some puzzle elements in places) in which the goal was to change the colour of all of the red platforms to blue, followed by first-person flight shooting segments functioning as bonus rounds. There was a fair amount of subtlety to how things worked in both of those levels, and it wasn't a pick-up-and-play game - you had to work with (and through) the game more than once to really understand how things operated.

 

Being released just as the arcade crash hit also didn't help, and given how expensive the polygon hardware was to produce, having a price tag that reflected that wasn't going to translate out to sales in the tens of thousands. It was unfortunately doomed to failure, but did give gamers (and Atari) their first taste of realtime rendering, and is still fun to play through today.

[H.E.R.O.]

Looping

Cosmic Avenger

Lock N Chase

Food Fight

Three Wonders

[VectorGamer]

Space Encounters

[Inky]

Space Encounters

 

One of my all time favorite games. I remember playing this at the Hillcrest theater in Crest Hill, IL all the time.

 

Others on my list

 

I, Robot

Black Widow

Two Tigers

Trivial Pursuit - I used to LOVE playing this one over and over.

Wacko

Crater Raider

Mad Planets

[VectorGamer]

Two Tigers

Great game especially for two players. Unfortunately this game is extremely rare.

[Inky]

Great game especially for two players. Unfortunately this game is extremely rare.

I also like it one player. For a short time I had the third highest score on the machine at Galloping Ghost. Sadly, the dedicated cab is a bit hard to maintain because of the controls. The Tron conversion is easier to maintain, but 1) Who would want to convert Tron, and 2) The rom for this version of Two Tigers is so different that it feels like a sequel to the standalone.

[slab0meat]

Great game especially for two players. Unfortunately this game is extremely rare.

 

I had no idea it was rare. When I was young, a diner right around the corner had this game for awhile before getting rotated out. Would go there just to play it sometimes.

[Machine]

Qix

Gravitar

Vanguard

Wizard or Wor

Gorf (not sure if it fits as under-rated)

[schuwalker]

All great picks... love the Two Tigers and Lasso ones.

 

Mine:

 

Two Tigers - this mentioned the last couple of posts. I did see the flight yoke version @ a Perry Drug store long ago. I've been more accustomed to the Tron version lately and a bit more common to find

 

Lasso - soo addicting and soo rare yet tons of fun

 

Star Rider (sit-down) - this is my favorite laser disc game. I remember as a kid pretending to be a Biker Scout from Jedi

 

Challenger - I got this cab over the summer. Gameplay is just fun!

 

Return of the Jedi - I know this gets tons of hate being a rastar game instead of vector and the gameplay being in an isometric perspective which leads to the difficulty. I'm telling you, once you get into - you'll like it. Prefer it over the vector ESB.

 

Alien Syndrome - what can I say? Bonus pts. for the alien topper on the arcade. Why there was no Sega Genesis version :/

 

Sega Zektor - Uber rare. Space Fury gets the glory, but I prefer this one

 

Taito Tin Star - Wild Western was mentioned here. This was a quasi sequel to the dial game series

 

I've got two oddball ones as well:

 

Double Dragon II - I know I'm in the minority here. I'd take this night and day over one. I was trying to find more backstory on this one. I'm getting this game was a rush job hence the lack of minor grunts and recycling of levels.

 

Time Pilot '84. I used to hate this game because being stuck in the future and lack of time categories... but what more time periods could you do? Game is loaded with secrets too.

[schuwalker]

I also like it one player. For a short time I had the third highest score on the machine at Galloping Ghost. Sadly, the dedicated cab is a bit hard to maintain because of the controls. The Tron conversion is easier to maintain, but 1) Who would want to convert Tron, and 2) The rom for this version of Two Tigers is so different that it feels like a sequel to the standalone.

Inky we have to discuss hints on this game... I'm around the mid 400k mark. It's next to impossible after that with the time requirement to sink a ship though!

 

Head scratcher someone put a million on this game!

[schuwalker]

One more for the underrated category: Atari's I, Robot:

 

 

Although never a commercial success, this was a good game whose downfall can largely be attributed to being ahead of its time. Innovations include:

1. A very early use of polygon graphics in an arcade game. There's some question as to whether I, Robot or Simutrek's Cube Quest got there first, but Cube Quest only used them for its sprites, relying on laserdisc footage for the playfield; I, Robot generated the entire game in polygons.
3. Camera angles that were adjustable by the player during gameplay, with bonus multipliers being based on their positioning.
5. The inclusion of the 'Doodle City' non-game drawing mode, in which you could use your credit to draw on the screen using game objects instead of playing the game itself. This mode was time-limited, though it was possible to escape back to the game in the first 30 seconds or so.

Gameplay essentially alternated between being a 3D platform shooter (with some puzzle elements in places) in which the goal was to change the colour of all of the red platforms to blue, followed by first-person flight shooting segments functioning as bonus rounds. There was a fair amount of subtlety to how things worked in both of those levels, and it wasn't a pick-up-and-play game - you had to work with (and through) the game more than once to really understand how things operated.

 

Being released just as the arcade crash hit also didn't help, and given how expensive the polygon hardware was to produce, having a price tag that reflected that wasn't going to translate out to sales in the tens of thousands. It was unfortunately doomed to failure, but did give gamers (and Atari) their first taste of realtime rendering, and is still fun to play through today.

 

 

 

Aladdin's Castle, Spring Hill Mall in Dundee, Il. had one of these

 

I maybe played it once or twice bitd but way too advance for me at that time.

 

True story, I was at arcade auction in Rockford area (Il.) this was around '88 or '89. They had two, maybe three for a hefty price of $300. God, I wish I loaded up back then - if only I knew how rare these are going to become My buddy might still have the auction sheet with the prices.