What were your favorite Arcade games or Pinball from the 70s and early 80s ?

self | algore

[Golden Eagle]

At the time, I never cared for the Williams graphics. The pixels seemed fuzzier

Interesting point, and I think maybe they were, possibly because there was so much simultaneous action of the different type enemies on the screen at the same time. But the sounds, you have to give it up, the sounds were amazing. Even the inserting the quarter sounds were literally out of this world on Stargate lol. Thanks for the memories!

[SomeCallMeTim]

LOL yes! All those things!

I loved that game. It had a cool “second game”, after you defeated the main game. It was HIGH PRESSURE!

[Beowulf9]

Ms. Pac-Man, Kangeroo, Galaga, Q-Bert

I kinda was lousy at all of ‘em. But I did get to level 4 on Ms. Pac-Man, er like twice.

[Dr. Sivana]

Williams games had one feature that was truly amazing. While most arcade games had a something like a slow/medium/fast setting, and maybe choosing whether you got 3 or 5 lives for a quarter, Williams had everything almost infinitely configurable for the coin-op vendor.

Someone in the college dormitory cracked the lock on the sit-down/cocktail Stargate machine at college. Once inside, you get into ste up mode, and you can give yourself from one to ten ships, and zero to 20+ smart bombs, and 1 to 100 speed of the bad guys, and free ships every thousand points.

So of course, you give yourself 10 ships, a free ship every thousand points, slow speed on the bad guys, and maximum smart bombs. You can just fly around blasting everything with smart bombs forever. That got boring.

Then we tried the opposite. ONE ship. Difficulty level=100. ZERO smart bombs. No free ships. Close the machine and wait.

Poor unwitting palooka comes in, not know ing the machine had been modified, and pops in his quarter, presses the 1 Player button, and suddenly EVERY bad guy in Stargate IMMEDIATELY destroys the ship before he could even move or shoot, and the words "GAME OVER" come up.

It was like an intergalactic high speed ending of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".

[rlmorel]

Tempest

Duck Shoot

Tapper

[rlmorel]

Ah yes…Frogger!

Centipede was fun too.

[Secret Agent Man]

Yeah i like Tempest too

didn’t play that as much as the other ones i listed though

[FreedomProtector]

Riverraid
Battlezone

[Falconspeed]

Defender
Play here: https://archive.org/details/arcade_defender

[Neanderthal]

Jolly Joker

[jmacusa]

“Space Invaders’’.

[Political Junkie Too]

As a kid, my parents would take me to the Nathan's in Oceanside, NY, where they had a great arcade room.

For some reason, I always remember playing Periscope.

In college, I played a lot of Eight Ball Deluxe.

Rack 'Em Up!

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

And Fireball pinball

That's the one with the spinning rubber mat in the middle of the field, right?

-PJ

[The Duke]

We had 'Galaxians' in our EE lounge in college, and I got pretty hooked on that.

Then I definitely went through a 'Defender' stage (nice memories).

But, ultimately, I settled on Millipede, and owned a Millipede machine for several years. Definitely Millipede.

I never could figure out 'Tempest'

Hat tip to 'Asteroids', which also consumed countless quarters of mine. These days I play the sequel ('Hemmoroids').

[Golden Eagle]

Williams games had one feature that was truly amazing. While most arcade games had a something like a slow/medium/fast setting, and maybe choosing whether you got 3 or 5 lives for a quarter, Williams had everything almost infinitely configurable for the coin-op vendor.

Too funny, and I knew this feature very well, as the tech for the arcade where I usually played would come by about once a week and set this setting real low for himself, so he could get the top score on the machines. This was a big deal on the Williams machines, as you probably remember most Williams games gave you 20 characters to leave everyone a message at the top of the scores if you got the high score.

As you can imagine, this didn’t set well with those of us who were vying for the top scores, starting with us having to stand there each time watching him get a fresh life every 2k instead of the normal 10k, which meant his sessions would go on for hours and tie up the machines.

We actually ended up boycotting our playing of the machines whenever his name was at the top, which the arcade owner found out about, and wouldn’t let him leave it up there after he finished his cheat sessions. This actually ended up working out for everyone ok, as the high scores were zeroed out quite a bit and therefore most everyone got a chance to get their name up there at least once. Some of the lower skilled players would even hang out waiting for “Robert” to play so they’d get their chance when he was done lol.

[Dr. Sivana]

as you probably remember most Williams games gave you 20 characters to leave everyone a message at the top of the scores if you got the high score.

That feature had to be done away with because the top scorer left a lewd and suggestive message and a dad with his young daughter played the machine shortly after and raised hell with Williams, so the Hall of Fame names were shortened on future machines.

[Golden Eagle]

Bummer! But good to know, thanks again for the ride down memory lane.

[BuchananBrigadeTrumpFan]

Pinball:

Kiss
Sharpshooter
Silverball Mania
Eight Ball/Deluxe

Video games:

Pac Man
Ms. Pac Man
Centipede
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong

[Zack Attack]

Galaga, Donkey King, Missile Command along with Pac-man got a good chunk of my weekly pocket change. Pizza Hut had the 2-player sit down versions and pizza nights required bringing extra quarters.

[LastDayz]

Yar’s Revenge... Atari

Arkanoid... Taito

1942... Midway