Your biggest arcade surprise

Think back to a time when arcades were huge, or not so huge depending on your age. When you could go in and smell the aged popcorn and butter stains mixed with adolescent sweat and body odor. Alright, now get out of your day dream and tell me this, what was the one arcade game that hit you out of nowhere and made you re-think everything you knew about them. You know, the game that you never knew about and just blew you away.

For me it was the first Donpachi. This was right after the MvC2 scene had just started up, and I was fairly into it. A friend and I went to a local pool hall, that surprisingly had tons of great games. We were looking around playing the normal arcade games we always did and checking out new ones. We were actually playing Metamorphic Force, another great beat em up by Konami, and no more then 3 machines down, this machine keep screaming a phrase every 2 minutes or so. It sounded like "DAWNPA!!!!". So it really annoyed us in a way, and we went to go check out what the new machine was that kept spouting out this loud and unintelligable sound. We looked at it and see it's a vertical shooter. We curiously looked at the bold gold Japanese title in the marquee as we watched the gameplay. It looked pretty fun and colorful. So we put down a quarter each and started to play. Needless to say, we were blown away, as we have never played a game like this before.

Now, to many of you, it might not seem like much, but for us, we had never played a game that had such a big laser and bullet hell patterns. From then on, we looked out for that odd company named Cave to bring us shooter goodness.

Street fighter II: the world warrior changed the game for me. i ran into this game at the water park down the street from my old house, popped in a quarter and was hooked from the start. within a week it seems every one on earth discovered that game and the machine was packed 24/7. good times

The first time I saw/ran into/played SUPER CONTRA in 1988 (age 10) and saw that pre-title screen opening with Bill Gryzor and Lance Bean in that H.R. Giger ALIENS lair, their converstation... AND then the game itself was just beautiful and bad ass. I had never seen the original Contra in the arcade but owned it on the NES already, but Super Contra was sick. Hell I'm trying to track down one of those uprights as I type this. Still my fave in the series and for me one thing has remained true since that day so long, long ago.

THE QUEST FOR FREEDOM CONTINUES...

For me that special game was the very first Virtua Fighter on Sega's Model 1 hardware. The graphics and gameplay completely blew me away, it was just so different to the 2d fighters I've played before. I was simply amazed by the smoothness of the characters' movements and the many different moves they were able to pull off. I didn't read any gaming mags at the time so it caught me completely off guard.

Nowadays I'm all about 2d fighters again, but the Virtua Fighter series will always have a special place in my heart.

"Black Tiger" was amazing, spent alot of money in that at the Roller Rink, which don't exist anymore right? Roller rinks?

Also, I remember going to this lame camp ground (I hate camping) and to escape I walked like 2 miles to the laundry center and put tons of money is this crappy, but rediculously violent fighter called "Timekillers." Not the cop game with the light gun, this was a fighter where you play characters across time and they all have weapons and you can lose limbs in battle! Blood gushing everywhere! Good stuff especially when you are like 8 years old!

When i use to go to the dream machine every week and VF always had a huge line. The one day I go in and no one was on VF and I was like I have it all to myself. Then I look across the arcadeand see another huge crowd and I am like wtf is this. I slide on over and see MK3 and was like whoa

At the time i was a big MK fan and was just shocked at the slick new graphics and play style. Too bad that after a couple of weeks of play we were all sick of it

The other time is when I went to the dream machine and KI2 came in. We were all just standing around going i cant fucking believe this is KI2. It seemed so different than KI.

That game hooked my for awhile though. Combo breakers were too easy to pull off though. Every 5 seconds Cooooooooooooooooooooomboooooooooooooooooo BREAKER. lol

Really though the first time I played KI i didnt want to play anything else. I go home and i was like shit SF is teh suck. I was just so amazed by the graphics and the insane combos you could do. I was never so excited to get a port than KI.

Too bad it was a shit port but what do you expect on the snes.

I would give anything to get am arcade perfect collection of KI, KI2

My most loveable arcade moment is I think back in 91 or 92 where I for the first time play the "Street Fighters" and its a addictive even since.

STREET FIGHTER ....befor i did'n even know what an arcade was until my bro took me to the arcade next to the theatre..i was about 7 or 8 ..i don't even know how to play the damn game but i just keep putting quarter's into it my first character was guile cause he got a cool hair cut . i did'nt learn how to use the sonic boom until the about 30 quarters has been doen the slot
@ the same arcade there was a raiden..and that become my faviote game later on

I remember when Killer Instinct came out, that was the time for me! seriously there were TONS of people at the arcade just waiting to play..and I think I was only like 9 at the time or so but I can still remember everybody just being so pumped about it. I really want a KI 1 pcb now

Back in the 80s when I first saw the game "Side-Arms" at a local liquor store we bought candy at. When I saw the mech flying around, then merge w/ 2p to form a bigger robot I was floored. Mind you at the time I was a huge transformers, macross/leigoss/orguss (robotech), machine-robo (gobots), voltron/godaikin.... you name it fan.

.

Whew. What a question.

Unfortunately my arcade experiences were pretty sparse as a child. I'll go with Samurai Shodown 4. I didn't like fighters as a kid. I thought street fighter 2 sucked and killer instinct was a joke. So, being a dumb human I made assumptions about all fighters. Across from my barber shop there was an arcade with a pretty lousy selection of games, but there was a Neo cab with a "Samurai Shodown 3" marquee (confused me much later when I ended up buying a Neo CD). Well, that changed my mind. Needless to say a friend and I started coordinating trips to the barber shop much more often.

I've had more enjoyable experiences with games, but SS4 certainly opened my eyes to the fighters genre.

Street Fighter Turbo Champion Edition at the local corner pizza store

I remember when Virtua Fighter 2 totally blew me away. Street Fighter Alpha did as well. I fell in love with the sprite design in SFA.

Street Fighter 2 did it for me.

Scary looking back, but Pit Fighter blew me away. "It looks like real people!"

I used to go to an arcade here in Dallas every year for my birthday growing up. The folks would give me $20 and set me loose. Tokens were pretty much divided between Splatterhouse, Afterburner 2 sit-down, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat.

Those were good times...

S.T.U.N. Runner
Virtua On
Virtua Fighter 2
Samurai Spirits

I was never the same after playing any of those.

voodoodoctorx said:

Street fighter II: the world warrior changed the game for me. i ran into this game at the water park down the street from my old house, popped in a quarter and was hooked from the start. within a week it seems every one on earth discovered that game and the machine was packed 24/7. good times

Click to expand...

Essentially my feelings as well. When the first Mortal Kombat stepped up to take on Capcom's baby, I remember slowly "forgetting" about Street Fighter.

Does anyone remember an arcade fighter called "Martial Champions?" I am not sure if it was ever released for a console system, but I had only seen it at an Aladdin's Castle arcade a good ten or twelve years ago.

Hmm.. maybe a Googling is in order.

voodoodoctorx said:

Street fighter II: the world warrior changed the game for me. i ran into this game at the water park down the street from my old house, popped in a quarter and was hooked from the start. within a week it seems every one on earth discovered that game and the machine was packed 24/7. good times

Click to expand...

x2

That game was a godsend for it's time. Shit i can still remember playing it at my local pizza joint. Where the smell of food really worked up an appetite. I bet it's still there in that same dark corner, ah memories. Maybe some day i'll swoop in and buy it.

Street Fighter 2 for sure. I went to arcades on occasion before it came out, but when it hit... I blew my allowance on it for about a good two years. I believe that Street Fighter 2 had a large part to do with revitalizing the arcades back in the early 90s.

biggest arcade surpise hmmm? Probably the time i 1cc'd metal slug and realized i wasn't wearing any pants.

The first game I really played the shit out of was probably either Double Dragon, or Silkworm.

I think the first game to really blow me away was Virtua Fighter though, it was just so "unreal" when I saw it. My dad had a hard time pulling me away from it when I first played it at the arcade. That game is really the only reason I ever bought a Saturn when they came out.

Mortal Kombat, the first time I saw a fatality, man! that was totally sick!!! I was so scared to play that game as a kid because I thought that was illegal back then...haha!

My biggest surpise was that one day, in the mid 90s, I had a dream that Capcom did the unimaginable; have a crossover with the Street Fighter Alpha Series and Xmen games and it had a shitty picture of Ken Masters on the sides of the cabinet.

I think I was reading alt.games.sf2 a few nights before that this game was rumored to be in development. I thought it was only a bad rumor because who in earth would want to play a broken game that is pure button mashing mayhem which is pure anti good and sacred in the world of 2d fighting games (thougth to be a dying breed then). I slept and dreamt about and went to the local mall the day after.

Lo and behold, there were a bunch of dumb kids lined up on a Capcom arcade cabinet and playing that horrid Xmen versus Street Fighter with a Ken Masters on the front bezel. The guys were playing with Wolverine and Gambit and thought, why on earth would they want to play with those loons despite having authentic Street Fighter characters in the game. I waited in line since I must play the game I dreamt about despite how horrid the game was. To actuality, I was whiped bad and thought the game was rather cheap and not strategic.

At the time, this is worse than dumb kids playing the Tekken with horrid polygon characters and button mashers playing Mortal Kombat where the projectiles don't cancel each other out. This is like the begining of the end for Capcom.

Eventually, I grew to 'not mind' the VS series since the inclusion of Sakura Kasango in Marvel Super Heroes versus Street Fighter, the addition of obscure and old school fighters in Marvel VS Capcom, and the mamoth character list in MvC2. Those games aren't made for people who do 3/4 circle motions with timed button presses or those who spend $400 for the latest video games. They are made for people who like the idea behind comics and have an spare fifty cents.

I eventually got a Saturn and bought Xmen Versus Street Fighter in November of 2004.

It was a suprise all right.

At second place, finding Art of Fighting in a pizza lounge joint back when not that many people were aware of the Neo Geo while the kiddies read Gamepro and Nintendo Power.

Third was finding the Street Fighter Alpha 3 beta (before the wide release) while I visted my sister in North Carolina, courtesy of alt.games.sf2. The actual suprise of the low profile location of the arcade, at a basic American shopping mall and restarting the game once you continue.

Fourth was having Dead or Alive Replacing VF2 with the 50" sit down getup. Since then, I liked bouncy breasts on women.

Last but not least was finding Samurai Showdown III and IV in a semi modern arcade in 2000 and finding a Dance Dance Revolution Machine near when I moved in December of 2004 (tied).

For me, it was the beginning of the CPS-1 era. I loved the NES Strider, but to see it in an arcade was just beyond awesome. Then Ghouls 'N Ghosts came along...they took a cool game made it 100x better in every way. To see the Cape flowing with the Gold armor was very cool. We can't forget Forgotten Worlds, either. It was the unique control systen you don't see much of in arcade game.

Another moment was seeing NARC. Tell me you didn't enjoy blowing pushers and whores away with rocket bombs. You almost had to think, "Is this a game or an interactive R-rated movie?"


Oh! Someone said Black Tiger. I wholeheartedly agree there. It's cooler, more serious arroach to G'nG to me. Absolutely loved it. Back when when I only had 75 cents a day to spend at the local bowling alley, I would play that for so long, my mother would asked if I asked for more money.

Lastly, I can't forget Sky Soldiers. It was the first ever shooter I completed with one credit. Took a hell of a lot of training, but I pulled it off. It was cool seeing people floored by score of over 2 million.

SF II...it changed the way we play arcade games forever.

B-

#1 sf2

#2 SS2

#3 daytona.