If you are an 80s or 90s kid, for sure you played on arcade machines in restaurants, pubs or at any arcade room. An invention that eliminates the boring moments of 9 year old kids and gave them a reason to go with their parents to a restaurant and not be bored about that. The only drawback of arcade machines is that in order to play your favorite video games you need a bunch of coins, so your parents were not very happy about that. Some of the most popular arcade video games that made every 80s kid’s life happier are Super Mario Bros, NBA Jam, Metal Slug, Street Fighter and Donkey Kong. Let’s briefly remind those games to the 30-40 year old minds.
Super Mario Bros
One of the most successful video games of all time. Super Mario Bros was released in 1985 and it was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka.
The main character of the game, Mario, goes on an adventure to save the beautiful Princess Peach Toadstool from King Bowser Koopa. Princess Peach Toadstool has the power of reversing the black magic of King Koopa, which explains his motives for kidnapping her. King Koopa uses his magic on the Mushroom Kingdom and transforms the Toads of the land into mushrooms and stones. In the multiplayer mode, the second player will take control of Mario’s brother Luigi when the first player loses a life.
NBA JAM
A basketball arcade video game that was loved from million people too. It was designed in 1993 by Midway Games, the company that also developed Mortal Kombat, Ms. Pac-Man, Spy Hunter and others.
NBA Jam provided an innovative amount of features including special powers such as “on fire” dunks and “super powered” alley-oops. A key feature of NBA Jam was the exaggerated nature of the play – players jumped many times above their own height, making slam dunks that defied both human capabilities and the laws of physics. There were no fouls, free throws, or violations except goaltending. This meant the player was able to freely shove or elbow his opponent out of the way.
Metal Slug
Metal Slug was released on 1996 and it was developed by SNK.In this amazing game, the player has to constantly shoot at a continual stream of enemies in order to reach the end of each level. At the end of each level, the player must confront a boss who is often considerably larger than regular enemies and needs more shots than the rest enemies to defeat. On the way through the level, the player finds weapons upgrades and “slug” vehicles that can be used not only as weapons but also as added defense.
Marco Rossi and Tarma Roving were the only playable characters in the first game, and each was reserved solely to the first and second player, respectively. From the second installment, characters can be chosen independently, and Eri Kasamoto and Fiolina “Fio” Germi were added to the cast. These four are typically considered to be the quintessential Metal Slug team.
Street Fighter
Now the game that you spent a bunch of coins on the arcade machines with your friends for that epic multiplayer mode. Street Fighter! The first Street Fighter was released in 1987 by Capcom and created by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto. The player competes in a series of one-on-one matches against a series of computer-controlled opponents or in a single match against another player(multiplayer mode). Each match consists of three rounds in which the player must defeat an opponent in less than 30 seconds. If a match ends before a fighter is knocked out, then the fighter with the greater amount of energy left will be the round’s winner. The player must win two rounds in order to defeat the opponent and proceed to the next battle. In case that the third round ends in a tie, then the cpu opponent will win by default or both players will lose. During the single-player mode, the player can continue after losing and fight against the opponent they lost the match to. Also, a second player can interrupt a single-player match and challenge the first player to a new match.
Street Fighter is still a very successful video game on the latest platforms PS4 and XBOX ONE.
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong is about the adventures of an ape(called Donkey Kong). It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto in 1981. Everything started when the ape kidnapped Mario’s girlfriend Pauline. The player takes the control of Mario in order to rescue her and tries to avoid obstacles that Donkey Kong is throwing and climbs the ladders. Donkey Kong first appeared in the eponymous arcade game in 1981 as an antagonist. He would become a protagonist in later games. Donkey Kong Jr. first appeared in the arcade style game Donkey Kong Jr. released in 1982. The plot was that Donkey Kong Jr. saves his father, Donkey Kong, from Mario. Many series of Donkey Kong were released during the years with the latest in 2014, which is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
