Haha I played every one of these back in the day! My favorite? Defender! I could play indefinitely on a quarter. Got kicked off several machines lol. Same with Pac-Man, bought the book, learned the patterns, got my money's worth!!! I feel sorry for anyone who wasn't a teenager in 1980!! I spent every moment I could in the Arcade. Your channel is awesome, keep that great content coming!
We have an arcade machine with several thousand classic games on it at home. The most favorite and most played? DEFENDER! Why? Because it’s so frickin’ hard to master! And for all the other reasons you mention here: looks, sounds and feels sooooo gooooood. One of the best games ever made.
Missile Command 1980, I remember spending hours on that when I was supposed to be in school. The sounds are like I played it yesterday, like Defender. Those sounds are with you forever. Another that came out a year later was Tempest. I remember there was a mini race track you could go to that had Indy style cars and a circuitious track to race around (real not arcade), but they also had an arcade with all these great games.
IMO Missile Command is one of the best ever, if anything due to its unique controls and concept. Still, I think it would have been superior as a vector. Once you mastered the trick of keeping your score just under the base bonus each wave you could play it indefinitely.
Phoenix was amazing. Dad bought a used Phoenix cocktail cabinet from a closing arcade in late '82, maybe early '83 when I was a wee one. It was so much fun, and besides the VCS/2600 and a TI99/4A, the only game system we had until I got an NES as a gift in '89. I love Space Invaders, Galaga, and especially Galaxian, but Phoenix remains my favorite single-fixed-screen shooter. It's just the right amount of speed plus the mothership boss (and lots of nostalgia) that seals it in for me. Plus, using a Panasonic/Mastushita door-bell melody chip on a loop for music without much if any CPU overhead was pretty genius and gives it a unique sound profile.The 2600 port from GCC is amazingly well done as well. It's one of the better ports to the system from the pre-homebrew era, IMO.
Phoenix was my second favorite vertical shooter after the rather uncommon Firebird. As I recall Phoenix had an irritating console where the controls were horizontal hurting your wrists after a long period of play. I would play it in a chair.
More than a few honorable mentions: Battle Zone, Missile Command, Red Baron, Rip Off, Space Zap, Star Castle, Tempest, and Warlords. Considering all but Rip Off, Space Zap and Star Castle were all Atari games you could say Atari was dominating the arcades back then. Add to that all the classic pinball machines that were trying to keep up with the video game tsunami at that time and it was the golden age to be a kid in the arcades in the 80's.
@@AvoidsPikes- : Well, ya got me there. I honestly have no recollection of Targ and just watched a video of it. Maybe it wasn't popular or available in my area. Asteroids, Rally-X, and Galaxian were huge favorites of mine (I was 12), Pac-Man not so much. I still loved the earlier Lunar Lander. A couple years later was the sequel to Asteroids...Space Duel, which was an incredibly fun game especially in co-op. Good times!
@@scotteaton4868 Rip Off was a fantastic two player co-op game that used vector graphics. The goal was to prevent drones from stealing the player(s)' stash in the middle of the play field. Really a frantic game for its time.
I love the Atari 2600 port of Crazy Climber. Never actually played the arcade one but it was a nice 2600 game to vibe to. Mind you, only ever played it emulated. Quite a rare cart, never seen a real one before.
Phoenix and Wizard of Wor were two of my favorites. There was only one very small arcade out in the middle of nowhere in Midland, MI that had them. All the bigger arcades had a large selection of games, but neither one of them.
My golden era of arcade games. Our local arcade had the generic name of "The Game Room" and we used to ride our bikes there (about 4-5 miles or so it seemed) every Sunday morning to get there at 11:00 when they opened because it was always dead until 1:00 or so, so I could play whatever game I wanted and my friend and I could do a lot of 2 player games without an audience. That trackball Atari football was so great at the time for head-to--head competition.
I was home, convalescing from chickenpox the week Mount St. Helens exploded. I also remember watching a few episodes of The Phoenix, staring Judson Scott, and one episode featured him or someone playing Phoenix in a bus station or airport, I can't remember the specifics except for the video game in the show.
I spent many weekends and summers in Yakima while growing up. I used to rent movies and games at Crazy Mike’s Video and a small rental place called Reinell’s, or something like that. I also spent a bunch of time at the mall arcades that you mentioned. A few years later I went to the Meadowbrook Family Fun Center all the time, it had an arcade, go-karts, mini golf and other fun stuff. I loved eating at Burger Ranch, which I also remember from Yakima. Great memories!
Golden Age of gaming John. I'm 44 and remember going to the mall with my mom and she dropping me at the arcade with a few dollars which would last me a few hours. Great times. So many awesome arcade games in the 80's and 90's.
I'm around your age I'm 43, so I had the same kinda experiences, mom going to laundry mat the mall or lotsa places, give a couple dollars is quarters I will behave myself lol
Great Stuff John! My friend worked in an arcade at a mall in South Jersey from 82 - 84. I remember some of these games and had forgotten about some of the others. I loved Bezerk and Phoenix. There was another game that was 4 games in one called Gorf. It had a cool shaped joystick. I loved that game!!
Defender is my all time favorite arcade game. I loved the controls and spent every lunch hour during school and hours after school pumping quarters into this game to get get good enough to wrap the score. Some of my best memories are of hanging out in the arcade with my buddies, playing this game, playing the jukebox, smoking and guzzling bottle after bottle of Coke while just being general jackasses. Aaaah, good times.
Defender was my game too. I got kicked out of my local corner store multiple times for hogging the machine, lol. Loved Stargate too, but hated how I could only play at the mall's arcade and it was DOUBLE the price, 50 CENTS! NOOOOO. (I remember being so mad, lol)
Wizard of Wor, Berzerk, and Phoenix are STILL my favorite arcade games on the eve of 2022. Centipede is definitely an “honorable mention”, as is Defender. Defender was HARD. It’s still HARD 42 years later. Between the Atari 2600, 7800, 800XL, and Colecovision, we can enjoy them in perpetuity………
Thank you for this video. I was an emancipated teen in the eighties and never had enough money at one time to buy a console nor did I have a very stable home or a TV to hook it up to. So for me, it was all about the arcade games. When I would get some money, I would get a couple of rolls of quarters and do my best to make them last for an evening. I lived in a town with several HUGE arcades filled with odd=ball games. I played all of these. I would absolutely love to see more of these type of videos, I find them helpful with sparking my somewhat faulty memory and placing events of my life in order. 😀
Love this new "series" please 🙏 keep it up!!! I can't wait for '89 and the 90's (hopefully you are planning to cover that decade as well). Are you still doing the monthly family unboxing? Love your vids (open cart surgery, unbox and games from pubs and devs are probably my fav of the bunch) reviews, can't wait to see more!!!
Haven't done and unboxing in a while, I'm not ordering as much stuff as I used to and my other kids are having their own lives now (spending time with friends and all that) but I'll keep doing these for a while. My next one will be based on 1989.
Phoenix is my favourite on this list as I have some great memories playing this on a tabletop in the pub my parents had. This is the one I have spent most of my time on. But Rally X was a great game. And as for the Defender sounds it just takes you right back to the 80's arcades. Keep these lists coming absolutely love them.
I was a huge fan of Wizard of Wor, or it's port on the Balley Astrocade, The Amazing Wizard. While the voice overs were not part of it, the core gameplay was a ton of fun, as it was my favorite game on that system.
@@toms6756 I bought it new in about 2004 when the Plug 'n' Plays were a thing. But yeah even though it's the big version(lap size 😁) I quite like it, even for the Space Invaders it was sold for.
I was born in 88 and I've never really set foot in an arcade. Really interesting to see what the state of video games was pre-NES. John you are always such a pleasure to hear.
@@gaetan4164 yea probably. Because you definitely are old enough to experience them. I graduated high-school in 97 and the big arcade closed down that year
@@hjames78 I remember seeing arcade machines in places like bowling halls or cinemas but I've never been to a place that looks like the arcades I've seen on video from the US or Japan. I can't say they didn't exist at all, I just haven't experienced them. I also grew up in a small town, so there may be that too.
@@gaetan4164 yea. I grew up in Philadelphia so arcades were in all the malls and even where there were no malls. But my mom is from a very small town in Georgia and there were no arcades there lol. There were arcades machines in gas stations so maybe that had something to do with it
Random Trivia: Radar Scope bombed in the US. Nintendo was desperate for a game that could use the unsold hardware and came up with a little thing called Donkey Kong.
Rally-X , funny that pops up now, , just the other day I went on a bender playing it on MAME.. very tough game lol, a newer coin-up arcade game like RallyX is 1996's " '96 Flag Rally" Wizard oF Wor blew me away at age 13 in 1980,
Phoenix was great and farm more than just another invaders clone. It featured distinct levels with unique enemies, and probably the earliest boss battle level in a video game!
I'd say the game which doesn't get enough credit, and also is the one which space shooters actually clone, is Galaxian...where enemies dive bomb as well as shoot at you. That definitely is Phoenix and Radar Scope, and my favorite that you left out: Space Firebird. In any case, thank you for being another voice of my nostalgia.
Galaxian is a cool game, but if we are looking at soley games that came out in 1980 (for the purposes of this video), then Galaxian would not be in this video (it came out in 1979).
Centipede, Berserk and Phoenix. Played those like crazy on the Atari 2600 back in the day. Lots of defender and pac man too of course, though not one of my favs like the others.
my local arcade had spider fighter ! That was one of my favs and hardly anybody played it so it was always available ! everyone was too busy playing tron and mrs packman
Wizard of Wor scared the crap out of me as a little kid, even more than Sinistar. Something about that modulated voice. And that version of the Dragnet theme sounded REALLY sinister in my five year old brain when my pops would play.
Wizard of Wor and Radar Rat Race on c-64 was awesome. Radar Rat Race was a rip-off of Rally X. Crazy Climber was my hands down favorite game of 1980. Great list and video! Wife loves Centipede. What an amazing year in the arcades.
When you said Santa Cruz, that brought back memories as a kids when I went there to play arcade games on the wharf. Last time I was there was when they were filming lost boys. Great times. The game I remember most was Dragon's Lair that I played there. That one sure sucked down my quarters! I think that was around 1986. Thanks for the flash back!
I see some other people have mentioned the omissions.. mainly Missile Command and Battlezone. In 1979 I used to visit a local cafe and they had Space Invaders and games like Outlaw along with pinball machines... then in 1980 Missile Command, Asteroids (which is from 79) and Battlezone also appeared. I found the premise and Game Over screen of Missile Command utterly terrifying as an 11 year old. I have a fascination with vector graphics and so Battlezone has always intrigued. Amazing for the time.
I remember Pac Man and playing it at the local laundromat when I was a little kid. Then I got to play it at home on the 2600 when we got it for Christmas in 1983. We got our copy of Pac Man with Megamania and Pole Position at our local Roses Department Store back in January of 1984. Pac Man and Pole Position were my favorite games to play. Then we had more fun a month later when we got Demon Attack, which was a really fun game.
Love the nostalgia. Keep it up. Maybe I'm just different. I did play most of these in 1980 but I was addicted to to Moon Cresta for some reason and played it in the entry to my local K-mart for hours.
Whenever there happened to be a Defender game, you know I was there when you saw "JIM" occupying the entire top 10 high scores. Loved Stargate even more, even with having more controls than a Boeing 747.
Probably trying to think 'outside the box' while still thinking inside the box with Space Invaders. 'what can we use other than space ship. I know, Balloons!
I had a copy of Winner's Book of Video Games Paperback by Craig Kubey. So helpful in figuring out how to beat those classic games. Or more accurately, lose slower. Love Defender!
The difficulty of the controls were why I played (and got very good at) Defender, Stargate and Robotron. Back then arcades were PACKED and kids would line their quarters up to play. The three games I played never had a line to play. 🙂
I'd say that Tempest belongs on that list, in that it was popular, unique in its gameplay, and with follow-ups such as Tempest 2000 being rather good as well. Defender's sound was unique for its time. But the sequel Stargate sounded the same, as did Robotron 2084, and two other arcade game titles whose names escape me.
My friend Bill's mom was the queen of Berzerk. There was a bowling alley behind their house and she'd walk over there every day to play it. She was really good at it. RIP Miss Margaret
Personally I feel Frenzy,the sequel to Berserk, is a perfect sequel for an 80's arcade game. Very similar gameplay but some play mechanic changes! Although it's weird how Berserk had robots Frenzy had skeletons & spooks. Similar to how Zaxxon had a robot boss & Super Zaxxon had a Godzilla clone. Seems to me robots should come after spooks g lizards 😂
I loved Berserk and Frenzy too. But I quit pumping quarters into those machines the day I found Castle Wolfenstein for my Apple II. (iirc, I was a 10-11 y/o kid, lol)
Retro gaming hippie approves! Great list and video as usual I have fond memories of berserk and recently played frenzy on colecovision that is a great game in the same style just no voice
I was born in 1980, just curious how old you are, the 70s must have been a exciting time to be a kid or teenager with the technology advancing so fast, after the 1980s it’s been pretty much endless advances
I used to like Phoenix although I wouldnt be able to handle the noise now lol. In '81 there was a tv show called The Phoenix. It was unrelated but in one episode the protagonist passes an arcade machine and gets a turn. His medallion shimmers, he plays the game like a savant and continues his journey.
I was born in 1980 so among the many great things of that year there was also me 🤣 I've played Wizard of wor on one of those Midway arcade classics collections on PS2. I was amazed it talked!
Man I love the videos but I have 1 problem and thats the vids are too short its like you put one on and its over right as it gets really good but great job like always cant wait for the next also stay safe
The great thing about arcades in 1980 was the symphony of pinball machines soumding off around the place, back before dot matrix screens and lots of voice clips...
No Atari Battle zone, Atari Red Baron, Star Castle, Plaeids, space Zapp, Missile Command, Asteroids Deluxe, Moon Cresta? I think this needs to be a top 20 and 1981 needs to be probably a top 30
I liked Armor Attack and Omega race, though the latter was 81, but they were fairly rare, especially AA. Space Fury, also 81, was a pretty cool twist on asteroids with a Cyclops alien giving you grief if you played badly, which I often did.
Bezerk did not have a title screen. It only showed the list of high scores and the demo gameplay. Now, in my opinion, one of the funniest things the game will say while displaying the high score list is "Coins detected in pocket." This happens randomly
Wow! Great content, John! Really brings me back to the early 80’s when me and my buds were hitting the arcades, playing games and trying to pick up chicks lol. Loved the pac man games and Galaga! The latter of which I was the high score holder at the local pizza shop for like a whole summer! Still gaming today!
Best Arcade games from 1983 - ua-cam.com/video/xhB4T4teYY4/v-deo.html
NES Games from 1986 - ua-cam.com/video/_lCbz6AgtBQ/v-deo.html
I was only a year old January 7 1979.
Dude. You should see where I work. You would camp down there.
@@dwaynemenzies8824 same i was a year old March 6th 1979
You liked Rally-X? Me too! Now try ZX Spectrum's Bimbo for some change :) It's cool, Rally-X with Rabbits.
Haha I played every one of these back in the day! My favorite? Defender! I could play indefinitely on a quarter. Got kicked off several machines lol. Same with Pac-Man, bought the book, learned the patterns, got my money's worth!!! I feel sorry for anyone who wasn't a teenager in 1980!! I spent every moment I could in the Arcade. Your channel is awesome, keep that great content coming!
I was the same on Pacman, I could make a 10P coin last all day. Didn't need a book BTW.
@@darthwiizius Defender. Absolutely.
We have an arcade machine with several thousand classic games on it at home. The most favorite and most played? DEFENDER! Why? Because it’s so frickin’ hard to master! And for all the other reasons you mention here: looks, sounds and feels sooooo gooooood. One of the best games ever made.
@@texmurphyiscool I agree! Defender II (Stargate) is also awesome!!!
Missile Command 1980, I remember spending hours on that when I was supposed to be in school. The sounds are like I played it yesterday, like Defender. Those sounds are with you forever. Another that came out a year later was Tempest. I remember there was a mini race track you could go to that had Indy style cars and a circuitious track to race around (real not arcade), but they also had an arcade with all these great games.
IMO Missile Command is one of the best ever, if anything due to its unique controls and concept. Still, I think it would have been superior as a vector. Once you mastered the trick of keeping your score just under the base bonus each wave you could play it indefinitely.
Phoenix was amazing. Dad bought a used Phoenix cocktail cabinet from a closing arcade in late '82, maybe early '83 when I was a wee one. It was so much fun, and besides the VCS/2600 and a TI99/4A, the only game system we had until I got an NES as a gift in '89. I love Space Invaders, Galaga, and especially Galaxian, but Phoenix remains my favorite single-fixed-screen shooter. It's just the right amount of speed plus the mothership boss (and lots of nostalgia) that seals it in for me. Plus, using a Panasonic/Mastushita door-bell melody chip on a loop for music without much if any CPU overhead was pretty genius and gives it a unique sound profile.The 2600 port from GCC is amazingly well done as well. It's one of the better ports to the system from the pre-homebrew era, IMO.
Phoenix was my second favorite vertical shooter after the rather uncommon Firebird. As I recall Phoenix had an irritating console where the controls were horizontal hurting your wrists after a long period of play. I would play it in a chair.
Yeah I loved phoenix as well. Great game.
More than a few honorable mentions: Battle Zone, Missile Command, Red Baron, Rip Off, Space Zap, Star Castle, Tempest, and Warlords. Considering all but Rip Off, Space Zap and Star Castle were all Atari games you could say Atari was dominating the arcades back then.
Add to that all the classic pinball machines that were trying to keep up with the video game tsunami at that time and it was the golden age to be a kid in the arcades in the 80's.
Good call! Atari was nailing it! But Tempest wasn't released until a year later.
And don't forget "Targ." In 1980, that was my second addiction after "Space Invaders."
@@AvoidsPikes- : Well, ya got me there. I honestly have no recollection of Targ and just watched a video of it. Maybe it wasn't popular or available in my area. Asteroids, Rally-X, and Galaxian were huge favorites of mine (I was 12), Pac-Man not so much. I still loved the earlier Lunar Lander.
A couple years later was the sequel to Asteroids...Space Duel, which was an incredibly fun game especially in co-op.
Good times!
Rip Off was a vector as I recall and pretty unique. Loved that game.
@@scotteaton4868 Rip Off was a fantastic two player co-op game that used vector graphics. The goal was to prevent drones from stealing the player(s)' stash in the middle of the play field. Really a frantic game for its time.
I love the Atari 2600 port of Crazy Climber. Never actually played the arcade one but it was a nice 2600 game to vibe to. Mind you, only ever played it emulated. Quite a rare cart, never seen a real one before.
PHOENIX was one of the first arcade games to have an end of level boss fight.
Phoenix and Wizard of Wor were two of my favorites. There was only one very small arcade out in the middle of nowhere in Midland, MI that had them. All the bigger arcades had a large selection of games, but neither one of them.
My golden era of arcade games. Our local arcade had the generic name of "The Game Room" and we used to ride our bikes there (about 4-5 miles or so it seemed) every Sunday morning to get there at 11:00 when they opened because it was always dead until 1:00 or so, so I could play whatever game I wanted and my friend and I could do a lot of 2 player games without an audience. That trackball Atari football was so great at the time for head-to--head competition.
I was home, convalescing from chickenpox the week Mount St. Helens exploded. I also remember watching a few episodes of The Phoenix, staring Judson Scott, and one episode featured him or someone playing Phoenix in a bus station or airport, I can't remember the specifics except for the video game in the show.
I spent many weekends and summers in Yakima while growing up. I used to rent movies and games at Crazy Mike’s Video and a small rental place called Reinell’s, or something like that. I also spent a bunch of time at the mall arcades that you mentioned. A few years later I went to the Meadowbrook Family Fun Center all the time, it had an arcade, go-karts, mini golf and other fun stuff. I loved eating at Burger Ranch, which I also remember from Yakima. Great memories!
The beginning to THE BEST decade ever!
Golden Age of gaming John. I'm 44 and remember going to the mall with my mom and she dropping me at the arcade with a few dollars which would last me a few hours. Great times. So many awesome arcade games in the 80's and 90's.
I'm around your age I'm 43, so I had the same kinda experiences, mom going to laundry mat the mall or lotsa places, give a couple dollars is quarters I will behave myself lol
I barely got one dollar, back then. 😆
Great Stuff John! My friend worked in an arcade at a mall in South Jersey from 82 - 84. I remember some of these games and had forgotten about some of the others. I loved Bezerk and Phoenix. There was another game that was 4 games in one called Gorf. It had a cool shaped joystick. I loved that game!!
Defender is my all time favorite arcade game. I loved the controls and spent every lunch hour during school and hours after school pumping quarters into this game to get get good enough to wrap the score. Some of my best memories are of hanging out in the arcade with my buddies, playing this game, playing the jukebox, smoking and guzzling bottle after bottle of Coke while just being general jackasses. Aaaah, good times.
Defender was my game too. I got kicked out of my local corner store multiple times for hogging the machine, lol. Loved Stargate too, but hated how I could only play at the mall's arcade and it was DOUBLE the price, 50 CENTS! NOOOOO. (I remember being so mad, lol)
Wizard of Wor, Berzerk, and Phoenix are STILL my favorite arcade games on the eve of 2022. Centipede is definitely an “honorable mention”, as is Defender.
Defender was HARD. It’s still HARD 42 years later.
Between the Atari 2600, 7800, 800XL, and Colecovision, we can enjoy them
in perpetuity………
Thank you for this video. I was an emancipated teen in the eighties and never had enough money at one time to buy a console nor did I have a very stable home or a TV to hook it up to. So for me, it was all about the arcade games. When I would get some money, I would get a couple of rolls of quarters and do my best to make them last for an evening. I lived in a town with several HUGE arcades filled with odd=ball games. I played all of these. I would absolutely love to see more of these type of videos, I find them helpful with sparking my somewhat faulty memory and placing events of my life in order. 😀
Something was special bout the 80s nothing been same since glad I was a teenager in that decade
I think Battlezone and Missile Command belongs in this list, but you didn't miss many! So many classics!
I agree. Both of those were great games!
I loved playing Radar Scope! The cabinet was at a local bowling alley and I would save up quarters all week to go on Friday night.
LOVED Rally X and Wizard of Wor as a kid!
How I miss the Arcades. I remember playing every one of those back then. I got really good at Crazy Climber but was abysmal at Defender.
Crazy Balloon is an under appreciated classic!
I was 13 in 1980. Awesome memories. Playing these games at the arcade was a big deal to a teenager.
Love this new "series" please 🙏 keep it up!!! I can't wait for '89 and the 90's (hopefully you are planning to cover that decade as well).
Are you still doing the monthly family unboxing?
Love your vids (open cart surgery, unbox and games from pubs and devs are probably my fav of the bunch) reviews, can't wait to see more!!!
Haven't done and unboxing in a while, I'm not ordering as much stuff as I used to and my other kids are having their own lives now (spending time with friends and all that) but I'll keep doing these for a while. My next one will be based on 1989.
Phoenix is my favourite on this list as I have some great memories playing this on a tabletop in the pub my parents had. This is the one I have spent most of my time on. But Rally X was a great game. And as for the Defender sounds it just takes you right back to the 80's arcades.
Keep these lists coming absolutely love them.
I think John Riggs Here is the only thing keeping me sane this holiday season.
Defender was my favourite game!
I used to wonder why my parents did not like me to go to these dark smokey downstairs arcades.
Innocence is bliss.
Wizard of Wor is a 2600 favorite of mine. CBS electronics rock.
Loving the series so far bro keep it up
I was a huge fan of Wizard of Wor, or it's port on the Balley Astrocade, The Amazing Wizard. While the voice overs were not part of it, the core gameplay was a ton of fun, as it was my favorite game on that system.
The audio in wizard of War epitomizes the early 1980s!!
I love the boss from Phoenix. Its so cool and different from other games from that era.
Oh man, I loved Defender.
"Phoenix" was great, and it's still great today in both arcade and VCS/2600 versions.
It's also great to see a first generation Nintendo arcade game!
Love Phoenix, I still have a version on a Space Invaders plug 'n' play thing which I bought for Phoenix.
@@darthwiizius I wish I would have found that!
@@toms6756
I bought it new in about 2004 when the Plug 'n' Plays were a thing. But yeah even though it's the big version(lap size 😁) I quite like it, even for the Space Invaders it was sold for.
I was born in 88 and I've never really set foot in an arcade. Really interesting to see what the state of video games was pre-NES. John you are always such a pleasure to hear.
Hum? Arcades were around well into the 90s. Guess you aren't from a big city???
@@hjames78 I grew up in France, I think arcades just weren't such a big thing over here as they seem to have been in the USA.
@@gaetan4164 yea probably. Because you definitely are old enough to experience them. I graduated high-school in 97 and the big arcade closed down that year
@@hjames78 I remember seeing arcade machines in places like bowling halls or cinemas but I've never been to a place that looks like the arcades I've seen on video from the US or Japan. I can't say they didn't exist at all, I just haven't experienced them. I also grew up in a small town, so there may be that too.
@@gaetan4164 yea. I grew up in Philadelphia so arcades were in all the malls and even where there were no malls. But my mom is from a very small town in Georgia and there were no arcades there lol. There were arcades machines in gas stations so maybe that had something to do with it
Random Trivia: Radar Scope bombed in the US. Nintendo was desperate for a game that could use the unsold hardware and came up with a little thing called Donkey Kong.
Good thing Radar Scope bombed! Though I still kinda like it, but Donkey Kong!
Radar Scope give me serious Beamrider vibes, now I know where they got the idea for it from!
Rally-X , funny that pops up now, , just the other day I went on a bender playing it on MAME.. very tough game lol, a newer coin-up arcade game like RallyX is 1996's " '96 Flag Rally" Wizard oF Wor blew me away at age 13 in 1980,
Interesting I subscribed. Thanks, John.
I spent untold quarters on Centipede, Phoenix and Defender. It's amazing, the sounds of these games take me back even more than the images.
Nice list John!
Happy holiday's Mr Riggs
Phoenix was great and farm more than just another invaders clone. It featured distinct levels with unique enemies, and probably the earliest boss battle level in a video game!
I was in college in 1980. My GF and I would walk to the nearby arcade and play a lot of these games. Thanks for the good memories.
I'd say the game which doesn't get enough credit, and also is the one which space shooters actually clone, is Galaxian...where enemies dive bomb as well as shoot at you. That definitely is Phoenix and Radar Scope, and my favorite that you left out: Space Firebird. In any case, thank you for being another voice of my nostalgia.
Galaxian is a cool game, but if we are looking at soley games that came out in 1980 (for the purposes of this video), then Galaxian would not be in this video (it came out in 1979).
The local bowling alley had a table version of crazy climber. one of my favorites along with pac man that year.
I like this format a lot: kinda reminds me of The Video Game years.
1980. I was still a year in the making.
Centipede, Berserk and Phoenix. Played those like crazy on the Atari 2600 back in the day. Lots of defender and pac man too of course, though not one of my favs like the others.
my local arcade had spider fighter ! That was one of my favs and hardly anybody played it so it was always available ! everyone was too busy playing tron and mrs packman
Umm Ms. Pac-Man. I loved Tron too but that was a couple years later.
@@tempestfury8324 ya i know ! was just having a flashing back to my earlier years when my life was much simpler ! i thank you for the feedback tho !
Wizard of Wor scared the crap out of me as a little kid, even more than Sinistar. Something about that modulated voice. And that version of the Dragnet theme sounded REALLY sinister in my five year old brain when my pops would play.
Dude I love that shirt ! Great video 😎👍🏻
Wizard of Wor and Radar Rat Race on c-64 was awesome. Radar Rat Race was a rip-off of Rally X. Crazy Climber was my hands down favorite game of 1980. Great list and video! Wife loves Centipede. What an amazing year in the arcades.
When you said Santa Cruz, that brought back memories as a kids when I went there to play arcade games on the wharf. Last time I was there was when they were filming lost boys. Great times. The game I remember most was Dragon's Lair that I played there. That one sure sucked down my quarters! I think that was around 1986. Thanks for the flash back!
Great selection of Arcade games :-)
I used to have Wizard of Wor for the Atari 2600, great game! Never saw the Arcade cabinet though.
You missed out on the voices, which really make the game special. Find a ROM and play it on MAME for a good experience.
Berserk was actually my favorite game on the 2600.
one of my favorites, too.
It was in my top 10 top, if not possibly top 5 also.
The voice on berserk reminded me of the cylons on Battlestar Galactica!
I see some other people have mentioned the omissions.. mainly Missile Command and Battlezone. In 1979 I used to visit a local cafe and they had Space Invaders and games like Outlaw along with pinball machines... then in 1980 Missile Command, Asteroids (which is from 79) and Battlezone also appeared. I found the premise and Game Over screen of Missile Command utterly terrifying as an 11 year old. I have a fascination with vector graphics and so Battlezone has always intrigued. Amazing for the time.
I love these John! Awesome my friend
I remember Pac Man and playing it at the local laundromat when I was a little kid. Then I got to play it at home on the 2600 when we got it for Christmas in 1983. We got our copy of Pac Man with Megamania and Pole Position at our local Roses Department Store back in January of 1984. Pac Man and Pole Position were my favorite games to play. Then we had more fun a month later when we got Demon Attack, which was a really fun game.
Love the nostalgia. Keep it up. Maybe I'm just different. I did play most of these in 1980 but I was addicted to to Moon Cresta for some reason and played it in the entry to my local K-mart for hours.
Whenever there happened to be a Defender game, you know I was there when you saw "JIM" occupying the entire top 10 high scores. Loved Stargate even more, even with having more controls than a Boeing 747.
Ahhh 1980 such a simpler time.
Rally-X/New Rally-X and Wizard of Wor got a lot of play in the arcade as a kid, and I still run them on MAME regularly.
Wizard of Wor takes me back. I still remember playing the port on the C64.
Great series, brings me back to the pizza/arcade in Bevercreek Ohio
1980 apparently was the year of voice-overs and balloons.
Probably trying to think 'outside the box' while still thinking inside the box with Space Invaders. 'what can we use other than space ship. I know, Balloons!
I had a copy of Winner's Book of Video Games Paperback by Craig Kubey. So helpful in figuring out how to beat those classic games. Or more accurately, lose slower.
Love Defender!
Moon Cresta was my game. I was a regular high score holder on that one at Just Fun in the old Orange Plaza mall in Middletown, NY
The difficulty of the controls were why I played (and got very good at) Defender, Stargate and Robotron. Back then arcades were PACKED and kids would line their quarters up to play. The three games I played never had a line to play. 🙂
I'd say that Tempest belongs on that list, in that it was popular, unique in its gameplay, and with follow-ups such as Tempest 2000 being rather good as well.
Defender's sound was unique for its time. But the sequel Stargate sounded the same, as did Robotron 2084, and two other arcade game titles whose names escape me.
I grew up playing the arcades of the nineties so I learnt alot! Loved it!
Born July 11, 1980, so it was a pretty solid year
I was struck by how many of these games received 2600 VCS ports. Most of them quite good. Although I have never played Crazy Climber.
Oh my this brought back memories. Thanks.
I thought this was gonna include my fave by far, Asteroids, but I just googled it and it came out Nov 1979
Cool vid, man
My friend Bill's mom was the queen of Berzerk. There was a bowling alley behind their house and she'd walk over there every day to play it. She was really good at it. RIP Miss Margaret
Personally I feel Frenzy,the sequel to Berserk, is a perfect sequel for an 80's arcade game. Very similar gameplay but some play mechanic changes!
Although it's weird how Berserk had robots Frenzy had skeletons & spooks. Similar to how Zaxxon had a robot boss & Super Zaxxon had a Godzilla clone.
Seems to me robots should come after spooks g lizards 😂
I loved Berserk and Frenzy too. But I quit pumping quarters into those machines the day I found Castle Wolfenstein for my Apple II. (iirc, I was a 10-11 y/o kid, lol)
@@PenneyThoughts I can definitely understand that
Retro gaming hippie approves! Great list and video as usual
I have fond memories of berserk and recently played frenzy on colecovision that is a great game in the same style just no voice
Mr. Otto? Its Evil Otto!
Random, but this video made me remember Harry R. Truman. RIP
I was born in 1980, just curious how old you are, the 70s must have been a exciting time to be a kid or teenager with the technology advancing so fast, after the 1980s it’s been pretty much endless advances
Thanks for the props I Have an original Phoenix! We play it when were getting hammered with friends. Asteroides deluxe too! Plus we get the Mandela!
I used to like Phoenix although I wouldnt be able to handle the noise now lol. In '81 there was a tv show called The Phoenix. It was unrelated but in one episode the protagonist passes an arcade machine and gets a turn. His medallion shimmers, he plays the game like a savant and continues his journey.
The fact you could kill your co-op partner in Wizard of Wor blew my mind.
"Why did you shoot me!?"
"I didn't mean to!"
"You did too!"
These are like the games I played on my Amstrad
I would definitely have Missile Command and Warlords on my list.
I was born in 1980 so among the many great things of that year there was also me 🤣 I've played Wizard of wor on one of those Midway arcade classics collections on PS2. I was amazed it talked!
Man I love the videos but I have 1 problem and thats the vids are too short its like you put one on and its over right as it gets really good but great job like always cant wait for the next also stay safe
I loved Phoenix so much, I named one of my sons Phoenix lol I played all of these except Radar Scope
Man, I miss those days. Nostalgia is weighing heavy.
The great thing about arcades in 1980 was the symphony of pinball machines soumding off around the place, back before dot matrix screens and lots of voice clips...
No Atari Battle zone, Atari Red Baron, Star Castle, Plaeids, space Zapp, Missile Command, Asteroids Deluxe, Moon Cresta? I think this needs to be a top 20 and 1981 needs to be probably a top 30
I like how King and Balloon says "Sank you!"
I liked Armor Attack and Omega race, though the latter was 81, but they were fairly rare, especially AA. Space Fury, also 81, was a pretty cool twist on asteroids with a Cyclops alien giving you grief if you played badly, which I often did.
Ah Crazy Balloon and Berserk, that was a good couple of months of school missed
always great Riggs
Bezerk did not have a title screen. It only showed the list of high scores and the demo gameplay. Now, in my opinion, one of the funniest things the game will say while displaying the high score list is "Coins detected in pocket." This happens randomly
Wow! Great content, John! Really brings me back to the early 80’s when me and my buds were hitting the arcades, playing games and trying to pick up chicks lol. Loved the pac man games and Galaga! The latter of which I was the high score holder at the local pizza shop for like a whole summer! Still gaming today!