Arcade classics: the best coin-ops conversions

Back in the day, when going to the "arcades" was a thing, a quite a few exceptional games made video game history. Titles like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and later games like Bubble Bobble, Street Fighter 2, Dragon's Lair are known both to video game fans and people who never touched a joystick in their lives. These games often spawned licensed conversions, sequels, fan-games and clones.

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Mortal Kombat

DOS1993protected Midway Manufacturing Company

Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular one-on-one fighting games, and it's no surprise that it has spawned numerous sequels. Players choose from seven digitized characters and battle their way to the top, facing all other oppone...

Ms. Pac-Man

DOS1984 Atarisoft

Ms. Pac-Man is a classic arcade game released by Midway in 1982 (1984 for DOS) as a follow-up to the original Pac-Man (1980), developed by Namco. While its core gameplay is similar - navigating a maze, eating dots, and a...

Ninja Gaiden

DOS1990 Tecmo

Ninja Gaiden, released in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and later to other platforms, is a side-scrolling action-platformer developed by Tecmo. It follows the story of Ryu Hayabusa, a skilled ninja on a quest fo...

Operation Wolf

DOS1989 Taito

OutRun

DOS1989 Sega

Pac-Man

DOS1983 Namco

Pac-Man is a classic arcade game created by Namco and first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. It was later released in North America by Midway Games. The game was designed by Toru Iwatani and has become one of the most famous and...

Paperboy

DOS1988 Atari

Paperboy was one of (if not THE) arcade hit of 1985. It was developed by Atari for the arcades and later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988. More conversion were made for quite a few other platforms. Paperboy gameplay is pecul...

Q*Bert

DOS1984 Parker Brothers

Q*bert is a classic arcade game that was created by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee and was released by Gottlieb in 1982. The main goal of Qbert is to change the color of every cube in a pyramid by having the character, Qbert,...

Qix

DOS1989 Taito

R-Type

DOS1989 Irem Software Engineering

R-Type is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up developed and published by Irem in 1987. The game quickly gained popularity for its challenging gameplay and impressive graphics at the time. R-Type is known for its tough and m...

Rampage

DOS1988 Midway Manufacturing Company

Robotron 2084

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment

Space Invaders

DOS1995remake

Spacewar

DOS1985

Spacewar is one of the earliest digital computer games and is often considered the first interactive video game. It was created in 1962 by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen at the MIT. The game was developed on the ...

Star Wars

DOS1988 Atari

Stargate

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment

Street Fighter 2

DOS1992 Capcom

Street Fighter II is a classic arcade fighting game developed and published by Capcom. It was first released in 1991 as a sequel to the original Street Fighter. Street Fighter II is widely regarded as one of the most influential a...

Super Pac-Man

DOS1982 Namco

Taito's Super Space Invaders

DOS1991 Taito

Super Space Invaders is a video game developed and published by Taito Corporation, released in 1991. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Space Invaders, which was originally released in 1978 and is one of the most iconic vide...

Tapper

DOS1984

Wizard of Wor 98

DOS1998remake

Zaxxon

DOS1984 Sega

Back in 1984, Zaxxon was the future. Isometric graphics? Whoa. Shadow effects? Mind blown. But mostly, it was a game about flying a chunky spaceship through a heavily fortified space base while crashing into walls at high speed. T...