Arcade classics: the best coin-ops conversions sorted by year, newest first

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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Boulder Dash Construction Kit

DOS1987 First Star Software

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixelated, googly-eyed spelunker, digging through caves...

Marble Madness

DOS1987 Atari

Marble Madness is an abandoned isometric action game designed by Mark Cerny and originally published by Atari as a successful and iconic arcade game. It was later converted for many platform in 1986 and for IBM PCs in 1987 by Atar...

Gauntlet

DOS1986 Mindscape

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 ...

Boulder Dash

DOS1984 First Star Software

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he digs through caves to collect diamonds while avoidin...

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...

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,...

Tapper

DOS1984

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...

Battlezone

DOS1983 Atari

In 1983, Battlezone asked: what if vector graphics could give you war-induced vertigo? You’re in a tank, in a wireframe world, fighting other tanks. That’s it. But it’s oddly immersive—thanks to a pseudo-3D...

Defender

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment

Dig Dug

DOS1983 Namco

Dig Dug is a classic maze arcade action game that was first released by Namco in 1982 as a coin-op and later for a number of other systems. The gameplay of Dig Dug involves digging tunnels through the earth to reach and defeat the...

Donkey Kong

DOS1983 Nintendo

Donkey Kong is a landmark video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and first released by Nintendo in 1981. The original arcade game introduced players to a narrative where a carpenter named Jumpman, who would later become ...

Frogger

DOS1983 Konami

Galaxian

DOS1983 Namco

IBM Centipede

DOS1983 IBM

Moon Patrol

DOS1983 Atarisoft

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...

Robotron 2084

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment

Stargate

DOS1983 Williams Entertainment

BurgerTime

DOS1982 Data East

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You guide Peter Pepper through condiment-themed nightmare...