The best coin-op conversion games

Before Space Invaders clones flooded arcades, there was Space Commanders (1983, DOS), a bare-bones but addictive shooter where your mission is simple: don’t die. Rows of alie...

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...

Space Harrier is a 3rd-person view rail-shooter developed by Sega in 1985. Space Harrier was a hit in the arcades, and later it was converted for a number of platforms, including D...

Space Ace 2: Borf’s Revenge (1991, DOS) doubles down on everything that made the first one iconic — and maddening. Borf is back, still blue, still obnoxious, and once a...

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 man...

The proto-fighting game that walked so Street Fighter could punch. Yie Ar Kung Fu is pure arcade joy: a brave martial artist named Oolong fights a rogue’s gallery of opponent...

Karnov is a classic side-scrolling action arcade game developed by Data East in 1987. The game features a unique protagonist named Jinborov Karnovski, or "Karnov", a fire-breathing...

If you've ever wanted to pop bubbles while being taunted by adorable dinosaurs, Bust-A-Move Again (1996, DOS) is your jam. It’s like Tetris met a bubble tea menu and had a hy...

Welcome to a future where zooming through tunnels and dodging neon obstacles is considered heroic. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is a proto-3D arcade shooter that tries its best to i...

If you’ve ever wanted to fly a jet fighter at Mach “Oh no, I crashed again,” After Burner is the game for you. This 1989 DOS classic straps you into an F-14 and l...

When Strider (1989, DOS) hit PCs, gamers suddenly felt like ninjas who’d been dropped into a Cold War fever dream. You play as Hiryu, a futuristic assassin slicing through me...

Exterminator, released in 1990, is one of those games that knows exactly what it wants to do and wastes no time doing it. You’re thrown into a top-down action scenario with a...

Released in 1983 for DOS, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is what happens when early arcade design meets Federation bureaucracy. Vector-style graphics make you feel like ...

If you’ve ever wondered what professional wrestling would look like if it were coded on a calculator from the 1980s, Tag Team Wrestling has your answer. Two beefy sprites&mda...

The Typing of the Dead is a distinctive video game, essentially a typing adaptation of the classic rail shooter arcade game, The House of the Dead. Initially debuting in 1999 as an...

Rastan is Conan-the-Barbarian energy distilled into a side-scrolling adventure where your primary verb is “destroy.” The DOS port lacks a bit of arcade sparkle, but the...

By 1996, Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition on DOS felt like the veteran fighter returning for one last round. You could finally play as the bosses, which was a childhood dream...

Ajax (1989) is like an arcade fever dream: vertical shooter, transforming vehicles, lasers everywhere, and a soundtrack that yells “blast stuff!” every few seconds. One...

The Simpsons Arcade Game, developed and published by Konami, is a classic side-scrolling beat-'em-up that became highly popular in arcades during the early '90s. Players take ...