Coin-op conversions: from the arcades to your home sorted by title, from Z to A

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 spa...

The sequel nobody expected but everyone button-mashed through. Yie Ar Kung Fu 2 adds more characters, more chaos, and less coherence. This time you’re Lee (no relation to Bru...

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...

X-Men: Children of the Atom is a fighting video game developed by Capcom and released in arcades in 1994. The game features characters from Marvel Comics' X-Men series, including p...

Volfied is a deceptively simple arcade puzzle game in which drawing lines is far more dangerous than it sounds. The basic idea is straightforward: your little craft moves around a ...

Virtua Cop 2 takes the arcade shooting formula of its predecessor and expands it with larger environments, more enemies, and even more opportunities to behave like a movie police o...

Virtua Cop brings Sega's arcade light-gun shooting formula to the PC, turning the player into a one-person police department with a remarkably short tolerance for criminals. The ga...

Turbo OutRun brings Sega's famous arcade driving style to the home computer, putting the player behind the wheel of a fast sports car and asking a very simple question: how long ca...

Trog is a colourful arcade-style maze game in which you take control of Bubbler, a small dinosaur-like hero with the unenviable task of rescuing eggs while avoiding hostile creatur...

Total Carnage is a wonderfully unsubtle top-down shooter in which the solution to almost every problem is to fire more ammunition. Lots more ammunition. You control heavily armed s...

Toobin turns the simple idea of floating downstream into an arcade challenge that is much less relaxing than it sounds. You control a character riding an inner tube through winding...

Thunderblade puts you in control of a heavily armed helicopter and wastes very little time explaining why the neighborhood suddenly needs several hundred explosions. The action is ...

The Typing of the Dead takes the familiar zombie-shooting formula and replaces the ammunition with something far more terrifying: a keyboard. Instead of aiming weapons, players typ...

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 ...

Tapper is what happens when someone gamifies bartending and gives you the reflexes of a caffeinated octopus. You’re a mustachioed bartender juggling multiple counters, pourin...

Super Space Invaders takes the old “shoot the aliens before they land” formula and pours a shot of espresso into it. The result? Faster, flashier, and mildly panic-indu...

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...

Super Street Fighter 2 brings the famous fighting formula to the PC, offering a roster of colorful combatants, special moves, distinctive fighting styles, and enough international ...

Super Hang-On is arcade motorcycle racing distilled into its most energetic form: choose a powerful bike, twist the throttle, and try to remain attached to the road while everythin...

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...

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...

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 i...

Stargate is a 1983 DOS game inspired by the science-fiction concept of portals connecting distant worlds. The game presents an early computer interpretation of space travel and exp...

Star Wars is a 1988 DOS game based on the original Star Wars trilogy, bringing the familiar universe of starfighters, space battles, and Imperial enemies to the home computer. The ...

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 ...

Space Harrier is a 1989 DOS version of Sega's famous arcade shooter, placing the player in a surreal fantasy landscape filled with giant creatures, strange enemies, obstacles, and ...

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...

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...

From the creators of Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace (1989, DOS) is a gloriously over-the-top animated adventure where timing is everything — literally. You play Ace, a muscle...

Sky Shark is a 1989 DOS conversion of the classic vertically scrolling arcade shooter, putting players behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and filling the screen with enemy p...