110 Of Probably The Best Arcade Games Ever

Donkey Kong is a video game series created by the legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The game, released in 1981, follows an ape named Donkey Kong and his clan of other apes and monkeys on various adventures. The original game of the series is set in an industrial construction site, and besides introducing us to the now-iconic ape, it’s also where the future megastar Mario appears for the first time. Donkey Kong enjoyed great success among fans and critics that allowed it to become a full-on video game series with plenty of spin-offs, a television show, and a film dedicated to the charming ape.

Now, there’s a slight chance that you’ve heard something about Pac-Man sometime before but cannot quite put your finger on what it is. Just kidding, Pac-Man is definitely the most famous arcade game ever. However, if you genuinely cannot put your finger on what Pac-Man is, let us remind you! It’s a maze game, where you operate a yellow puck-shaped entity that has to eat all the yellow dots present in the maze before it gets gobbled up by freely floating ghosts. Simple enough, addictive much!

Space Invaders is a 1978 fixed shooter arcade game where the player has to defeat descending aliens with a laser beam. It’s simplicity at its best - the game is so addictive and, quite frankly, hypnotic that it became an immediate success. To this day, Space Invaders is the highest-grossing video game of all time! This game also marked the golden age of arcade and became a true pop culture icon. Even its tiny pixelated aliens are often used to represent video games as a whole to this day.

Galaga, a fixed shooter arcade game, was developed in 1981 by Namco. A sequel to the 1979 Galaxian, it enjoyed even more significant success than its predecessor. In Galaga, the player controls a lonesome starship with the objective to defeat the enemy vessels and random aliens falling down the screen. Being hit by either the aliens or their laser projectiles will cost the player a life, so you have to be quick with your reflexes to beat the levels. A seemingly simple yet entertaining and immersive shooter!

A sequel to the original, Ms. Pac-Man follows the same premise - a yellow puck-shaped being (this time with a red bow), eating pellets in a maze while trying to evade ghosts. Ms. Pac-Man saw improvements compared to its 1980 predecessor and got praised for its gameplay and choosing a female protagonist. Which, mind you, wasn’t a regular occurrence in '80s games. Ms. Pac-Man’s success inspired a variety of merchandise, numerous sequels, and spin-offs.

Asteroids is a shooter arcade game released by Atari in 1979. This time, you can move your spaceship left, right, and propel it, which definitely helps in shooting up asteroids and occasional saucers floating around you. Asteroids quickly became one of the favorites of arcade players, so much so that the operators of amusement halls had to affix larger boxes to hold the coins spent by players. It was, after all, one of the first games where you could move your shooter, and the novelty of that played a big part in its success.

A sequel to the original 1987 competitive fighting game Street Fighter, this 1991 installment saw many improvements. Now, you could end your opponents with combo moves, play with a six-button configuration, and choose from a wider array of playable characters, each with their own unique fighting style. Street Fighter II is regarded as one of the best video games of all time and the most important fighting game ever. Not only has it impacted competitive video gaming, but it has also become a staple in our popular culture.

In Frogger, a 1981 arcade video game developed by Konami, you get to guide a tiny green frog on his way to safety. First, there’s a busy road with cars, trucks, and bulldozers speeding by. If you’ve reached the meridian strip, you can wipe your sweaty palms and navigate your froggy through a river next. Hopping from log to log, your frog must survive alligators and turtles to reach its final destination at the top of the screen. What’s even more thrilling, this game was inspired by real-life events! Once, Akira Hashimoto, the designer of this game, spotted a frog on a busy road, trying to evade its fate as roadkill, and immediately thought about turning that amphibian’s quest into an arcade game. Thank you, unnamed froggy, for inspiring one of the greatest video games ever!

Gauntlet, a fantasy-themed hack-and-slash game released by Atari in 1985, is considered to be one of the first multiplayer dungeon crawl arcade games. The game is set within a series of mazes that the players navigate from top to bottom in a quest to find an entry to the next level. There’s also an assortment of various special items that increase players’ health, unlock doors, et cetera. Though initially it was meant to be played by four people, each taking one of the Gauntlet’s characters, it was later re-released as a two-player game. Also, there’s no surprise that the inspiration for Gauntlet and all its fantasy settings and creatures came from the legendary board game Dungeons & Dragons.

Defender, released to arcades in 1981, is a horizontally scrolling shooter where the player gets to pilot an elaborate spaceship. Besides navigating said mode of transportation, destroying aliens is also on the roster. Otherwise, all astronauts will be abducted and the landscape destroyed. Though it seems like an easy task to beat, Defender was known to be notoriously tricky. It was common to last an entirety of 10 seconds for your first play, and that either deterred the players or fueled them with rage against the machine. Which, naturally, generated many plays and many coins.

Dig Dug, a strategic digging game (actually, a maze game), was developed by Namco and released in 1982. Here, you get to operate Dig Dug on his quest to destroy all enemies present on the screen. Those might be the Pookas or the Fygars, the latter of which are green fire-breathing dragons. Interestingly, you aren’t meant to shoot them but rather squash them with rocks or inflate them until they burst. Dig Dug was praised for its entertaining gameplay and layered strategy, making it a commercial and critical success.

Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade game developed by Atari. Here, you get to control a Bug Blaster with the primary objective to destroy a centipede descending toward you. Though it might take some time to get the hang of its movements and find the best way to get rid of it, it isn’t a particularly hard game; rather one to be enjoyed by any kind of player. Besides the aforementioned Centipede, there are spiders, fleas, scorpions, mushrooms, and all sorts of other forest-themed vermin and obstacles. Due to its superb graphics, neat gameplay, and accessibility, Centipede became one of the top-grossing arcade games of 1982 in the United States. 

1942 is a vertically scrolling shooting game set in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Despite its creators being Japanese, the main goal of this game is to reach Tokyo and destroy the Japanese air fleet. The player gets to pilot the legendary Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft and shoot down enemy planes. 1942 was praised for its excellent graphics, balanced gameplay, and nifty power-ups that made the game all the more exciting.

Double Dragon is a 1987 beat ‘em up arcade game developed by Technos Japan. Here, you can take up one of the characters, Jimmy or Billy Lee, and fight your way into the turf of the Black Warriors gang. The game moves in a belt scroll format; the ever-changing scenery definitely adds up to the excitement. Besides regular punches, you can make your character perform combo moves or pick up various melee weapons (some of which are pretty unusual) from enemies and make them taste their own medicine. Though named as ‘depraved and bloodthirsty,’ Double Dragon enjoyed massive success among arcade players.

Mortal Kombat, a 1992 arcade fighting game, was developed and published by an American game developer, Midway. The game offers a plentiful roster of characters to choose from and take to a martial arts combat ground. The game employed such realistic graphics and such gory finishing movies - Fatalities - that it soon sparked controversy, and a bill was passed requiring video games to be rated, same as with movies. The initial Mortal Kombat game was so wildly successful that it had spawned a behemoth media franchise that’s alive and well to this day.

Nowhere else does being a plumber sound as exciting and as gratifying as in the Mario Bros arcade game. The legendary platform game was developed by Nintendo (Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, to be exact) and released to arcades in 1983 - that’s 38 years ago! The game became such a staple of our pop culture that even its original musical score became a meme, a fuel for balalaika renditions, and acapella songs meowed by cats. You can’t even go to the street wearing red overalls without being called Mario! And if that isn’t a sign of a legendary game, we don’t know what is.

Joust, an action game developed by Williams Electronics and released in 1982, popularized the concept of two-player cooperative games. Here, one player gets to be a knight riding a flying ostrich, the other - a stork. The objective is to joust the enemies off the buzzards they’re flying on; whoever’s lance is in a higher position upon collision is the winner. However, that still doesn’t mean you got rid of the enemy! Once jousted off, the foes turn into eggs that the players have to collect. If failed to do so, the egg hatches and respawns as the attacker once more. Joust’s original concept, quirky designs, and playability made it into a wildly successful game at the time.

Contra is a run-and-gun shooter game initially developed as a coin-operated arcade game in 1986 by Konami. Soon after, it was re-released as a home version for Nintendo Entertainment System. Contra employs a variety of screen perspectives, like the standard side view, a pseudo-3D view, and a fixed screen format. Though you can play it alone, it also allows for two gamers to play simultaneously. One of you will get to be a blond-haired commando Bill; the other - a quintessentially shirtless Lance. There’s loads of shooting and destruction in Contra, and these thrills (together with neat graphics) were precisely what made this shooter game into a legendary one.

Rampage is an action game developed by Midway and released in 1986. Here, up to three simultaneous players get turned into monsters. The trio of monsters - a King-Kong-like gorilla, a Ymir-like reptile, and a gigantic biped wolf - then have to destroy all the buildings of a high-rise city they are in, eat the people, knock down helicopters, and squash any vehicles. The game’s thrilling fun even made it into a feature movie, starring Dwayne Johnson!

Spy Hunter is a vehicular combat game developed by Midway and released in 1983. Here, you get to drive down the roads in a technologically superb car equipped with various weapons. Of course, driving isn’t the only thing that you do here; you also get to destroy enemy vehicles. What’s more fun is that the original arcade booths for Spy Hunter had an actual wheel, a futuristic yoke with special buttons, and even a two-position stick shift. Neither the road, the enemies, nor the game itself has an end - you can drive for as long as you want (or until your coins end).

Pole Position is an arcade racing simulator that was developed by Namco and released in 1982. In this game, the player controls a Formula One race car, driving it on a racetrack based on a real circuit. To make it more competitive, the laps are timed, and you have to beat your opponents. Pole Position was a widely successful game at its time, inspiring plenty of sports-themed games afterward. It also showed an early example of product placement, where the racetrack billboards advertised actual companies. Its graphics, gameplay, and controls made it a truly exhilarating racing game at the time.

Street Fighter is a fighting game developed by Capcom and released in 1987. Since this initial game was a great success, it spawned the whole series of Street Fighter games, eight direct sequels, to be exact. The original cabinet for Street Fighter had a nifty punching pad. However, the players didn’t find it quite interesting, and the pad was soon switched to six-button controls. At the time, Street Fighter was nominated as the most realistic martial arts combat game, so no wonder why it became so popular.

TNMT beat ‘em up arcade game was developed by Konami and released in 1989 during a high point of popularity of the TNMT franchise. In the game, up to four players get to control the mutant turtles fighting against their main nemesis Shredder and all the other enemies that we love to hate - Krang and the Foot Clan, for instance. All the beating isn’t without reason, too; it’s to save the kidnapped April O’Neil and turtles’ sensei Splinter. Though some critics weren’t in favor of the game, it proved to be a worldwide blockbuster, further fueling the fame of the TNMT franchise.

Punch-Out!! is a boxing game developed by Nintendo and released in 1984. The release also marked the beginning of the hugely successful Punch-Out!! series. Here, the player takes the role of a green-haired boxer (known as Little Mac in the NES versions) who, of course, has to defeat his opponent. The green-haired boxer is shown from behind with a wireframe illustrating his body parts that can’t be seen from this angle. Although the opponent’s upcoming offensive moves are hinted by his eyes flashing yellow, the player ultimately has to predict what kind of move it will be and how to block it. The game proved to be a great success and later spawned a series of sequels and spin-offs.

Star Wars is a first-person rail shooter designed by Mike Hally and released by Atari, Inc. in 1983. Here, you get to be the legendary Luke Skywalker piloting an X-Wing fighter. Although you don’t have to destroy all the enemy vessels and obliterate each gun turret, you have to survive for a set time to advance to the next level. Which proved to be so much harder than it might seem! The Star Wars arcade game was praised for its smooth animations and very addictive gameplay.

Ghosts ‘n Goblins, also known as Makaimura, is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Capcom and released in 1985. Here, the player gets to control a knight, aptly named Sir Arthur, who must defeat all sorts of zombies, ogres, demons, cyclops, and dragons to rescue Princess Prin-Prin. After defeating the final boss, the player has to replay the entirety of Ghosts ‘n Goblins on a higher difficulty, only then reaching the game’s final conclusion. Though it hardly was a groundbreaking game, it nonetheless enjoyed great commercial and critical success.

Tron is an action arcade video game developed by Midway and released in 1982. Tron was inspired by the events depicted in Walt Disney’s movie of the same name released earlier in the summer. It consists of four sub-games in twelve levels. Only by beating all of the four sub-games in each of the levels, could the player finish Tron. The game later inspired a sequence, Discs Of Tron, but it was a sad flop compared to the success of its predecessor. 

Paperboy is an action game developed by Atari and Midway, released in 1985. Here, you get to control a paperboy on a bicycle, trying to deliver newspapers in a suburban area. Besides dropping off papers, you have to make sure not to crash into obstacles and also vandalize non-subscriber homes in a noteworthy manner. Though it’s a simple enough game, it managed to garner plenty of fans and even earned an Xbox re-release years later.

OutRun is a driving video game released by Sega in 1986. Many things made it stand out of the crowd at the time - OutRun offered pioneering hardware and graphics, nonlinear gameplay, a selectable soundtrack, and the hydraulic motion simulator arcade cabinet. In the game, you get to control a Ferrari Testarossa Spider from a third-person rear perspective. The goal is to reach the final destination against a timer, all the while avoiding traffic as not to crash the Ferrari. At the time, it was probably the greatest driving simulator, thrilling plenty of auto sports enthusiasts.

Q*bert is an action-puzzle game developed and published by Gottlieb in 1982. The game is played from an axonometric third-person perspective to give it a 3D look. Here, you get to control Q*bert, a red entity with two legs and a trunk, hopping down a pyramid of 28 cubes. Every cube must be hopped on and is marked by a changed color. That, of course, isn’t all - Q*bert meets plenty of fun enemies making his way down the pyramid. The adversaries are Coily the snake, Ugg and Wrongway, Slick and Sam - all of which are drawn in the same quirky style as Q*bert itself. The game was so much fun to play and enjoyed great success, which propelled the developers to come up with more than ten sequels and reboots.