I remember being in the third grade and the convenience store at the end of my block closed. No big deal some other store would open there and it did. This was odd though. It was part convenience store and part game arcade. This was about 1980 or so, so the arcade part amounted to a couple of pool tables and a series of pinball machines, how I miss pinball. Then one day I walk into this quaint little establishment and here this deafening “WAKA WAKA WAKA WAKA “sound blasting through the air. Suddenly one of the pinball tables was gone and this tall yellow box had replaced it. It was all could see as there a crowd around it. After a while I was able to move to the front of the crowd and see a small yellow dot eating white dots and being chased by ghosts. That was it my world would never be the seam. After a couple of months there were fewer and fewer pinball machines and more and more “video games” is the term I think the kids used. This is my top five favorite Arcade games.

5. Dragon’s Lair. This was the coolest. I remember when it showed up at Showbiz pizza, the other Chuck E. Cheese style place where kids ran free and parents drank beer. It was like actually controlling a carton. You were basically faced with several simple choices and a scene would play based on your choice. Did you choose to swing on the rope in time? Then you got across the chasm. If not then you fell to your death and “game over man”. I do not think I ever got very far on this as my budget was limited and my hand eye coordination was a little slow. But how I enjoyed watching others play it.

4. Star Wars. This was AWESOME! You got to fly an X-wing figher through the trench of the Death Star and blow it up. The entire time you were dodging pillars and bars and laser cannon fire. The graphics were simple green line drawings, as I remmebr it, but you got to sit in it like a real X-Wing. I dumped my share of allowance into this machine, I mean I could have payed for my own college education in quarters if had them. The fantasy was real. All I wanted was to live in star wars; all I wanted was to be Han Solo. This would have to do and it did.

3. Pit Fighter. I was a little older and this was at the bowling alley we all hung out in. it was one of the few places you could go and not be bothered; not to mention you could buy smokes from a vending machine , those were the days. It was somewhere near photo realistic characters and you would…well fight. People lined up placing quarters along the top of the machine to fight each other. Always seemed to be that one guy who dominated everybody else. This was later replaced with mortal combat but it was the same vibe. Except mortal combat had a more cartoon feel to it.

2. Discs of Tron. Oh Physics, or really Geometry, at play in the real world. It basically recreated the first game sequence from the movie Tron. You stood on platform and threw discs at your opponent; I want this to this day. As you progressed you had multiple rings and multiple players but the game was the same knock them out before they knocked you out. I loved this movie when it came out. I spent days, months, no years day dreaming about being inside a computer and playing these games. I still sometimes fall asleep thinking about it, only more of a holodeck than the Tron thing, but same concept.

1. Gauntlet. The granddaddy of them all. This was the best representation of how my group used to play D&D. You developed a character then engaged in endless battle. And that is all this game was. You had four characters to choose from and battled endless enemies forever. I was older when this came out so I had my own money in those days. I would drop ten dollars in quarters and escape to a battle filled middle earth style realm for an hour, or so, at a time.

Those are my top five favorite arcade games, I know I missed some so look for top five arcade games II coming soon. Did I miss yours? Let me know in the comments. Remember to vote in the poll on your favorite arcade game.