Category Archives: Arcade

Ninja Baseball Bat Man, Arcade

This excellent arcade fighting game from Irem was originated in Irem‘s North American office but programmed by Irem Japan and first came out in 1993. It apparently sold well in Japan, but didn’t do so well in the United States, so is considered quite rare in the West.

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Hydra, Arcade

Hydra is a relatively obscure arcade action game featuring an armed powerboat that is chasing wanted criminals along twisting waterways in order to intercept and recover various stolen artefacts from them.

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Snacks ‘N Jaxson, Arcade

Snacks ‘N Jaxson is one of the weirdest arcade games I’ve ever played in my life… It is beyond bizarre; it may even frighten children, or anyone who plays it, because it is so damn strange.

And it looks damn ugly too. The colours used in the game are unappealing, and the gameplay is also unnervingly jarring. Whoever designed it must’ve either taken a lot of acid back in the early Eighties, or been a John Wayne Gacy fanatic. Or both.

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Leprechaun, Arcade

Ugh… Now this is a turkey of a game if ever I saw one… Created by Tong Electronics in 1982, Leprechaun is a dour collect ’em up that was designed for children but in fact offends their intelligence.

In fact: it would probably offend everyone now, except for those people who want to play the worst video games of all time, in which case it is probably mana from heaven…

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Steel Talons, Arcade

Steel Talons is a helicopter action game that uses 3D, polygonal graphics to represent the playing area. It was developed and manufactured by Atari Games in 1991.

This being from the early 1990s: the 3D graphics are quite simple, and Steel Talons does look complicated to play on first inspection, but the gameplay is actually fairly simple.

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Toki, Arcade

Toki is a relatively obscure platform-based arcade game, by Japanese developer TAD Corporation, which was first released in 1989. And it is as bloody hard as nails!

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Enduro Racer, Arcade

Yu Suzuki‘s 1986 arcade game, Enduro Racer, is seen by many as the dirt bike equivalent of Hang-On, because it uses similar technology and graphical techniques.

The Enduro Racer arcade cabinet came in two variations. One was a stand-up cabinet , with motorbike handlebars, and the other was a full-size dirt bike that you could sit on.

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Fighting Hawk, Arcade

A relatively obscure Taito arcade game from 1989*, Fighting Hawk is a vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter where you fly an A-10 ‘Tankbuster’ up the screen, fighting its way through waves of enemies and bosses.

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Fantasy Zone, Arcade

Fantasy Zone is a colourful scrolling shooter from 1986. It was created by Sega and it looks simple and cartoony, but is in fact very challenging.

The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as “Sega‘s first mascot” and is very similar to the one seen in the earlier TwinBee. Both TwinBee and this game have been credited with the creation of the “cute ’em up” genre, and that is probably not too far from the truth.

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