Games that could have been coin-ops

[qaotik]

On my journey to emulation world ive come to find that the best version of some game is usually the coin-op one. It has the best gfx , sound and gameplay. Even though you had the same game and enough love for your console it simply didnt have enough juice to do the game justice. But sometimes the console version had better gameplay and was more fun. I remember when I was little kid and didnt have the info how this all worked all I could do was hope that someday they were ported and id find them in the store and get to play it on my meggy (not genny cus its PAL ;) )

But there are exceptions where no coin-op exists and here you have the most beautiful innovative game on your very own home console. And you love it. You can only name the ones that you owned or got to play back in the day and could imagine it in as a coin-op. Get it? Lets start.


- Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. (Genesis)

Gives new meaning to a word beautiful in a game. Even though its aimed at kids it still is one of the best 16-bit games ive ever played and same way like a SMB3 is a timeless classic this one deserves the same honour. Everything from gfx, music, sound effects to gameplay is superb. I cant believe this isnt arcade! The crew behind this title have some great talent and probably had the time to polish this diamond. (I dont remember exactly but it could have been the Sonic Team who did this). The only proper Disney Game for me, my kids will be playing this aswell.

- Turrican 1/2 (Amiga)

Samus Arans big brother could you say? My preferred and first love was the first Turrican and I havent been able to shrug it off to this day. Didnt even know they had this on c64 until recently but what made this stood up was the graphics and ofcourse the beautifl music of Chris Huelsbeck. I actually thought the running animation of the character was 3D.. that much i knew. We had this computer class once a week in our school and I never had the time to get past the alien world and then we had to leave. =( I simply love this game so many good memories from this one even though i didnt have amiga back then.

- Kid Chameleon (Genesis)

This is one huge game and actually situated in the arcade or inside a game. Ive never managed to finish it without cheating. It took hours to get through the annoying parts and there were more ahead. The furthest that I got was this swamp level where i had to run as fast as i could away from this death machine that was following me. Having played for hours my concentration was lost and i just called it quits. One day ill hopefully finish it. =) If it had been a coin-op youd be feeding it quarters by the buckets.

- Giana Sisters (C64/Amiga)

Doesnt matter which platform you play it on it still looks pretty. Damn the Nintendo lawyers >:( this one was better! And it could have made a beautiful transform to the arcades where it would have carried on its legacy.


And to save you the googling:

http://www.vgmuseum.com/reviews/genesis/castleillusion/
http://hol.abime.net/?id=1533
http://emulazione.multiplayer.it/stgraveyard/game_reviews/Turrican2/Turrican2.htm
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/genesis/review/6500.html
http://www.emulationzone.org/sections/segaforever/reviews/gen/kidc.html
http://www.loogslair.com/vgame/chameleon.html
http://emulazione.multiplayer.it/stgraveyard/game_reviews/Giana/Giana.htm


And ofcourse you can comment on the mentioned ones and add a new one but no massive load of lists without any comments mmm-kay?

Whew!

[YoshiM]

Interesting topic! Here are my thoughts (note if there are arcade versions of what I list, I apologize as I was not aware of it)

Gunstar Heroes (Genesis): This just screamed for an arcade version with better graphics. It had all the trimmings, just needed a tweak here and there to make it arcade worthy.

Road Rash (Genesis/3DO/take yer pick): Set it up as a timed race and have players go at it. The only thing is that such a game would probably ask for a handlebar controller and when you get knocked off your bike it'd be difficult to run back to it.

Doom: I am so surprised that this or some other first person shooter hasn't been released into the arcades. Make the levels a bit more linear, increase the difficulty and have a timer count down. I suppose it would lose something though as one of the big draws to such a game is the exploration which is not really feasible (or even profitable) in an arcade game.

[ManekiNeko]

Oh, please... Great Giana Sisters is nothing but a cheesy clone of the geniune article, Super Mario Bros. The only thing that made it even remotely entertaining were the main characters, who were conservatively dressed in their weak forms but punked out a'la Cyndi Lauper when they grabbed power ups. Everything else was obviously derivitive and just as obviously inferior to Nintendo's game.

JR

[Zaxxon]

I thought the Jumpman/Jr games would've made cool arcade games. Much better than Donkey Kong IMO, though DK is still cool in it's own way.

[qaotik]

ManekiNeko: And what a wonderful clone it was! Best one yet. ;)
Compared to SMB it was more colourful compared to those washed out colors and since i didnt own nes i was very happy with it. Now the powerups you got were cheesy, lollipop, alarm clock etc but you were a kid back then so who cares? And the people who made the game didnt stop their shameless copying there but made katakis (a r-type clone) and many great games which werent clones. This only my opinion and debating is useless in these cases.

[Raedon]

Leander-Amiga

Ultimate Wizard-C64

Mayhem in Monster land-c64 (better looking game then all NES platformers)

[Tom61]

Doom: I am so surprised that this or some other first person shooter hasn't been released into the arcades.

Quake had an arcade game:

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=Q&game_id=2466

Though not Doom, Atari released an FPS simular to it that used rotating joysticks. I can't remember the name of it though.

If you think of a game that you aren't sure about, look it up on the Killer List Of Videogames: http://www.klov.com/index.php

[Vic George 2K3]

Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle (ColecoVision)