Enjoyed the video. Late '81 was when I became a gamer. My mother was taking my sister and I to the Dairy Queen and they had just got an arcade of Pac-Man. Up to this point, the only video games I knew were Pong clones and Breakout. It seems funny now, but I was absolutely blown away by the idea of being able to move a character around the screen in four directions instead of just two.
I was 12 in '81. I remember fondly riding my bmx to the corner majik Mart to play galaga, donkey Kong, joust, tempest and can't forget that kiss pinball machine. A roll of quarters, a mountain dew and some pop rocks. Good times! Still gaming and collecting today strong as ever.
@@tonyp9313 Not tough at all actually. I was born in 69. The 70s was awesome as a kid. The best toys ever! The six million dollar man, evil kenieval, G I Joe's, space 1999, star wars, dungeons and dragons. And by '78 asteroids came into the picture then a few years later the Atari.
@@stevethomas5978 Atari was out in North America in 1977. The year I was born. I grew up in the 80's & that was a terrible time. Before the 80's that even worse. Those things you mentioned only became popular or iconic status in the 80's. Gi Joe was in the 80's. I don't even know if you had a color tv in the 70's. Most people had a black & white tv with 6 channels at most and like 3 of them snowy reception. What about Rotary phones? That even exist in the 70's? A lot mom & pop shops. So it's not like going to Walmart. We're talking small. VCR's little to none. If there was no cable I doubt you had a VCR growing up in the 70's. It's just a lot of things in your time that wasn't even invented yet.
I love these lists. They always bring back such awesome memories. It was so exciting going to all of the local arcades, bowling alleys and convenience stores in search of new games.
A little before my time and never even heard of most of these games but they look like a lot of fun though, I do love me some Galaga! Thanks for the vid John! Peace, Love, and video games... ☮💙🕹
Nice! This year marks the first I had ever went to an arcade. I was 6 years old and I can still remember it vividly… It was an arcade in a local mall called Pirates Den. I still recall the dark atmosphere and demo music competing with each other to capture the attention of my 6 year old self. I don’t think the arcade had half of these but it did have the popular ones like donkey kong, ms. Pac-Man, and Frogger. So it’s nice to see some of the lesser known games in this video I’ve never seen before. The arcade back then was a great babysitter for my parents back then. They would do their shopping and leave me there for about an hour with a couple dollars in quarters. (It was a different time back then) What was really cool though was it would be on a Saturday afternoon when the arcade wasn’t busy so I pretty much had the whole arcade to myself. If I could go back in time, the Pirates Den arcade would be the first place I’d visit. Magical time. Thank you for posting this!!
Love your videos, man! This is my favorite of your sequential history of things, as classic arcade games are so underrated! There are so many arcade gems to dig up.
I was 6 in 1981, so all I had played was PacMan at the neighborhood 7-11, but this video makes me nostalgic for the early days of MAME and other arcade emulators around in the late 90s. They all started with this era.
You're the same age as me. Man I feel really bad for us because we had it rough compared to the 4 year olds now with little to nothing existing back in 1981.
The last game Pliades is pronounced plee-uh-deez, and you got it right, it's a star cluster. Loved the video and love the series as a whole too! Thanks Riggs!
In 1981 I still didn't know about arcades or maybe video games. It wasn't until 1982 when we relocated to NY that I knew what video games were. The first ones I saw were Ms.Pac-Man, Tron and Qix. I played them once in a while but I bearly knew what I was doing but had a lot of fun. I think I played a videogames system previously but I can't remember well. Crush Roller was known in some places as Make Traxx and I played it quite a bit. Great showing good reviews and cool video John!👍
I was born in 1981, so playing these in the arcade wasn't a possibility. But I remember my grandpa having Donkey Kong, Ladybug and Cosmic Avenger on ColecoVision. Such fun games.
Why no Bosconian Star Destroyer? That's gotta be among the most under-rated game of that era. It was quite sophisticated, and ahead of it's time, in terms of graphics, audio, and gameplay. I think it's my all-time favorite arcade game ever made, but dang, it's so overlooked and under-appreciated, widely.
Sometimes I thought the clone games were better than some of the more popular and well-known arcade titles. Especially when they come up with Atari 2600 or 5200 clone games for home. Ahhhhh the memories!
This was the year I really got into video games. I don't even want to remember how many 20 cent (New Zealand) pieces I put into the games you've highlighted here...... 😆🤣🤣
With Stargate you could shoot all the humanoids and then see if you can survive the next stages where the mutants chase you up to stage 6 if you're lucky! Loved this on the Atari 2600!
Most arcades were not very wheelchair friendly so my playing arcade type games started with an atari and i got my fix later on with a commodore 64. My favourite games was graphically simple and i live in hope for a remake ... that game being Jack Attack ... a cartridge game sent FREE and i was an immediate addict!!! Love the nostalgia of your videos take care ❤💙💜
Super Cobra IS the sequel to Scramble. BTW, if you play Gradius Galaxies (aka Gradius Advance in Europe) on the GBA, the attract screen has a series timeline, which does include Scramble (but not Super Cobra, for some reason). Turns out that Gradius was originally meant to be another sequel to Scramble before becoming its own thing.
Surprised you didn't bring up Bosconian, I believe it was the first to have a continue feature or I read that somewhere. I think its an amazing game that doesn't get enough attention.
I think that you're right about Bosconian being the first (production) game with a continue option. It along with Rally X and Super Pac Man are Namco arcade games that never got the respect that they deserved.
Nice, I think I played about half of these back in the 80s, never had a big arcade nearby back then, it was only bars, sports clubs and fast food places.
I guess I hadn't really ever heard that technically Miss Pac-Man is like a rom hack. does that make it the most successful rom hack of all time then must be
Love the arcade memories and seeing the very rare game I have not seen this time it was Turtles. Would love to see hidden arcade gems that use a trackball. We all know the usual centipede, crystal castles, world cup 86 football/soccer. But I don't really know of many as the arcades didn't like them as they were constantly going wrong. So a video by you would be great. Keep up the awesome work
I also seem to remember (but it could be my memory playing tricks on me) that Sega did a Sonic the Hedgehog game but saying that no one else seems to remember it.
True story, my dad used to own mrs Pacman and the lady responsible for the bow of Mrs Pacman is one of the vampire lady's from spectre files: deathstalker
I was a big Atari 2600 kid parents had bought me the atari vcs heavy sixer for Xmas 1977 i was 8 at the time had maybe 5 games only but built a good library of games until 1982 when Colecovision came out,skipped Intellevision since a friend had it but hated the controller pad but I would say around 1980 I was always in the arcade and in 81' I think I had the most fun playing ms pacman and DK alot and Qbert too
You want a laugh, my dad took me to one of those shady bars. I’m glad he did. It had Super Mario Bros. I played that game for the next hour like it was a newborn puppy! Now at 47, I’m still content with that epic moment in time.
We had a Scramble cocktail arcade in our house that took old UK 10p coins back in the early 80s, we got it from the arcade repair shop at the end of our road, remember being so good at it that we didn't use the bombs so much but very low flying, we could just shoot most stuff
John, are you sure you're old enough to remember 1981? I had forgotten how good the scrolling was in these games. And how colourful they are! (Sorry for English spelling, across the Pond, don't you know). The ten year old me says thanks for reminding him of the games he played in 1981...
Sadly, my arcade days were in the 1970s so I missed a lot of these. Bars back in the 1980s had many of the more popular ones shown early in the video and I played those.
Wow, I forgot about Ladybug. These games seemed so magical and unattainable when I was a little kid. Probably because my brother played them and I was slightly too young to really understand how.
I remember Lady Bug for the Colecovision. Only imperefections were no angel wings flying at death, and gave you a vegetable garden bonus round instead of a free credit for SPECIAL.
I had completely forgotten about ladybug and scramble but I do remember playing them both. Usually found them at some arcade out of town when we were on vacation or traveling. I was the same way when it came to trying to play games that would last a while with one quarter. So I played a lot of Frogger and Galaga too. Had Frogger on the 2600 as well.
You looked to be around 6 or 7 in your picture. I was 15. The arcade I frequented was token based. They gave 8 tokens (plays) for $1. Unbeatable deal. Crush Roller was also released by Williams stateside as Make Trax. A favorite of mine, I only wish someone would port it to the Atari 5200. Frenzy was, in fact, a sequel to Berzerk, released by Stern. Colony 7 was ripped off heavily by Imagic on their Atlantis game for consoles. I always hated GORF and played the games it ripped off instead. Bally/Midway got Namco to license Pac Man to them. They subsequently developed and released Ms. Pac Man. Namco was hot, and in turn never licensed their titles to Bally/Midway again.
0:40 isn't that kinda what Nintendo North America did to make Super Mario Bros 2? It was a hacked version of a totally different franchise for the Famicom in Japan, no?
Hey John. I'm trying to find an arcade game from the late 80s early 90s. It was an aerial shooter and while the ship you controlled was very 2D the targets were amazing and resembled the ship from Flight of the Navigator. It was not Mach 3. Any idea? Thank you!
Frogger is still fantastic today. Sure I can play Galaga a lot today too, but I have much more fun with Frogger. I loved Scramble on Colecovision! OMG! Never heard of Black Hole. It looks like a rip-off of Phoenix (which was a rip-offs of other games- so Black Hole is super-diluted hahaha!). I think I liked Cosmic Avenger better than Scramble on Colecovision. Similar, yes, but I think it was slightly better.
I can only assume the 'not mame' refence during DK was a dig at the whole billy mitchell thing?! that whole thing was wild. ms. pac-man might be my all time favorite on the list, followed by DK and galaga (my wife's favorite) next time I fire up the atgames legends gamer mini I may have to give some of these a credit I think!
CLICK - ruclips.net/video/xhB4T4teYY4/видео.html
Arcade games from 1983.
Enjoyed the video. Late '81 was when I became a gamer. My mother was taking my sister and I to the Dairy Queen and they had just got an arcade of Pac-Man. Up to this point, the only video games I knew were Pong clones and Breakout. It seems funny now, but I was absolutely blown away by the idea of being able to move a character around the screen in four directions instead of just two.
I was 12 in '81. I remember fondly riding my bmx to the corner majik Mart to play galaga, donkey Kong, joust, tempest and can't forget that kiss pinball machine. A roll of quarters, a mountain dew and some pop rocks. Good times! Still gaming and collecting today strong as ever.
I was 4 in 81. Oh yeah a bmx bike. Those were popular back then. So you born in the 60's growing up in the 70's. Wow you had it tougher than me even.
@@tonyp9313 nah, he was in a good spot
@@tonyp9313 Not tough at all actually. I was born in 69. The 70s was awesome as a kid. The best toys ever! The six million dollar man, evil kenieval, G I Joe's, space 1999, star wars, dungeons and dragons. And by '78 asteroids came into the picture then a few years later the Atari.
@@stevethomas5978 Atari was out in North America in 1977. The year I was born. I grew up in the 80's & that was a terrible time. Before the 80's that even worse.
Those things you mentioned only became popular or iconic status in the 80's. Gi Joe was in the 80's.
I don't even know if you had a color tv in the 70's. Most people had a black & white tv with 6 channels at most and like 3 of them snowy reception. What about Rotary phones? That even exist in the 70's?
A lot mom & pop shops. So it's not like going to Walmart. We're talking small. VCR's little to none. If there was no cable I doubt you had a VCR growing up in the 70's.
It's just a lot of things in your time that wasn't even invented yet.
@@patsfan4life He grew up in the 70's. So a lot of things that you have today & are obsolete now didn't even exist when he was growing up.
I love these lists. They always bring back such awesome memories. It was so exciting going to all of the local arcades, bowling alleys and convenience stores in search of new games.
Wow, I haven't heard of a good chunk of these games and I was always in the arcade when I was a kid. Thanks for the video, John.
A little before my time and never even heard of most of these games but they look like a lot of fun though, I do love me some Galaga! Thanks for the vid John! Peace, Love, and video games... ☮💙🕹
Goooo, Broncos!!!
@@broncosbreaks Let's gooo!! We're going to have an exciting season! 🍊💪🏽
Good video! Brings back some memories of playing these arcade games!
I was 1, but I still played these bad boys!
"....which, by the way, Woodpecker is a double-phallic name..." 😅😂
Two other Good Arcade Games from 81 would be Amidar & Bosconian.
Ladybug is a favorite. Super fun game.
nice to see you cover more than the "Greatest Hits";
i remember most of these games from the ColecoVision ('82)
Nice! This year marks the first I had ever went to an arcade. I was 6 years old and I can still remember it vividly… It was an arcade in a local mall called Pirates Den. I still recall the dark atmosphere and demo music competing with each other to capture the attention of my 6 year old self. I don’t think the arcade had half of these but it did have the popular ones like donkey kong, ms. Pac-Man, and Frogger. So it’s nice to see some of the lesser known games in this video I’ve never seen before. The arcade back then was a great babysitter for my parents back then. They would do their shopping and leave me there for about an hour with a couple dollars in quarters. (It was a different time back then) What was really cool though was it would be on a Saturday afternoon when the arcade wasn’t busy so I pretty much had the whole arcade to myself. If I could go back in time, the Pirates Den arcade would be the first place I’d visit. Magical time. Thank you for posting this!!
Most of these games were still in the arcade by the time I was playing at Chuck E. Cheese in the mid-late 80s.
Yeah because they were mostly great
Sweet video, been a long time ive seen some of these(and some i dont member).
Love your videos, man! This is my favorite of your sequential history of things, as classic arcade games are so underrated! There are so many arcade gems to dig up.
Awesome stuff John. I feel really bad for anyone who wasn't a teen in the 80's!!
don't lol I feel bad for you lol i was a kid in the 80's so I also feel bad for myself.
I was 6 in 1981, so all I had played was PacMan at the neighborhood 7-11, but this video makes me nostalgic for the early days of MAME and other arcade emulators around in the late 90s. They all started with this era.
I was 4. 1981 is still a stone age year.
I was only 4 in 1981 so I didn't play any of these in that year but I did get to them eventually.
You're the same age as me. Man I feel really bad for us because we had it rough compared to the 4 year olds now with little to nothing existing back in 1981.
Thank you, brings back so much memories!
If I remember correctly, Stargate is an official sequel to Defender, and Frenzy is a sequel to Bezerk
That is correct. Stargate is also known as Defender II.
The last game Pliades is pronounced plee-uh-deez, and you got it right, it's a star cluster.
Loved the video and love the series as a whole too! Thanks Riggs!
Pleiads I always figured was play on the Pleiades constellation, was a the little local pizza shop for years along with Phoenix. What an era.
I love this style of video. Good stuff kind sir. More, more
There was some cool looking games back in '81.
I like them because I grew up with them. If you introduce anyone who hasn't, they won't like them.
Turtles is famous at least in the Odyssey 2 community since it received a port of it.
someone made an NES homebrew, too. Tortoises
In 1981 I still didn't know about arcades or maybe video games. It wasn't until 1982 when we relocated to NY that I knew what video games were. The first ones I saw were Ms.Pac-Man, Tron and Qix. I played them once in a while but I bearly knew what I was doing but had a lot of fun. I think I played a videogames system previously but I can't remember well. Crush Roller was known in some places as Make Traxx and I played it quite a bit. Great showing good reviews and cool video John!👍
This reminds me of sneaking and walking to the arcade in Houston when I was 8, or playing Gorf and Defender at the 711 .
I was born in 1981, so playing these in the arcade wasn't a possibility. But I remember my grandpa having Donkey Kong, Ladybug and Cosmic Avenger on ColecoVision. Such fun games.
Why no Bosconian Star Destroyer? That's gotta be among the most under-rated game of that era. It was quite sophisticated, and ahead of it's time, in terms of graphics, audio, and gameplay. I think it's my all-time favorite arcade game ever made, but dang, it's so overlooked and under-appreciated, widely.
Sometimes I thought the clone games were better than some of the more popular and well-known arcade titles. Especially when they come up with Atari 2600 or 5200 clone games for home. Ahhhhh the memories!
Galaga was my favorite arcade game of that era. Still love it.
This was the year I really got into video games. I don't even want to remember how many 20 cent (New Zealand) pieces I put into the games you've highlighted here...... 😆🤣🤣
So many treasured memories.
There's even some I never heard of before.
Hey John, you would be an awesome addition should someone make an arcade years for the 90s! Heck, where were you for the arcade years season 1?! Haha
With Stargate you could shoot all the humanoids and then see if you can survive the next stages where the mutants chase you up to stage 6 if you're lucky! Loved this on the Atari 2600!
Most arcades were not very wheelchair friendly so my playing arcade type games started with an atari and i got my fix later on with a commodore 64. My favourite games was graphically simple and i live in hope for a remake ... that game being Jack Attack ... a cartridge game sent FREE and i was an immediate addict!!! Love the nostalgia of your videos take care ❤💙💜
Super Cobra IS the sequel to Scramble. BTW, if you play Gradius Galaxies (aka Gradius Advance in Europe) on the GBA, the attract screen has a series timeline, which does include Scramble (but not Super Cobra, for some reason). Turns out that Gradius was originally meant to be another sequel to Scramble before becoming its own thing.
The number one arcade I played the most in 1981 that was Donkey Kong.
Surprised you didn't bring up Bosconian, I believe it was the first to have a continue feature or I read that somewhere. I think its an amazing game that doesn't get enough attention.
I think that you're right about Bosconian being the first (production) game with a continue option. It along with Rally X and Super Pac Man are Namco arcade games that never got the respect that they deserved.
Bosconian > Galaga
Galiga came out in 1991, I remember that way different. Mandela effect!
haha, wrong year. oh well, it stays.
@@JohnRiggs just giving a little crap, thank you for the vids! Love the trip back to memory lane. We got to grow up in a truly wonderous time.
Nice, I think I played about half of these back in the 80s, never had a big arcade nearby back then, it was only bars, sports clubs and fast food places.
I remember playing DONKEY KONG in the USA as a kid when it came out. It 100% called him JUMP MAN on the printed instructions by the control panel.
Ten-year-old me, two cokes down and twin guns on Galaga… that’s the best life.👍
Nice Matt Tracker shirt
I guess I hadn't really ever heard that technically Miss Pac-Man is like a rom hack. does that make it the most successful rom hack of all time then must be
Love the arcade memories and seeing the very rare game I have not seen this time it was Turtles.
Would love to see hidden arcade gems that use a trackball. We all know the usual centipede, crystal castles, world cup 86 football/soccer. But I don't really know of many as the arcades didn't like them as they were constantly going wrong. So a video by you would be great.
Keep up the awesome work
Don't forget Q-Bert
And Marble Madness
@@jacobprice8048 I know those. I would like to see a list of the hidden gems that use the trackball like Combat School
I also seem to remember (but it could be my memory playing tricks on me) that Sega did a Sonic the Hedgehog game but saying that no one else seems to remember it.
True story, my dad used to own mrs Pacman and the lady responsible for the bow of Mrs Pacman is one of the vampire lady's from spectre files: deathstalker
The year I was born! Some of my favorite classics were released then, pretty amazing.
My favorite series of videos along with Open Cart Surgery
John! i was born in 83 but i was definitely playing them soon after :)
I was a big Atari 2600 kid parents had bought me the atari vcs heavy sixer for Xmas 1977 i was 8 at the time had maybe 5 games only but built a good library of games until 1982 when Colecovision came out,skipped Intellevision since a friend had it but hated the controller pad but I would say around 1980 I was always in the arcade and in 81' I think I had the most fun playing ms pacman and DK alot and Qbert too
The early 80's were great. So many cool games like Sinistar,Tron,Joust,Time Pilot,Elevator Action.
It’s like if someone made a hack of a random game and called it Super Mario Bros. 2
Me and the other guy can not be the only one that got that reference
You want a laugh, my dad took me to one of those shady bars. I’m glad he did. It had Super Mario Bros. I played that game for the next hour like it was a newborn puppy! Now at 47, I’m still content with that epic moment in time.
Played a lot of these games around 83 , 84. I was 5
I loved Scramble and Super Cobra back in the day. Played them way more than Defender and Stargate.
We had a Scramble cocktail arcade in our house that took old UK 10p coins back in the early 80s, we got it from the arcade repair shop at the end of our road, remember being so good at it that we didn't use the bombs so much but very low flying, we could just shoot most stuff
John, are you sure you're old enough to remember 1981? I had forgotten how good the scrolling was in these games. And how colourful they are! (Sorry for English spelling, across the Pond, don't you know). The ten year old me says thanks for reminding him of the games he played in 1981...
galaga came out in 1991 wow thats crazy 02:30 😂😂 good video riggs
You said that Galaga came out in 1991!
I grew up with Cosmic Avenger and GORF on the Colecovision
I have the Odyssey 2 version of Turtles and it's great! Plays almost exactly like the arcade version except the graphics are a little simpler
I forgot about Armored Car, used to play that at the mega-arcade/bowling alley near me back in the early 80s.
Man. I had completely forgotten Ladybug. That was a fun game.
Sadly, my arcade days were in the 1970s so I missed a lot of these. Bars back in the 1980s had many of the more popular ones shown early in the video and I played those.
Wow, I forgot about Ladybug. These games seemed so magical and unattainable when I was a little kid. Probably because my brother played them and I was slightly too young to really understand how.
I remember Lady Bug for the Colecovision. Only imperefections were no angel wings flying at death, and gave you a vegetable garden bonus round instead of a free credit for SPECIAL.
Sweet M.A.S.K. shirt, Riggs.
1981 i'm 1 yearold
I had completely forgotten about ladybug and scramble but I do remember playing them both. Usually found them at some arcade out of town when we were on vacation or traveling. I was the same way when it came to trying to play games that would last a while with one quarter. So I played a lot of Frogger and Galaga too. Had Frogger on the 2600 as well.
Thanks
"arcade games you were playing in 1981" I was born in 2003, missed it by a few years
GORF was the first game ever with a final boss. It's too bad you didn't make it to the fourth stage. :)
Good stuff
You looked to be around 6 or 7 in your picture. I was 15. The arcade I frequented was token based. They gave 8 tokens (plays) for $1. Unbeatable deal. Crush Roller was also released by Williams stateside as Make Trax. A favorite of mine, I only wish someone would port it to the Atari 5200. Frenzy was, in fact, a sequel to Berzerk, released by Stern. Colony 7 was ripped off heavily by Imagic on their Atlantis game for consoles. I always hated GORF and played the games it ripped off instead. Bally/Midway got Namco to license Pac Man to them. They subsequently developed and released Ms. Pac Man. Namco was hot, and in turn never licensed their titles to Bally/Midway again.
Hahahahahaha nice hat!
When I found out about the Galaga glitch, I was able to play for a really long time on one quarter.
I love these type of videos, I'm watching it later but the video's probably great👍
Bringing back memories here
I was 4 years old at the time, so...yeah. ;) Would've been great, though!
Same age lol. I feel for you. I know what you went through with things being non existant to like this didn't exist back in my day.
2:30 "1991"
yeah, I didn't catch it when I was editing or on the replay. Oh well, it stays.
I didn't realize all of these were on miSTer. Thanks!
How about Games for the 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, Astrocade, Odyssey, 5200 and Vectrex by year?
I was born in 1981😎
I'llll patiently be waiting for 1988 all the way through 1998... 🐥🔨
Never has there been a more fitting hat for a man
Galaga is my spirit animal.
1:50 Glad you got a MiSter! How long have you had yours? I had mine since December and loving every minute of it!
That was a good year for arcade games!
0:40 isn't that kinda what Nintendo North America did to make Super Mario Bros 2? It was a hacked version of a totally different franchise for the Famicom in Japan, no?
Yep, 1981 Is The Year I Truly Became A Gamer.
Where's 1982? That was a GREAT one!
Hey John. I'm trying to find an arcade game from the late 80s early 90s. It was an aerial shooter and while the ship you controlled was very 2D the targets were amazing and resembled the ship from Flight of the Navigator. It was not Mach 3. Any idea? Thank you!
What a great video 🕹️ I was 4.
Was 6-ish back then, too young to remember what I played.
I heard Vanguard was the first game to have a continue.
Frogger is still fantastic today. Sure I can play Galaga a lot today too, but I have much more fun with Frogger. I loved Scramble on Colecovision! OMG! Never heard of Black Hole. It looks like a rip-off of Phoenix (which was a rip-offs of other games- so Black Hole is super-diluted hahaha!).
I think I liked Cosmic Avenger better than Scramble on Colecovision. Similar, yes, but I think it was slightly better.
I can only assume the 'not mame' refence during DK was a dig at the whole billy mitchell thing?! that whole thing was wild. ms. pac-man might be my all time favorite on the list, followed by DK and galaga (my wife's favorite) next time I fire up the atgames legends gamer mini I may have to give some of these a credit I think!
Video arcades was the social media of its day.
Nah, was still playing pinball in 1981 (the golden year for Bally)