So many great ones here I forgot but remember fondly back in many of the Arcades we rode our bikes to to spend our chore money. So many great memories, Thanks!!
It should read top 100 ARCADE games. There is literally no such thing as a "MAME" game. That would be like saying Top 100 "Insert emulator name here" games for other platforms
Useful video thanks and plenty of great shoot em ups not on here too like : Space Firebird, Moon Cresta, UniwarS, Pleides, Astro Fantasia, Astro Fighter ..... etc
Nice list and lots of games I want to try! But please.... Don't call games like Fantasy Zone, Circus Charlie, Congo Bongo, Pengo, Rock n rope (and a few others) 'hidden gems'. They were gems in plain sight back in the day.
A lot of Golden Era console games really don't hold up imo, not nearly as well as NES/SMS onwards - they just suffer from too many limitations and performance issues to me. But these arcade games are timeless classics that I think any gamer with an open mind could easily have a blast with.
Dig Dug II is one of those rare sequels that I prefer over the original. Less frustrating controls and lots of shortcuts involved. It's an entirely different game also. I think Congo Bongo frustrated a lot of people because of difficulty. But it's still far easier than Zaxxon. I found it more enjoyable back when isometric games were scarce. Mappy(not listed here) was criminally underrated because it hardly got ported outside of Japan and was far more advanced and fun than anything it competed against. It does get viewed as a classic however why it was not as popular as Donkey Kong I will never know.
How cool is it that I'm able to play at least half of these on my coffee table at home? These are what I played when I was 10 - Why would I want a modern games console at 50?
My neighbor ran an arcade out of his garage. He had 14 cabinet games which rotated and six pinball machines. He gave you five quarters for a dollar. You couldn’t beat it.
I hear the Asteroids sound effect, I’m immediately transported back 40 years in time to the local candy store. I can smell the coffee and the cigarette smoke and old papers.
MY og XBox has 12,022 games from Virtual Boy to Neo Geo Pocket to PC Engine CD...nothing beats picking a random game in the morning and trying it- I can do this for every single day the next 30 years and still never play same game twice! The arcade alone has so many amazing gems I never saw growing up, thanks to videos like this you can get some recommendations and discover some really fun time wasters! Blows my mind haw many PC/video/arcade games have been made from the 70s on.
Dragon's lair Pole position Turbo Snake pit Mario Brothers Kangaroo Journey Domino man Wizard of Wor Star Castle Robbie Roto Gorf Lunar lander Galaxian Gyruss Zaxxon Devious Cosmic chasm Mad planets Tutankhamun Frenzy Jungle Hunt Buck Rogers Space fury Looping Thief Cosmic avenger Time pilot 2084 Rampage Super Pac-Man Reactor Eliminator Stargate
I know lists like this are all down to personal opinion but I would have included: Bomb Jack, Hypersports, Circus Charlie, Mr Do's Castle and Mr Do's Wild Ride.
It's amazing if you take maybe five of the classic originals like space Invaders asteroids defender missile command donkey kong. Then look at all the other games and how they are just rip off copies of them. Good thing the same company probably owned all of them or there would be lawsuits all over the place
No GORF? And no Frontline? Granted, it's nearly impossible to lay on MAME, because of the unique controller. Also. . . Lode Runner was originally an arcade game? I had absolutely no idea. I always thought it was a Commodore 64 original.
May I just say that nobody comes close to that analysis of top 100 Mame games. You are a true connoisseur. I would be at a loss trying to improve on this. Almost perfect. I hope you still get the chance to play the odd game here and there. All the best and thanks for your perceptive video.
this comment really made my day. Thank you! I thoroughly played everything I could find and put a lot of work into this selection, and I'm so glad that at least one person noticed. These aren't the most popular or even cult-popular games, but just the games that I felt had the best quality of gameplay for each type of game. Truly subjective, but still very useful for finding quality games people may not have heard of. I worry about these games disappearing, and I hope that anyone making a database or machine will add these titles to every collection.
@@gregorklingman6772 Sorry for the delay on this reply but I thought that you deserved one. I am happy that my feedback meant something to you but I lived the evolution of arcade games in that I always sought out new ones and tried them. I am 51 now but I was there when they introduced Space invaders and it had a button for left and right instead of a 🕹️. I assumed that you must be my age to have the insight that you showed. All the very best Gregor and thank you.
Sorry for the braggadacio, but I gotta see how many of these I played (and, obviously, leave a note about it - this was my childhood): Asteroids, Bank Panic (completely forgot this one), Battlezone, Berzerk, Bump 'n' Jump (forgotten for 40 years), Centipede, Defender (awesome sound design), Dig Dug, Discs of Tron, Donkey Kong, DK Junior, Elevator Action, Frogger, Galaga, Joust, Lost Tomb, Missile Command!!!, Moon Patrol, MC Pacman, Pacman, Pengo, Punchout, Qbert, Qix (OMG, forgot this awesome game!), Rally X (how many have I forgotten??!), Scramble (hours I spent), Space Invaders (one of the few games I clocked), Spy Hunter, Tempest!!, The Pit, Time Pilot.... that's it from this list. Many missing - Galaxian, Xevious, Pole Position, Dragon's Lair, Phoenix, Pole Position, Zaxxon, Turbo, Track and Field.
This is a great list of games, nice work. However, there were so many good arcade games during this Golden Age -- we could certainly come up with another 100 that are just as good or better to certain players. I especially miss my two favorite games from those years: Xevious and Gorf.
It’s a good list, but they are his favorite 100, not necessarily the best or the most historically important. As others have pointed out, you can’t leave off games like Jungle Hunt, Crazy Climber, Zaxxon, Wizard of Wor, Lady Bug. His many obscure games obviously are not historically influential, and at least some of them are obscure because they just weren’t all that fun. I’d love to see a list of games that still hold up today. Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, and Burgertime, for example, remain immensely popular. But some of the classics have not aged as well.
