10 Arcade Cabinets That Will Make You Miss Your Childhood

There was nothing like a trip to the arcade as a kid. Even in the 90s, when arcades as we knew them were on their way out, there was something magical about the sights, sounds and smells of even the dirtiest little hole-in-the-wall arcade.

These places are mostly gone, but that doesn't mean they're forgotten. And out of all the many machines that graced the arcades of yore, there are a select few that stand out in our minds as the greatest a kid could ever want to play.

Now if only time machines took quarters…

There was nothing like NBA Jam in existence back then, and you could argue that basketball video games wouldn't be what they are today without it. Yet as serious as the genre has become, this shit was crazy back in the day. If you could pull off an epic move at the right moment you'd be a legend among your friends.

Mortal Kombat's fatalities were the stuff of legend back then. You'd tell your friends about them, but they wouldn't believe you; then of course you couldn't actually pull off those complex button combos when you got back to the arcade.

And those "photo-realistic" sprites—those were the best graphics we'd ever seen back then. Remember when things were this simple?

It may not have had fatalities, but Street Fighter 2 was still the king of arcade fighters during its time. This is the one that introduced Chun-Li, who'd soon become everyone's favorite fighting game chick.

Street Fighter 2 also basically invented the combo system used by most subsequent fighting games. But we didn't know any of that back then—all we cared about was kicking each others' asses.

There was, and remains to this day, no better run-and-gunner than Metal Slug. Through tons of sequels this remains the best series of its kind in existence. The cartoony but gritty graphics and frenzied multiplayer shooting combined to make something we looked forward to playing every time we hit the arcade or the local pizza joint.

Remember how the bosses would flash all blue and orange when you hit them? Remember all those crazy weapons and vehicles? If you're really feeling the pull of Metal Slug after reading this, check out the Metal Slug Anthology collection on Wii or PS2—it's awesome.

This was the kind of game that you could only play when your parents' backs were turned—if your parents gave a shit at all about when kind of games you played, that is. If they didn't you were lucky, but sometimes it made it all the more sweet to finally get your hands on one of those big, dumb plastic light guns and blast some zombies in the face.

Some of the House of the Dead games got ported to the Wii as well, and if you can pretend you're surrounded by screaming idiots and the floors are sticky with spilled soda, you can almost convince yourself you're back at the arcade as a kid again. Then again, if you have kids now, those first two parts are probably already taken care of.

Back when games were simple, licensed titles actually had a chance to not be complete shit. That's because it didn't take hundreds of millions of dollars to create a successful video game—so Fox or whoever could throw a forgettable wad of cash at whatever game developer and once in a while something awesome would happen.

Obviously that's the case with Konami's The Simpsons arcade game. The side-scrolling multiplayer beat 'em up was a popular style at the time, and with good reason: it was tried-and-true, it was fun, and it was easy to jam popular characters into the template. Whatever the reasons behind it, though, The Simpsons is one of our most fondly remembered arcade games.

Boy, Konami was really knocking them out of the park back in the day, eh? Of course, like The Simpsons, Turtles in Time was a side-scrolling beat 'em up. What can we say? It worked, and we loved these games.

And surprisingly little of the turtley magic was lost when Turtles in Time got ported to the Super Nintendo in 1992. Cowabunga, dude!

Unlike some of the other games on this list—despite how fondly we may remember them—Pac-Man is a true classic. Like, hall of fame classic. And damned if we weren't addicted to munching those pellets down endless blue hallways.

Just for fun we threw in a picture of the "cocktail" style Pac-Man cabinet—remember those things? They'd have them at bars and restaurants so you'd have somewhere to safely put your drink when you played. Now we want one in our living room.

Dragon's Lair was literally mind-blowing when it debuted in the 80s. It stayed that way through the 90s, as well. It looked like a god damned Disney movie—and for good reason. It was drawn and animated by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth, lending it more than a touch of the magic typical of those big-budget animated films.

Never mind that the gameplay was nothing more than a quarter-sucking game of trial-and-error and memorization. And oh, god—Princess Daphne and her little sheer black dress. Jesus Christ. She was way too sexy. Our little brains exploded.

Whether you were a hardcore gamer or just someone's mom, you could see the appeal of Dance Dance Revolution. And now it's so ingrained in our culture that it's almost shocking to remember that it didn't debut until 1998.

DDR was truly unique. It was actually cool to be good at it—probably a first for video games. But even if you were complete shit you'd still have fun—though you'd look like an idiot too.

What were your favorite arcade games of the 80s and 90s? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!