ANDY LESH'S TOP TEN COIN-OP VIDEOGAMES arlesh@uakron.edu 10. Smash TV / Assault (tie) (Williams / Namco) Smash TV - It's just you vs. the world... and you have a good chance of winning! :-) Assault - Soooooo addictive. You MUST play this in the arcade! 9. Crazy Climber (Nichibutsu) Two sticks for control... you just kind of get into a flow. Damn that overgrown gorilla! 8. Galaga (Namco) The pinnacle of the twitch shooter. It just never gets old. 7. Toobin' (Atari Games) My college roommate and I got so good at this game that we'd each pop in one quarter and play until we couldn't see straight. This game is so incredibly original, and so incredibly addictive! And... no joysticks! LOL! 6. Hot Rod (Sega) The ultimate evolution of the multi-player overhead racing game. I blew off SO many Saturdays playing this with 3 buddies in college. I can still hear the upgrade shop music... oh no... make it stop! :-) 5. Elevator Action (Taito) Simple, repetitive... yet FUN AS HELL. I just about peed myself with laughter the first time I shot the lights out, and the falling light fixture landed on a bad guy's head. Even emulated, this game is AWESOME. 4. Street Fighter II / SFII Champ. Ed. (Sega and Konami, respectively) SFII kicked the door wide open on the fighting genre, and SFII CE perfected it. I was never a true master of SFII, but my Dhalsim abilities surprised many who doubted the character's playability. I think I must have been in (and lost :)) at least a dozen tournaments. 3. Race Drivin' (Atari Games) Will anyone EVER release an update to this and Hard Drivin'? They were the only TRUE arcade driving simulations. You could feel every bump in the road, and you paid dearly for every mistake. The Super Stunt Track is a design masterpiece. 2. Cyberball / Tournament Cyberball 2072 (Atari Games) Football, with wheeled robots and an exploding ball. How fun is that? Winning a 2-on-2 tournament on this game was a Saturday I'll never forget. Never has 6 quarters (1 per game period) gotten you so much arcade enjoyment! Go London Lightning! 1. Super Sprint / Champ. Sprint (Atari Games) I still can't believe that Midway released this for the PlayStation as part of the Arcade Party Pack. Blasphemers! You cannot play this game with the Dual Shock controller's analog stick! What were they thinking? This is yet another example of a game that MUST be played in an arcade. You absolutely need to be able to spin that wheel at mind-numbing velocity to be able to compete effectively. I once popped a quarter in Super Sprint at 10am (that's when the Aladdin's Castle in Canton, Ohio opened on a Sunday) and played on that ONE quarter until the manager kicked me out at a half-hour after the mall closed at 6pm. That score stood until they finally sold the game off several years later. :-)