Relive the joys of yesteryear with these classic arcade games!
Video games have a long and rich history stretching back decades. Between the late 70s and the early 90s, if you wanted to experience the thrill of blasting alien invaders out of the sky, going on a monster-hunting spree, or beating someone’s face to a pulp, the arcade was the best place to be.
Gaming today normally entails being stuck at home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t revisit those arcade games of yore. Numerous classic arcade games are now available for the PC thanks to re-releases and websites like Internet Arcade. So, if you want to relive your childhood, or know the inspiration behind some of today’s best games, it pays to play the 11 Classic Arcade Games That Are Now Available on PC.
Let’s begin with our first entry…
11. Metal Slug
Metal Slug rocked arcades back in 1996 thanks to its pure shooting action.
The concept of this 2D, sidescrolling shooter was simple. You’re a soldier who has to go from point A to point B, wasting hundreds upon hundreds of enemies – such as grunts, tanks, and choppers – along the way. Not only are there several weapons to pick up, you also get to obliterate enemies with your powerful “Metal Slug” tanks.
Metal Slug also featured detailed backgrounds and beautifully animated sprites – a huge achievement, both artistically and technically, especially for its time. Heck, it still looks great today!
The series became more audacious with every installment, and soon, arcade goers found themselves dealing with robots, aliens, and shambling undead. Some levels even had your heroes turning into zombies!
Fortunately, those hungry for classic arcade games can now purchase the original Metal Slug through digital distribution platforms such as Steam.
10. Golden Axe
Arcade fans were treated to high fantasy of the Conan kind when the sidescrolling, hack-and-slash beat ‘em up Golden Axe was released in 1989.
Golden Axe featured three playable heroes: a sweaty, half-naked muscle man; a woman in skimpy armor that provided absolutely zero protection; and a conservatively dressed dwarf with a really big head. Two players could cooperate to fend off a tide of club-wielding barbarians, skeletons, and other fantasy freaks. Aside from cutting foes up with blades, the heroes could also use magic for some major chaos, and even ride dinosaurs into battle.
It was friggin’ awesome.
Thanks to its graphics, which were some of best in the late 80s, the game transported players to a world of magic and mayhem that was hard to forget. How often did you get to fight on the back of a giant turtle? Or call thunder from the sky to zap your enemies?
Golden Axe fans can now re-experience one of the best classic arcade games and its sequels through Steam.
9. Ghosts ‘n Goblins
Bringing your significant other to an obviously haunted cemetery for your date is just asking for trouble, but that is exactly what the knight Arthur does in Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
Released in 1985, this sidescrolling platformer had you controlling Arthur in his quest to save Princess Prin Prin. And man, was it one heck of a difficult game.
Barring your way were hundreds of zombies, demons, ogres, and other monsters who killed you by simply touching you. Getting touched once cost you your armor. Twice, and you ended up a pile of bones. You had an array of ranged weapons at your disposal, but the enemy’s sheer numbers, speed, and unpredictable patterns always meant you were spending more time outside your skin than inside.
Like Flappy Bird nearly three decades later, however, there was something about Ghosts ‘n Goblins that made it ridiculously difficult to put down. And so you kept on dying, and the machine just kept swallowing those coins. One of the best – and toughest – classic arcade games you can play right now, thanks to sites such as Internet Arcade and Classic Games Arcade.
8. Double Dragon
When it comes to beat ‘em ups, it doesn’t get more classic than 1987’s Double Dragon.
Your girlfriend is punched in the gut and kidnapped. What do you do? Call the police? Drag the FBI into the mix? Panic? Heck, no! It’s the 80s, and you’re a man! You go to bloody war!
And so went the story of martial artist Billy Lee and his twin, Jimmy. Level after level, you paved the streets with the battered bodies of your enemies. What made the game truly amazing, aside from your repertoire of punches and kicks, was the ability to pick up items – such as knives, baseball bats, and barrels – and use them against your foes. You could even grab bad guys and toss them around like the lightweights that they were.
Like all good beat ‘em ups, players could team up or go solo. The game had the brothers going through a city, a factory, a forest, and the gang’s headquarters that, for some reason, looked like Dracula’s castle.
The Double Dragon Trilogy, which includes the series’ first three games, is now available on Steam.
7. Q*Bert
Q*Bert was the first video game in 3D.
Well, it wasn’t technically 3D, but its isometric camera angle produced a look that was revolutionary in 1982. It was definitely one of the best-looking classic arcade games, which partly explained its appeal.
But Q*Bert was simply fun. You controlled a weird critter as he jumped from one box to another, in an attempt to convert all of them into a single color. Of course there were bad guys, like snakes and what looked like snot balls, so one needed reflexes and strategy to win.
We haven't seen much of Q*Bert since his glory days, but he has made appearances in films such as Wreck-it-Ralph and the recent bomb Pixels. More importantly, the game is available on Internet Arcade.
6. Mortal Kombat
1992’s Mortal Kombat shocked the whole gaming world with its unprecedented brutality. Never before had people been able to punch their opponents’ heads off or tear their spines from their squirming torsos. What made the game even more wince-inducing to outraged prudes was that the violence was unleashed on 2D sprites that were, basically, digitized human beings. Such realism! Such horror!
Needless to say, the game was an instant hit (though not with the parents), and gamers worldwide crammed the arcades for the blood and the gore. “Fatality!”, “Come here!”, and "Finish him/her!" entered the gaming lexicon (where it stays to this day), and soon the names “Scorpion,” “Sub-Zero,” and “Goro” were as recognizable as “Mario.”
Fans of classic arcade games will be happy to know that the Mortal Kombat Kollection, which includes the first three games in the series, is now purchasable through Steam and GOG.
5. Galaga
When it was released in 1981, Galaga was a monstrous coin-eater at the arcades.
This space shooter had you controlling a spaceship as dozens of insectoid enemies lined up in formation at the top of the screen, then swirled, danced, and swooped towards you in endless waves. Once in a while, a foe would come down to capture your ship with a tractor beam. Free said ship, and it combined with the one you were currently using, giving you twice the firepower.
Killing all aliens brought you to the next stage, where a new horde awaited. The game had no end; your goal was to amass as many points as possible. This, of course, had arcade goers spending hours on each machine in an attempt to outdo the highest-scoring players.
Galaga can be played on your browser by visiting sites like Cassic Games Arcade. If you’re a mobile gamer, however, you can download Galaga:TEKKEN. It’s basically the same game, only instead of spaceships, the sprites are pixilated representations of Tekken characters.
4. Donkey Kong
1981’s Donkey Kong is one of the classic arcade games that catapulted the platformer into one of the most prolific gaming genres. It was also one of legendary video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s first games.
You controlled Mario, then named Jumpman, in his effort to save his girlfriend from Donkey Kong. This meant navigating a series of platforms while leaping over rolling barrels and other traps. Each of the four single-screen stages became progressively harder, and gave Mario varying obstacles and objectives.
Donkey Kong was also the first game to incorporate a plot, which was revealed through visual storytelling. While cut scenes advanced the story, the character Donkey Kong himself demonstrated an emotional spectrum completely foreign to video games at the time. All in all, the game was one of a kind.
Unsurprisingly, Donkey Kong was an enormous success, saving Nintendo from financial failure and cementing Miyamoto’s name as a gaming luminary.
Truly one of them most important games ever made.
3. Space Invaders
As one of the oldest shooting games, 1978’s Space Invaders introduced us to the joys of making target practice out of villainous extraterrestrials.
With a single laser cannon that could only go left and right, you were tasked with destroying rows of alien spaceships as they slowly descended towards you. Like most games of its time, Space Invaders had no end; wipe out all the rows, and a new swarm of bad guys filled up the screen. It was not about reaching a boss or finishing a story, but getting the highest score possible.
The game’s success transformed video gaming from a novelty into a million-dollar industry. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that without Space Invaders, we wouldn’t have any of the games we enjoy today. For this reason alone, we believe it’s one of the best classic arcade games – one you can play for free on your browser thanks to websites such as Classic Games Arcade.
2. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
You knew this game was going to make this list.
Capcom’s Street Fighter II, which was launched in arcades in 1991, was single-handedly responsible for transforming the fighting genre into the industry giant that it is now. Back then, eight playable characters, each with their own unique storylines and special moves that were simple to pull off, was unheard of. Also new to the genre was a complex fighting system that involved concepts such as blocking, baiting, poking, combos, cancels, and more. All these worked together fluidly to make Street Fighter II the premier fighting game of the early 90s.
Other game companies were quick to ride on Street Fighter II’s coattails. The fighting game explosion that followed saw numerous clones being made one after another. By the end of the 90s, when the fighting game craze had died down, only a few franchises remained, including, of course, the one that started it all: Street Fighter.
Street Fighter II can be played on your browser for free thanks to sites such as Internet Arcade and Kongregate.
1. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man
Before Sonic, before Mario, there was Pac-Man: the original video game mascot.
Pac-Man, developed by Namco and released in arcades in 1980, starred the eponymous yellow blob whose strange diet consisted of fruits, pellets, and ghosts.
The game was simple; navigate a maze full of shimmering dots without getting murdered by any of the four ghosts. Eating a power pellet turned the tables, temporarily allowing Pac-Man to gulp said ghosts down. You move on to the next stage once all dots have been ingested.
Though it didn’t do so well in Japan, in North America, its massive success eventually earned it over 2 billion dollars in coins guzzled by arcade machines alone. In 1982, Ms. Pac-Man was released, and was immediately recognized as a huge improvement over the game that inspired it.
Currently available for the PC is Pac-Man Museum: a compilation that includes Pac-Man, and other games in the franchise. Ms. Pac-Man is a DLC for this collection. What better way to enjoy two of the best classic arcade games?
So what do you guys think about these classic arcade games? Have your own favorites that you’d like to share with us? Tell us in the comments section below!
Hungry for more classic games? How about the 11 Best PC Games That Are Over 10 Years Old But Still Awesome?
And how about the games, both old and new, that made us love PC gaming in the first place? You can read about them in the article, 15 Awesome PC Games That Made Us Love PC Gaming.
Now that we’re on the topic of classic PC games, check out our Top 10 Best Blizzard Games, Ranked Best to Worst and All Total War Games, Ranked Best to Worst.
If you’re looking for something new, head on to 12 New PC Games That You Must Play in 2015.
