The golden age of hazy 1980s and 90s arcades are long gone, but the memory lives on. The rapid advancement of video game consoles sealed the fate of the traditional coin-op arcade machine, but there was a time when the pinnacle of gaming tech could only be enjoyed by ponying up a quarter, or a few hundre🐠d!
Some arcade coin-op games were flat-out cheap. Skill might have pl🤡ayed a factor, but not even the most seasoned pro could tackle what some games threw at them. Let's take a look at 10 of the all-time cheapest arcade coin-op quarter suckers in history, and why they were so notorious!
9 MORTAღL K🔯OMBAT
Yes, Mortal Kombat, I'm looking at you! In fact, I'm looking at all three of you! The original MK trilogy of games sported some of the lousiest nacho-cheese A.I. you could think of. The game would lull you into a false sense of security b♑efore unleashing a pummeling no-wi🐼n situation that was inescapable.
The games were especially notorious for mimicking your every move instantaneously with a counter-attack, performing throw moves in the middle of your leg sweep, or backing you into a corner to perform highway robbery on your quarter. This was a game best enjoyed ag🐠ainst other human players.
8 TWIN EAGLE ꦉ
Twin Eagle is an awesome shooter, it really is! I don't think I'll ever forget the first time that heavy metal signature tune kicked in at the end of the first stage, cranked to such high volume that everyone else in the arcade stopped 𝔍to take notice.
I also won't forget the punishing difficulty level, either! Past Stage 3, it's all she wrote. Too many enemies, too many projectiles, and too slow a helicopter to avoid them all. Unless the Gods blessed you with the gift of🌟 foresight and superhuman reflexes☂, you'd soon find your pockets empty.
7 TEENAGE MUT𝓰ANT NINJA TURTLES
The arcade version of TMNT is a tried and true masterpiece, top to bottom! It faithfully reproduces the look and feel of the 1980s cartoon series, right down to the thundering opening theme. To date,๊ it remains one of the most sought-after arcade titles in history.
It's also one of the cheapest. TMNT was designed specifically to suck as many quarters out of your pocket as possible. It does this with notorious attention to detail that draws you in and makes you want to keep playing, yet punishes you with increasing waves of unforgiving enemies. In the final few stages, boss fights become almost comically cheap, and only the richest among us could fathom taking out both Krang and the Shredde♋r before heading home to explain to Mom where the week's allowance had gone.
6 INSECTOR X🦩
As far as side-scrolling shooters go, Insector X is one of the less forgiving. Enemies come in heavy 🐼waves, shoot fast, and there's not a lot of mobility to avoid taking a hit. Worse yet, each kill sends you right back to where you started, making the game a frustrating experien༒ce, to say the least.
Not only do you have to contend with the same enemies all over again, but there's no telling what's lurking beyond. It could be argued that Insector X is the video game equivalent of Pai Mei from Kill Bill 2, w🐼hose goal it is to fashion you into a deadly warrior, but it's gonna' cost you!
5 ♛ NINJA GAIDEN
The premise of Ninja Gaiden seems ✤simple enough. A nice combat system allows you to strike with quick attacks, do back-flips off of walls to get the drop on enemies, and hurl them into various environmental objects to unveil power-ups. What's not to like?
The cheapness, for one. Ninja Gaiden's enemies will sometimes manage to dodge your flurry of attacks before landing the perfect combo, whittling down your health bar and putting you up against the wall. Even standar෴d-issue baddies get in on the action, hurling attacks at you that sometimes feel unavoidable. By the time that infamous chainsaw starts descending at the Continue screen, there's no telling if 🉐you have any quarters left over to save yourself!
4 ROBOCOP
You know what really irritates us? When a movie-based video game comes off looking and sounding so cool, but has no other intention than to drain your wallet. RoboCop is such a game. From the digitized movie sound by🔴tes to the excellent atmosphere, it seems to have everything you'd want in a licensed game.
Well, see how you like it after the 2nd stage is over! If you hadn't depleted your entire sum of quarters by then, chances are you at least lost a few patches of hair. RoboCop soaks up damage like a sponge, and his lumbering figure makes it difficult to dodge attacks when so many enemies are ꧟on-screen at once. Worse, it'll make you restart the stage at halfway points when your cyborg butt keels over. Good news for Clarence Boddicker. Bad 🉐news for you!
3 SMASH TV
Smash TV bears the distinction of being the only game on this list that makes quarter-sucking feel right. After all, if you're going to punish yourself with wave after wave of bad guy hordes, what else can you expect? In addition to parodying the TV game show as we know it, Smash TV ꦉparodie𒁃s itself as an exercise in over-the-top indulgence.
If you can somehow make it through the game's punishing stages with a couple of bucks worth of quarters left in your pocket, count yourself amon♚g the few. The rest of us will spend more time stacking up quarters onto the arcade cabinet so we can quickly plunk them in every 30 seconds. With stages sporting such colorful names as "Eat My Shrapnel," you asked for this!
2 CONTRA
Those of you who have never played the arcade version of Contra might think it plays a lot like the NES port. You'd be mistaken. The original Contra lacks the speedy play mechanicꦬs of the home version in favor of a heavier, more rugged style of play. This amps up the difficulty level♔ to insane levels.
Even the shooting is different from the NES port, making it hard to aim correctly at targets and hit anything. Couple that with a full-body jump instead of a tucked in Metroid-style ball leap from the home version, and you leave yourself wide open for a lot of attacks. Contra has a lot of things going for it as🎃 a game,💫 but it's clearly designed to rip you off.
1 SINISTAR
This Asteroids-esque arcade classic is the stuff of nightmares. It feels as if the developers crafted an interesting game involving the mining of asteroids while avoiding on-screen baddies, then decided to crank the speed of the entire game up about 10 times. ﷺWhat's to lose?
Evidently, your sanity! Meeker souls gave frightened sideways glances to the game as they walked by, while ambitious would-be challengers were ready to kick the cabinet in. Those who braved the game's unforgiving run time were left quarter-less and in despair. The only upside is that 38 years have passed, and our chances of bumping into it again have faded into unlikeliness. See you in Hell, Sinistar!