80s Arcade Games We Loved The Most

The 80s where most kids made it a point to visit their area favorite Classic Arcade Games. They were everywhere where we grew up on the east side.

Arcades like the Van Dyke Sports Center, The Butterfly, Wizards arcade, Walker's Pinball palace and every Mall had all the Classic Arcade Games

Back in the '80s, before smartphones, TikToks, or even decent pizza delivery, there was one sacred place where legends were born: the arcade.

Our battleground was a dimly lit, neon-buzzing paradise tucked between a laundromat and a bowling ally. It smelled like popcorn, body spray, and victory. We'd show up after school to a 7-11, with pockets full of quarters and dreams of high scores. Tempest was my game. Fast, chaotic, and absolutely impossible after level 11.

Ms. Pac Man (Midway Games). Pretty slow-moving by today's standards, in retrospect it seems somewhat zen. But it  didn't require terrific coordination, so the barroom tabletop version at Pizza Hut was perfectly suited to my inebriated gameplay.

Robotron 2084 (Williams Electronics) had to be one of the koolest and most injury inducing arcade games from the 80s. There were two joysticks, which my adolescent brain could never quite master, one that aimed and the other that shot. Pain throbbed in my wrists by the end of each game and I often needed recovery time between rounds. 

I had no strategy, nor any idea what I was doing. I broke a sweat the second the game started, heart racing, breath quickening, a litany of curse words streaming from my lips as I completed wave after wave. There's nothing like 80s arcade games. I still love them.

Robotron was the best. Just shoot, ideally in every direction at once, and try not to die. Ostensibly you were trying to save a bunch of lazy humans that walked around aimlessly, never justifying their existence, but in reality, the chaos of the battle was the only thing that mattered.

Joust (Williams Electronics). Where I grew up, there was ABC deli in Warren where all the kids would go after school to buy candy and sodas and a Joust game set up. I'd go there every day and pump quarters into Joust and with all the practice, I ended up at the top of the high score list for a long time. By the end I could put in one quarter and play for close to a half hour. I just wish it was an acceptable thing to put on a resume.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Spy Hunter (Bally Midway), another of my favorite 80s arcade games. The Oakland Mall had and arcade for awhile and even got a job there for a bit. For some reason, I couldn't resist endlessly racing along and taking out enemies behind me with a well-timed smoke screen or oil slick or in front of me with machine guns and missiles. All done to the soundtrack of the Peter Gunn theme song.

Spent many hours peering through the periscope of a simulated tank, working the control levers and firing at enemies in Battlezone (Atari, Inc). The arcade was at one of my favorite roller rinks, and I was entranced by the green vector graphics and the infinite world. Amidst a flat landscape with mountains in the distance, all defined by electric green lines, enemy tanks appeared. I maneuvered so I could blast them out of the way in a battle that never relented.

In the Journey (Bally Midway) arcade game, it's your mission to help band members Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory.

Your job was to help find their missing musical instruments (each on a different planet) and then at the end play a rockin' concert for happy fans. My favorite part of the game was during the concert you get to play Herbie the bouncer who has to prevent overly-enthusiastic audience members from rushing the stage.

If fans do storm the stage, they steal the instruments and you have to go find them in even more difficult levels of the game.

Tempest is a personal favorite 80s arcade game because of the fast action and the SFX. Lots of eye candy and noise. Loved the end of the game if you got to put up a high score. Felt like I accomplished something in life.