I don't think I ever saw the arcade version until it was re-released on PS1 as a PS Mini. But it's easy to see why it was popular, it was a really good game even on the 2600. The earliest SNK games I can remember seeing in arcade games were Ikari Warriors, Time Soldiers, and P. O. W.
The SNK Anniversary Collection has their pre Neo-Geo catalog, and it's actually pretty varied. It includes the arcade and NES versions of its games as well as Crystalis, one of SNK's few RPGs. They produced a PS1 game, Koudelka, that was the predecessor to the Shadow Hearts games.
One of the neatest things about their history is about how they got bought out by a company that wanted to abandon video games and just use their characters in pachislot machines. The original founder of SNK slowly went about buying back all of his copyrights and rehiring all of his former staff under the Playmore banner, and within a few years he had completely resurrected SNK as a video game company, independent of its former owners.
I had the Atari 8-bit, Ti-99/4A, and Game Boy Arcade Classics (Defender/Joust) versions of this game. It really was a classic, but the arcade controls were really complicated. I also played Stargate, its sequel, on 2600.
It's funny how Defender, Joust, and Robotron used to be on every system under the sun, now they're kind of hard to find on current systems. Hopefully WB decides to dig a few games out of the Midway.Williams arcade vault. Until then, Balloon Fight will have to do for my Joust fix.
Fun fact: I have never played a Dead Rising game. The mixed critical reception kind of made me jumpy. In recent years, though, I don't care quite as much as I used to, given that I've enjoyed a lot of games in the 80s or even 70s on Metacritic and can't stand quite.a few games that scored in the high 90s. Dead Rising 4 isn't likely to happen for me unless it gets ported to PS4 or Switch.
In that case:
1. The Atari landfill in New Mexico, which in fact turned out to be true after years of speculation.
2. All the various Mortal Kombst conspiracies that floated around primitive online message boards and game magazine letter sections in the series' early years, such as Noob Saibot and Ermac, as well as theories on how to play as Sonya and Kano in MKII. Ed Boon and John Tobias ended up bringing most of these to life, since Mortal Kombat is one of the most fan feedback-driven game series out there.
3. Product shortages of Nintendo products such as the Wii, Switch, or the NES and SNES Classics, and early on, the DRAM shortage of 1988 which a lot of people later speculated was Nintendo's way of drumming up extra demand for Zelda II. Made-up shortages are a running theme with regards to Nintendo, as a way to inflate demand through perceived scarcity. Honestly, I'm not sure that they're all that off-base sometimes, because Nintendo is proud of the fact that its products hold their value for years instead of ending up in the bargain bin for 20 dollars within 6 months.
The only Sierra adventure game I ever played was, oddly, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. I played it in secret, LOL, since I was 16 years old and my mom wouldn't have approved of it. My dad probably would have approved of it as long as I didn't tell my mom.
As far as adventure games in general go, the games I got into were the Tex Murphy series, which was kind of a mashup of pulp noir detective novels by Dashiel Hammett (Sam Spade) or Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe) with the works of Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Total Recall), being set in a post-nuclear 2040s San Francisco. I also played a rather messed up British point-and-click called Dreamweb where your character was ostensibly out to save the world by assassinating seven figures trying to destroy human dreams and bring about nuclear war. The included documentation, however, made it look like your character had descended into madness and was in fact a serial killer. I also dabbled a bit in The 7th Guest and Myst, but around that time, Final Fantasy VI got me back into RPGs, so console RPGs ended up being my preferred adventuring fix.
My dad, up until the 1990s, considered video games to be a complete waste of time and money and grudgingly tolerated me playing them. My mom liked some of the old-school games and still likes match-three style games. But when my dad retired, he and my mom got into The 7th Guest and Myst, and then my dad and I played both played Doom.
I see it's got the Scoops Ahoy kids, Robin and Steve, in it.
I'm not really aware of a lot of video game conspiracy theories, honestly. What's an example?
Cage match: Gonna go with Halo 2, I guess, only because I played Halo 3 on 360 and it was okay. I never actually played Halo 2 and in fact never had an Xbox. Sorry.
I know that PD did require the N64 expansion pack to play the campaign.
I'm not into mobile games. I tried Super Mario Run and ended up going back to Mario on consoles pretty quickly. But if it makes Nintendo money that can be used to make Switch games, I guess it's okay.
I played Tetris 99 a few times. I did pretty good but didn't get the hang of some of the mechanics of it. I still play it now and then. 11th place out of 99 is excellent.
Speaking of penguins, I guess a Switch version of Ge-Sen Love: Plus Pengo is being released this month in Japan. That's that Pengo game made in 2010 that supports 8 players. Sadly it's Japan-exclusive, but given that Switch is region-free I'm thinking of buying an import copy so I can have it with all the other classic arcade games I have on Switch. Too bad Sega doesn't release the original game a lot more as an Arcade Archives or Sega Ages game.
