Obscure arcade games

For those of us who grew up in the arcades, we know there were many games that were never considered big hits in the industry. The true diamond in the rough was hard to find, and most obscure games earned their lack of popularity. However, there were many games that never received the notoriety they deserved. Check out these obscure arcade games that should have eaten more quarters than they did.

However, despite a premise that sounds as appealing as yard work, Timber is a very fun game. Using two joysticks one to move and one to swing your axe , players could chop down trees, avoid beehives thrown by agitated bears, and flee from menacing birds.

Although everyone loves flannel, the real appeal of this game is the simultaneous two-player axe swinging and log rolling. The game shared some similarities with its predecessor, but it took things to another level by adding a 3-dimensional element to the game. No longer do players simply hop from platform to platform—they have to rotate a color cube to match a specific pattern by hopping to the next one. Coily the snake was gone, but Meltniks, Soobops and Rat-A-Tat-Tat were added to the mix of characters to aggravate the player.

Clive Barker's Undying. Hunter: The Reckoning. Twinkle Star Sprites. Dead of the Brain: Shiryou no Sakebi. Yume Penguin Monogatari. Fighting Masters. Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. Superhero League of Hoboken. Graffiti Kingdom. Radiant Silvergun. Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Houseki. They loomed too large when the Outfoxies arrived in So perhaps it was too much to expect the arcade-playing public of to embrace Ninja Baseball Bat Man.

On his website, Maniscalco states that the game was promoted half-heartedly, with fewer than 50 units shipping to American arcades. As those Akira -esque teens shred through a multitude of tanks, jets, and rival espers, they have three different weapons at their command. Most effective is a powerful shield than can be charged up and unleashed in a burst of screen-wiping destruction.

In order to get your hands on it, you had to be at a few specific arcades in Japan during the summer of The game was location-tested there by Westone, makers of the delightful Wonder Boy and Monster World games. Aquario was created in the same cheerful, vibrant side-scrolling style, plus it had a multiplayer mode and let you pick up and throw both enemies and allies.

Alas, few people cared about Aquario in the age of fighting games, and Westone quietly dropped it. But all hope is not lost. The website Hardcore Gaming recently interviewed Westone co-founder Ryuichi Nishizawa and asked him about Aquario. And you should want to, if you have any love for side-scrolling action games. Second will be Dragoon Might, an arcade only release that featured many different interesting mechanics including the use of weapons as the primary way of doing damage.

So imagine Street Fighter II, but the only way to do efficient damage is if you have a weapon. The game also has an interesting risk and reward system with the special attacks: time it right for big damage, miss and you may end up killing yourself instead of the other player.

Lastly we have Outlaws of the lost Dynasty, which I would recommend playing in an arcade if possible. The reason? A big difference between this game and Dragoon Might is that while they both use weapons as a means of attacking, using your fists gives you a different system rather than being punished.

Swords give fast strikes but are harder to combo with, where bare fists give less damage but much more combo potential. Like Dragoon Might I will have to come back to this game as well. The difference? Six buttons instead of four. Why is that significant? Well it allowed for the player to do things such as low attacks like a fighting game and even allowed the use of blocking.

A problem I had with this game was that it was hard to tell which character was the player when the screen was more crowded. There were many like it, but this one seemed to be the most talked about in forums and other blogs.

I went to a bowling alley and they had this little arcade game that looked a lot of fun. This game is known as Ninja Baseball Batman, and according to sources there was only ever 43 of these arcade units ever found in the U.