Biggest Arcade Credit-Suckers

[sirpigmeat]

Been trawling through some old arcade games on mame recently, and having been losing credits like nobodies business. Despite credits being available at the press of a button, I feel a certain ennui everytime I have to add more on. Every credit I add makes me feel like that kid coming out of the arcade penniless on pocket money day, with the knowledge he could no longer get afford an ice cream or a new star wars figure. Like amputees have phantom limbs with phantom pains, i have phantom 10 pence pieces and phantom spenders remorse. It makes me wonder how much cash I jammed into these games slots when I was a kid. I must have spent a fortune.

The most I spent on is probly Gauntlet, but that was always worth it for the playtime you got I think. Others like Dragons Lair and Space Ace I found died in several seconds and then again after the next credit and felt wholly unsatisfied about.

Anyway it begs the question, What are the biggest arcade credit suckers you remember?

[joefish]

House of the Dead and all its variants. At least with Virtua Cop you had time to react to threats, and in Time Crisis you could duck. But House of the Dead just hits you over and over again.

The only game I remember willingly shovelling lots of cash into was with half a dozen of use going on and off a TMNT machine at Peterborough ice rink, because actually skating is just a crap waste of time. Though rather @rseishly, when you complete the game, it just swallows all remaining credits!

[the_hawk]

Smash TV for sure. I was taken for a sucker, but I didn't even care, I just loved (and still love) it so much!

[DPrinny]

^The house of the dead games are one creditable, well one and two are, you just gotta know the best routes and when zombies pop up

the later Metal Slug games are ment to be gits and near impossible to 1cc

[c0nfu53d]

Captain Commando (Capcom) is evil machine. Don't know if you can beat it with a single credit or not.

[Tabe]

Definitely Gauntlet with its constant damage and draining of your characters. Great game though and one I was happy to drop five dollars worth of tokens into on many an occasion.

[paranoid marvin]

Yeah , games like Gauntlet and Rampage are energy (and coin) suckers. No matter how skilful you are , you will always have a dwindling energy supply, the only remedy to pump more cash in. Both great multi-player games though.

There was also the Nintendo multi-game machine that allowed you to play any game as much as you wanted, but within a set time limit, top-uppable with more 10ps.

[joefish]

There was also the Nintendo multi-game machine that allowed you to play any game as much as you wanted, but within a set time limit, top-uppable with more 10ps.

SEGA did done based on MegaDrive hardware with switchable cartridges, which is the only way that Space Harrier II ever appeared on an arcade machine. A few pubs had them. I was rather apalled to find another one that was based on Master System hardware, with some utterly dreadful-looking early SMS games in it.

[NorthWay]

I'll agree that Gauntlet had the perfect design for a coin-op, i.e. it gave you every reason to insert more coins and others could just walk up and spend coins to join in at any moment. What more could an operator wish for?

Personally I think I have dumped most coins in Marble Madness. That was a game that just clicked with me.
Could also be Adams Family pinball, but that is not really fair as I had available money and was stuck in the same spot for a year (as was the game - was during my military service).

[Megamixer]

House of the Dead and all its variants. At least with Virtua Cop you had time to react to threats, and in Time Crisis you could duck. But House of the Dead just hits you over and over again.

I agree with this. I never got very far on the original game and it was only with the home versions of the sequels that I improved but the arcade versions of those also stole my money.

There are a lot of lightgun games that are just the same though. The most recent in my mind is the Terminator Salvation arcade game by Raw Thrills. Amazing game and really fun to play but your quid (!) doesn't last very long when you have 3-4 terminators, helicopters and 5 incoming missiles all wanting you dead at the same time. I usually put no more than £2 into this machine despite really enjoying it. Shame that it isn't 50p or that it didn't get a home version on PSN/XBLA.

[NickThorpe]

With a little practice on House Of The Dead 4, I was able to easily stretch a credit over 20 minutes or more. The trick is to avoid the temptation to fire indiscriminately, instead chaining headshots - if you do that you'll score highly and gain extra lives as a reward at the end of the stage.

[outdated_gamer]

Street Fighter II Championship Edition for me. We used to play that as kids and whoever lost had to pay for the next match.

Also there were a couple of 'cades with Virtua Racing, MK, Street Fighter Alpha, OutRun, Hang On, etc.

[DPrinny]

^Thats a point, everybody had to pay in VS and everybody played

[Nemesis]

Thinking back I put a lot of money into the following;

Final Fight
1942
Street Fighter 2 Turbo
Marvel Super Heroes
Knights of the Round
Mortal Kombat 1 & 2
Riiiidggge Racer

[Bluce_Ree]

Final Fight. The 360 XBLA version had an achievement for beating the game within 18 credits.