10 Arcade Games for Xmas - It's a Pixel THING

In those days that all family is gathered, using MAME is a super-fast way to play old gems and everyone will surely be involved!

If you don’t own a MAME arcade cabinet, do not worry! All these titles were out for every system out there!

Let’s start with Pang, from 1989. It was also known as Buster Bros and Pumping World. Personally I prefer just PANG!

It’s an obvious two player cooperative game where we must destroy those bouncing balloons that are threatening a bunch of known cities and landmarks. There are 50 levels through 17 locations and this game was later ported by Ocean Software to all home systems: the ZX Spectrum, the Amiga, C64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, DOS, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, TurboGrafx, The PlayStation and, more recently, iOS devices.

Tetris is another extraordinary title to play against friends! It’s simply the world’s best puzzle game ever made!

It was developed in 1984 on a Elektronika 60 computer terminal by Alexey Pajitnov, a Russian artificial intelligence researcher, and was released on the arcades 4 years after.

Everyone knows how addictive this game can be! It was a truly remarkable achievement and, obviously, was converted to every home console and computer, and, as well, every single hand-held.

What an hilarious game this is! Joe & Man, Caveman Ninja was published and released by Data East in 1991, and tells the story of two cavemen who joined forces to battle those hostile prehistoric environments with the single objective of rescuing some pretty lovely cave girls who were kidnapped by a rival tribe.

You have also to battle some astonishing bosses like a T-Rex and a huge carnivorous plant!

The game was later ported to the PC, Amiga, Super Nintendo, Game Boy and the Sega Megadrive or Genesis, if you prefer.

This is one of my favorite puzzle games ever! Plotting is just an amazing and addictive game that, when you get the hang of it, you just can’t stop!

It was developed and published by TAITO in 1989 and later ported to a crap load of home system from the good hands of Ocean Software.

It was also re-released, in 2005, for the PS2, Xbox and the PC as part of the TAITO Legends Compilation.

Another TAITO legend was, also, a puzzle game entitled Puzznic! It was considered the 34^th best game of all time for the Amiga.

It’s a tile-matching puzzle arcade game, also released in 1989, and it’s a turn based, or hot-seat, 2 player game. Again, this game his highly addictive! So, be careful!

Ocean Software was, once again, the company behind the conversion to all home systems of that Era. Even, in 2003, a late PS One version was released.

From TAITO came another all-time classic: Bubble Bobble.

This title, released in 1986, introduces the twin Bubble Dragons named Bub and Bob that are on a quest to rescue their girlfriends from the cave of monsters. This was one of the first game, or even the first one, to introduce multiple endings on a video game, depending on your own performance in-game.

It was such a huge arcade success that was converted to almost every single home consoles and computers known to men, from the ZX Spectrum, in 1989, to the Nintendo Wii U, in 2014.

Jumping right away to Snow Bros, also known as Nick & Tom, it has a similar gameplay as the previous title, Bubble Bobble.

Developed by Toaplan and released by Capcom in 1990, Nick & Tom are two snowmen battling their way through dozens of stages turning their enemies into snowballs. Then, you just need to roll them to eliminate the snowy bad guys and take some of their friends with them!

There are also some bosses to take down, every tenth level. Remember to pick all the power ups you can find so that it turns our heroes faster and effective!

Aside from the NES port that was made by Capcom, and the one for the Genesis/MegaDrive from Taoplan with extra levels, all other home versions, the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, C64 and the Amstrad GX4000, were developed by Ocean France, but, at the end, were not released by Ocean Software. The Amiga original master copy was found in 2006 and was eventually distributed online.

DynaBlaster, also known as BomberMan, was originally developed, in 1983, for the PC by Shinichi Nakamoto. It went on selling over a million of copies and, eventually ended up on every machine there is. The arcade version appeared in 1991 by the hands of IREM Corporation under the license of Hudson Soft that were later acquired by Konami. This highly addictive strategic maze-based game was even released, in 2014, for all iOS devices.

The action takes place in the planet Bomber and we, and our brother, are on a mission to capture our ex-friend King Bomber that turned to the other side.

Another great example of a truly addictive and fun game!

Has you’ve might noticed, family friendly games are TAITO’s middle name!

This time around, we’ve picked Puzzle Bobble or Bust-a-Move, as it was known in the US and Canada.

Released in 1994 and, since then, converted to all home and portable systems on earth, this game places us on the controls of a pointer machine that fires randomly generated colored bubbles up the screen. We need to combine identically colored bubbles, in a group of three or more, in order to clear them off the screen.

This is, with no doubt, another awesome and successful family title.

Finally, from Jaleco, came, in 1990, Rodland, another Bubble Bobble type of game.

We control the fairies Tam and Rit on their quest to rescue their mother and they are armed with their magic wand that we must use against the enemy. Instead of jumping, we can magically place ladders anywhere and, doing so, avoid been captured.

It was later ported by The Sales Curve Ltd to every home system available in early 90s: the ZX Spectrum, the Amiga, C64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Game Boy and the NES. This last one was only released in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan, and the Amiga version was considered the 16^th best game of all time on that particular platform. Recently, iOS devices also got a version of their own.

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