I'm confident in saying that about half of my best gaming experiences were had in an Arcade room of some sorts. Unfortunately, arcades are slowly dwindling away and now the majority of places that do have arcades are big name place like Dave & Busters, Chucky Cheeses and what not. Here are some arcade machines that have provided me with fond memories.
Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 & 2
This game is some what newer (1st one released in 2005 NA) and it's somewhat harder to find in America, but I'll never forget the day that I stumbled upon an arcade room that had 6 Mario Kart machines lined up. Mario Kart 64 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I think that MKAGP is actually better. It's basically Mario Kart 64, but it has added 3 more awesome characters (Pac-man, Ms Pac-Man, Blinky), it added some cool tracks, including some Pac-Man themed ones. It added tons of new items and I think even a new game mode. The sequel, Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2008 NA), had less characters although it added that guy from Tamagotchi. It had some new tracks and it allowed you to customize your kart. Both 1 & 2 had Mario Cards, a magnetic card that you can print out from the arcade machine that serves as a save file you can insert again that keeps track of your stats, name, rank, VS wins, and what not. The stats were also displayed on the card itself. In the 2nd one there were Mario Coins you could collect and earn to buy more designs for your card. There is also a built in camera that takes a picture of you and customizes it as use for your avatar. I know, this is better than the Wii. Only problem was is how expensive it was to play, and since it is very addicting, you'd waste all your tokens on this one machine.Area 51
A very popular light gun arcade machine that I see everywhere I go. I usually see the 2-player version but I'm pretty sure I saw a 3 or even 4-player version. Either way this game is what I would play when I was running low on quarters, because it was much cheaper than Time Crisis or even House of the Dead. There's nothing really great about this game, it's fairly generic as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure how long it is because I never beat it (because I never had enough quarters). One think I will never forget though is the voice that says "Reload" every time you need to shoot off screen to reload. Every time I'm reloading in a different game I hear that voice in my head.
Time Crisis
Time Crisis follows closely behind House of the Dead as my favorite light gun arcade shooter. I spent most of my time with Crisis Zone and Time Crisis 3. From what I remember Time Crisis was always the most expensive out of all the other light gun games, so playing it was a privilege. Crisis Zone was cool because it had a sub machine gun instead of the pistols. Now this was cool but because of this it lost the 2-player from that all the other pistol Time Crisis games had. It was still awesome anyway because the plastic machine gun model was cool to just hold and pretend to shoot other people in the arcade room instead of actually playing the game (it was too expensive anyway!). Time Crisis 3 brought back the 2-player pistols, which I guess overall was a good thing. I actually loved Time Crisis 3 so much I went out and bought the PS2 version with the light gun accessory.
The House of the Dead
The last light gun shooter on this list. Probably one of my first experiences with horror in a video game. It was on-rails like all other light gun games. I spent most of my time playing The House of the Dead 2 and I actually managed to beat it with a friend. The first thing you'll notice about THotD2 is the plastic gun models. They're pistols but are very well made and actually felt heavy in your hand, favoring more of a revolver style than an automatic. I can't quite remember the THotD3 guns but I know you can find THotD4 machines that have 2-player Uzis (awesome). THotD2 had a lot of different machines, from really big fancy ones to small generic looking ones. I would usually find the small ones. The cabinet art is also very engaging and off the top I can't think of any cabinet art better than THotD. The game was fun, bosses and enemies were cool, even the story was cool. I'd always shoot the person when you're supposed to save them though because I'm a hateful bastard.
Mortal Kombat
Most people would probably list Street Fighter as their favorite arcade fighting game. Not me. Though when I was younger MK wasn't my favorite fighting game (we'll get into my favorite soon enough), but I never really liked SF as a kid because the visual style and cabinet art weren't engaging. I still prefer MK though, because it's fucking cooler. Plus what kid didn't want to get to see all that blood and gore! I was never good at MK or any fighting game, and the only person I really ever beat was my younger brother, but it was still fun. Not really sure which Mortal Kombat I played mostly though, probably either 2 or Ultimate.
Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
Fuck yeah. This game was so awesome. Cool ass music, bad-ass cabinet art, amazing characters. It had everything. When I was a kid I loved comic books (still do) so seeing all these comic book characters was just awesome to me. I'll be honest, when I was younger I had absolutely no idea what Capcom was or who the capcom characters were (until I played Street Fighter), so I would ALWAYS play as a Marvel character. God this game was awesome, even the single player. I also had the Playstation version of this game. ANother awesome game was X-Men vs Street Fighter, but I never played that much.
The Simpsons Arcade
I loved all games that had basically the same beat-em-up format (Streets of Rage, X-Men, TMNT), but I had the most fun with The Simpsons. Don't get me wrong, I loved TMNT and X-Men, but The Simpsons was the first one that I actually completed and it holds a special memory because I actually beat it in Las Vegas (long story). Anyway, it was a 4-player game, I beat it with 3 players and only a few tokens. It's awesome and the Simpsons are awesome. Also, they've ported TMNT, Streets of Rage and X-Men to console, where the hell is The Simpsons! Best co-op arcade game I've played.
Other noteworthy mentions:
Crazy Taxi - I was really bad at this game but I loved the music.
Rampage World Tour - I love Godzilla so I love this.
Pac-Man - Of course I had to mention Pac-Man! I actually had the privilege of playing on a sit-down Pac-Man table (very rare) at a pizza place I went to.
Cyber Troopers Virtual-On - Okay I never actually got to play this in an arcade, but it's still awesome.
Galaga, Space Invaders, TMNT, X-Men.
Oh, and in case you're wondering I still haven't built up the courage to actually play Dance Dance Revolution, but I spent a lot of time watching people.
There's so many games I've played in the arcade that i didn't mention and probably so many I can't even remember.
