But back before Elite..

[Killer Wolf]

that was the one where you could play as the Valkyrie/Dwarf etc wasn't it? played it a couple times, was pretty good, and spawned a series on PCs or the amiga, if i recall.
was a huge Xevious fan myself, loved the fact there was loads of hidden stuff in it if you knew where to bomb etc.

[Thargoid]

Personally I preferred Quartet (the similar space-themed one) to Gauntlet.

But I did have both on my PC way back when (and also on MAME - I think I still have that somewhere actually). All good fun!

[Griff]

was that amiga gauntlet clone called Garrison or something like that? I never got to play it but it did look good in the screenshots in 'the one' magazine or whatever it was called.
Was anybody here any good at defender? i was unbelievably rubbish at that one, which was a shame as it was such an exciting game to watch (and hear as well it's sound effects are amazing!), i could probabably just about scrape through stage one if there weren't too many mutants spawned, but the pod and it's tiny flying saucers on stage 2 would wipe me out everytime

[DaddyHoggy]

There was a fantastic Defender clone on the C64 (or was it the amiga?) where you were a guy in a space suit with a jet pack, rescuing miners who would wolf whistle for a pick up, but I can't remember what it was called!

[CommonSenseOTB]

There was a fantastic Defender clone on the C64 (or was it the amiga?) where you were a guy in a space suit with a jet pack, rescuing miners who would wolf whistle for a pick up, but I can't remember what it was called!

I never played it but(this is a guess)I think it was called "Miner 2049'er"

[DaddyHoggy]

There was a fantastic Defender clone on the C64 (or was it the amiga?) where you were a guy in a space suit with a jet pack, rescuing miners who would wolf whistle for a pick up, but I can't remember what it was called!

I never played it but(this is a guess)I think it was called "Miner 2049'er"

Nope. I remember - Dropzone!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropzone

[Capt. Murphy]

Do you remember Gauntlet at the arcade in the mid 80's?

For the fans of retro.....nearly all the classics can be found as online Java versions these days.

http://www.free80sarcade.com/gauntlet.php

[Thargoid]

Or my aforementioned MAME (multi arcade machine emulator) which actually runs the old ROM images from the cabinet games themselves. Although there is occasionally some questionability on whether those images are legitimately available or not...

[Matti]

For the fans of retro.....nearly all the classics can be found as online Java versions these days.

http://www.free80sarcade.com/gauntlet.php

That is buggy one: my character moves through some walls (not all the walls) and is strictly restricted to upper-left corner of first map. There are keys and treasure chests, but those don't get picked up when I move character over them.

[DaddyHoggy]

I grew up in a seaside town so I fed a lot of 10p pieces into a variety of Arcade machines in my time favourites include:

Star Wars (sit down cabinet)
Battlezone
Rampage
Outrun
APB
360

There was two others that I used to play all the time but can't remember their names and Google hasn't thrown up any memory joggers - the first was a sit-on motorcycle game where (I discovered) you got more points if you actually kept your feet on the pegs all the way through the race. The 2nd was a car racing game, but you saw the track on a single screen and the cars were very small but beautifully animated, it was a straight race and you had to finish 1st or 2nd (2 player game) - sometimes partitions would open up in the side of the track allowing you to get ahead by cutting corners, it fast and horribly addictive, I remember myself and another friend John spent one summer just stood up the whole time racing each other on this game (And now I can't remember what it's called!!! AARRGGHHH!)

[Disembodied]

The 2nd was a car racing game, but you saw the track on a single screen and the cars were very small but beautifully animated, it was a straight race and you had to finish 1st or 2nd (2 player game) - sometimes partitions would open up in the side of the track allowing you to get ahead by cutting corners, it fast and horribly addictive, I remember myself and another friend John spent one summer just stood up the whole time racing each other on this game (And now I can't remember what it's called!!! AARRGGHHH!)

Super Sprint? Top-down, up to four players, really really addictive? The motorcycle one might be Hang-On ...

Of the Star Wars games, my favourite was The Empire Strikes Back ... getting into zen mode on the AT-AT walkers stage, where the trick was not to shoot the walkers but instead to fly through their legs. If you didn't shoot them they marched along in ranks, but if you blew one up they got out of order. There was a score multiplier for flying through their legs that was the only way onto the high score table.

There was Paperboy, which had a bug in it which let people achieve scores in the billions ... APB I remember fondly, not least for having to slap confessions out of criminals before Sarge made it down the stairs!

[DaddyHoggy]

Super Sprint! That's the one! 3-player not 4 though!

http://www.premier-md.com/arcade_supersprint.asp

and yes - quick Google confirmation - Hang-on!

Thank-you

[Cody]

I grew up in a seaside town

Ha... so did I, but the arcade games were more primitive then.
I think the first one that I remember playing that was any good was Periscope.

[Disembodied]

Super Sprint! That's the one! 3-player not 4 though!

Right enough ... why do I have a sudden premonition of life in the rest home, circa 2051?

[slomoe]

There was a fantastic Defender clone on the C64 (or was it the amiga?) where you were a guy in a space suit with a jet pack, rescuing miners who would wolf whistle for a pick up, but I can't remember what it was called!

Wasn't there a game like this where you flew a ship and land on the surface to pick up miners then flew up to a station I think it was an atari game possibly a cartridge can't really remember the name, Mars Rescue or something like that!