Rocks 'n' Diamonds for some Friday puzzle-game fun. Described as "in the tradition of" Boulderdash and Sokoban, it's actually a superset of both, and you can waste tons of time playing all the old familiar levels or tons of others. (It's a quick download, for linux/os x/the other thing.)
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

ROM CHECK FAIL is a goofy little PC game, in the classic 1980's arcade/home console genre of ... err ... Use the space bar to fire your blaster. Or sword. (Or jump.) Use the arrow keys to control your ... guy as if you were playing ... that ... classic game. Eliminate all the enemy, well, things in the expected way, and go on to the next maze/planet/cave/highway. Look, just play it, OK? It's fun!
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - View this thread

Mister Rogers asks a kid how to play Donkey Kong. Later in the clip, Keith David shows up and demonstrates how the buttons in an arcade machine work. [Via.]
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - View this thread

A chimpanzee plays Ms. Pac Man (WMV, some Japanese)
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

DHTML Arkanoid One of my favorite arcade classics, and one of the slickest applications of DHTML I've ever seen.
posted on Sep 15, 2007 - View this thread

Skee-Ball! (warning: music) Perhaps the longest-running branded arcade game ever invented was created in 1909, originally with a rotator-cuff-injury-inducing 36-foot long alley. Once shortened to a more manageable 14' (10' for the Chuck E. Cheese kiddie model), the game's popularity took off, remaining largely unchanged except for the 1970s electrification of the scoreboard. It's both a nostalgic pastime and a present-day boardwalk staple, even enjoying some hipster revivalism in the form of BrewSkee-Ball. You can even try building your own game.
posted on Aug 20, 2007 - View this thread

"PLASMA PONG is a variation of PONG that utilizes real-time fluid dynamics to drive the game environment. ... In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area."
posted on Jun 28, 2007 - View this thread

M.U.G.E.N [wikipedia] is a 2D fighting game engine, originally developed by Elecbyte and released in 1999. The engine is highly customizable; characters, backgrounds, and sound files -- whether from existing games or original works -- can be easily integrated. Some examples of the engine in action [youtube]: Homer Simpson vs. Peter Griffin, Ryu vs Popeye, Green Power Ranger vs Osama Bin Laden, Fat Albert vs Juggernaut, Marvin the Martian vs. Duck Dodgers. Also, game crossovers: Homer in NES Land, Thunder Force III vs. Duck Hunt. [mi] WARNING: some of the videos are very loud.
posted on Jun 17, 2007 - View this thread

Uptick in Cold War-like rhetoric making you a little nostalgic for the era of parachute pants and Members Only jackets?
A cabal of Russki comrades at some pinko university have been going around collecting and resurrecting disused Soviet-era arcade games, which became instantly obsolete with the collapse of communism. Sea Wolf, Duck Hunt, Pole Position, Dogfight!
We begin bombing in five minutes.
posted on Jun 7, 2007 - View this thread

SHOOT THINGS - a retro-arcade-style shooter for Mac OS X. The author's page describes how it was written in 3 weeks for a contest - it's entertained me for considerably longer than that.
posted on Apr 22, 2007 - View this thread

Rosmarie Fiore is doing some fascinating and beautiful things with long exposures and 80's arcade games.

In the meanwhile, Patrick Dougherty is doing some fascinating and beautiful things with sticks and twigs. [more inside]
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Billed as TV's frst video arcade game show, Starcade had its contestants battling each other on video game trivia, as well as actual gameplay. Originally aired in the early 1980's, the show featured games like Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, Star Trek and Journey, to name a few.

Ten full episodes are available online, for those of you who want a bit of video game nostalgia. And, if nothing else, looking at the contestants is pretty entertaining, in and of itself.
posted on Jan 17, 2007 - View this thread

Arcade '84, from Cinemarcade. (Warning: 32MB MPEG. Low bandwidth short version here). Two liter bottle of Shasta and all Rush mix-tape not included. For more 3d rendered arcade cabinet goodness, see the TimeOut Tunnel movie project. Put together your own arcade and populate it with models and textures from the 3d Arcade at MAMEworld.
posted on Jan 10, 2007 - View this thread

Have you played Robotron today?
posted on Sep 12, 2006 - View this thread

Halo Zero. The Fall of Reach, old-school style. Some plucky French coders have borrowed a page from Codename: Gordon, the side-scrolling homage to Half-Life. As a result, Master Chief and his cohorts are now fighting the Covenant in 16-bit, 2D graphics. PC download only - though Mac owners at least have Boot Camp to avoid waiting for an OS X port. via Aeropause
posted on Jul 7, 2006 - View this thread

Vintage arcade artwork. In free, vector goodness. For collectors restoring a piece of arcade history and enthusiasts who want to create some great art to hang in the den. Who doesn't want a giant Q-Bert on their wall?
posted on Apr 4, 2006 - View this thread

Starcade was an arcade-themed game show that aired in the early 1980's. Today is the last day to watch episode #59 online.
posted on Mar 5, 2006 - View this thread

Children review classic games- some more. Back in November '03, 1up.com rounded up some kids from the 8-12 age range and had them play video and arcade games from the 70's and 80's, including Pong, Donkey Kong, and Tetris. The resulting commentary was mostly along the lines of "Tim: They could've just as easily called this game anything—Baseball, Bowling, Escape From the Monsters. EGM: Did you score? Kirk: I bumped into a dot." In December 2004 they brought them back to review Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and the 1983 Arcade version of Star Wars, among others. "EGM: What do those TIE Fighters look like? ...Are they scary? Anthony: No. It feels like they're trying to give me flowers."
posted on Feb 16, 2006 - View this thread

More Flash Friday. Dynasty Street is an awesomely intricate, gory, stick-figure beat-'em-up. Make sure to practice your moves in the dojo before you play. For mayhem that's a little more low-key, immerse yourself in the world of Skull Kid and his chainsaw. If you're not in the mood for blood & guts, just go with good old Battleship. FlashPlayer.com features many, many Flash games with which to while away the hours.
posted on Jan 6, 2006 - View this thread

Bullet Philharmonic Orchestra. A barebones, vector shooter for PC ala Kenta Cho's made for practicing bullet dodging in manic scrolling shooters, which generates bullet patterns based on the music playing(found here (previously)). Think a very, very poor man's Rez. Here's the download link if, like me, you can't read Japanese. (about 1 megabyte, Windows only, sorry) Further instructions inside the file and comments.
posted on Dec 8, 2005 - View this thread

Arcade Classics from the '80s. A few hundred games, all playable online. Watch out for popups. [via]
posted on Nov 30, 2005 - View this thread

SHMUPS! aka 2D Scrolling Shoot-em-ups. Shmups.com is dedicated to this classic genre, from ancient history (Space Invaders, Tempest) to grandfather games (R-Type II, 1941) to golden age shmups (Tyrian, Blazing Star) to modern classics (Radiant Silvergun, Mars Matrix, Ikaruga). Most aren't for the PC, unfortunately, but that's what Mame and other emulators (mac too) are for. As for roms, can't help you there. For PC enthusiasts, Shoot the Core's PC Shmup listing is the most complete I've ever seen, with many links to download as well. This Thanksgiving weekend, what better to do in your food coma than sit back and blast through a few games in the most enduring video game genre of all time? *CAUTION! These sites took up five hours of my time last night and I downloaded 42 games.*
posted on Nov 23, 2005 - View this thread

Game-Oldies.com features a boatload (approximately) of classic games, playable in Java. Lemmings! Duke Nukem! Toejam and Earl! Trampoline Terror! (What?)
posted on Nov 11, 2005 - View this thread

Arcade Sounds. We recorded video games from 1982 until 1988. Fortunately I managed to save all fourteen audio tapes of video game sounds and arcade ambience which were recorded from a variety of locations in the US. Most of the recordings are from Ithaca, NY, Albany, NY and Ocean City, MD.
posted on Nov 1, 2005 - View this thread

Retro arcade photoset. God bless the gentleman who saved these photos from a 1980's arcade. You will cherish the garish and mock the hair, but this one hits the sweet spot of nostalgia for me.
posted on Jul 15, 2005 - View this thread

Friday Flaash Fun RaidenX is a Raiden shoot-em up knock-off. Enjoy!
posted on Jul 1, 2005 - View this thread

EveryVideogame.com ... many retro videogames (arcade, nintendo, gameboy, sega) available for online play via a java applet.
posted on Feb 24, 2005 - View this thread

ai pengo: flash friday goodness
based on the arcade classic: Pengo.
posted on Oct 8, 2004 - View this thread

7-year-old gets stuck in stuffed animal game machine
posted on Jan 4, 2004 - View this thread

Looking to recreate the dark, smoky arcades of your misspent youth? Got the MAME cabinet in your rec room but still missing something? Arcade ambience supplies the soundtrack to your MAME cabinet with two super-long MP3'd mixes of vintage arcade noises. Authentic, right down to the sound of the coin changers and background hum. Sticky floor, shouted pizza to go orders, and smell of ozone and unwashed nerds not included.
posted on Dec 12, 2003 - View this thread

Norbert's Online NES emulator and the Online Arcade game emulators.
posted on Dec 11, 2003 - View this thread

Handheld Simulators for all your retro-gaming needs. Game & Watch a-plenty or here for a java version to get the flavour without the download. Get stuck into Merlin and finally show you are superior to his complex brain, or revert back even further and snuggle up to an old friend with a speech impediment.
posted on Aug 19, 2003 - View this thread

How I love Mutant Storm [demos available for Windows, Linux and, yes, Mac!]. It's amazing the dross that the big players can come up with while games like this aren't even available in the shops. Yay for the web, I say.
posted on Dec 3, 2002 - View this thread

The gamebutton arcade is the perfect (super small, javascript-on-a-button code fu) thing for wasting time on a friday afternoon.
posted on Nov 1, 2002 - View this thread

Save pinball! "It's an American icon," said Stern, ever the salesman. "Pinball is cool because it is retro. It's a Volkswagen bug, a PT Cruiser, khaki pants."
posted on Aug 3, 2002 - View this thread

Pac-Man fever, tis driving me crazy. It was 1981 or so, I was in 6th grade. I had a mom cool enough to take me out of school for a day, give me a few rolls of quarters and send me to this local bar, where I played Pac-Man all day. I made it to the fourth intermission a few times (which was a damn repeat!), how far did you get?
posted on Jun 18, 2002 - View this thread

Just fun here. Pick your favorite Arcade game and comment on why it is your favorite. Just a little distraction from all the doom and gloom. Mine is Robotron, so much so that a few years ago I actually bought one. It was first released in 1982 and it claimed many quarters from me. Very exciting game that really tested your hand/eye coordination. So, let's hear it for your favorite blast from the past
posted on May 2, 2002 - View this thread

Nostalgic for old video games? Try the java arcade machine emulator. Play classic games such as Tempest, Ms. Pacman, and Arkanoid, arcade perfect and available on the internet via the magic of java.
posted on Nov 2, 2001 - View this thread

MAME - I'm Gonna Live Forever (Flash link) I found this on the author's Tehkan World Cup site. It's an amusing trip down the MAMEory lane of classic arcade games. How many can you name?
posted on Nov 1, 2001 - View this thread

Lakeland Florida tries to kill hobbyist's passion. Sure, the hobby involves a guy who collects videogames as if they were Hummel Figurines, but I have a certain amount of sympathy for him since I collect as well (I just have a little more restraint). I'm intensely curious as to whose panties got tied into enough of a Gordian knot to go after him.
posted on Apr 11, 2000 - View this thread

Bored at work? Or maybe just tired of playing the game on your snazzy Nokia Cell.. needless to say I find time to play this every day. All praise "The Snake Game". The only downside which makes Nokia's cellphone far superior, is unless you have a laptop and perhaps a wireless NIC at work, it is probably impossible to play the game while you sit in the bathroom.
posted on Mar 30, 2000 - View this thread

Ummm. What the hell is this?
posted on Mar 25, 2000 - View this thread