10. Rampage -- An absolute classic. Nothing like taking King Kong, Godzilla, or a giant wolfman to flatten cities across the U.S. I've played this game on so many different systems. Arcade was naturally one of the harder ones since it's meant to eat your money, but it's one of those games that's just fun to grab a friend or two, and pop a stack of quarters into the machine.
9. Off-Road -- I didn't expect anyone else to remember this existed, but it was one of the ubiquitous racing games from back in the day. Most racing games were over the shoulder, like Pole Position, but a few like Super Sprint and Out Run asked you to look at the whole course from above. Following the traditional R.C. Pro Am "don't get last place" format, collecting nitros and upgrades so you could slog around a bunch of monster truck/motocross tracks was a great game to run on a single quarter if you knew what you were doing.
8. Pac-Man -- It's Pac-Man. Duh. Only surprise is that it didn't go higher.
6. Ms. Pac-Man -- See Pac-Man.
7. Contra -- I also expect this to show up on the NES list since I think probably more people remember this game as being the banner-carrier for the Konami code. An incredibly hard game if you're a kid who isn't paying attention to the whole screen, but thanks to having 30 lives on NES, I've beaten this at least a dozen times at 3 or 4 different friends' houses. And I played it on arcade cabinets, too, but never got very far since 3 lives is much more restrictive.
5. Final Fight -- Good, classic, side-scrolling beat-em-up. This era had a great many of these, and while I might be surprised not to see a few others, it's no surprise Mayor Haggar makes the list.
4. Donkey Kong -- Forget Play-Choice 10 or non-super Mario Bros. Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first appearance in the arcades, and one of the truly classic games of all-time. Whether it's a *good* game is open to interpretation, but it's certainly classic.
3. Space Invaders -- Another game that was simply ubiquitous in the 80s. I've played this on Atari. I've played this on 5 different ancient computer brands. Even people who didn't know video games knew Space Invaders. I was never very good at it, but I could at least usually beat two levels before the game got obnoxious.
2. OutRun -- Of all the games here, this is probably the one I've played the least. Which is not to say I haven't played it. OutRun represents the classic racing game of old. They even made versions where you could sit in a seat and "drive," which of course became a staple later for games like Daytona and Cruis'n.
1. TMNT - And if Final Fight were an obvious inclusion, TMNT was *the* game to play in the arcades back in the day. I swear every pizza parlor and movie theater had a copy of this game, which is no surprise because even if a single player didn't go through their quarters nearly as quickly, it could cycle four players at a time. And remember: Winners don't use drugs.
Only the exceptions can be exceptional.