Well it was a Sound Warehouse before it was a Blockbuster Music. Both stores sold music CDs and other electronics. I mostly rented games from the mom and pop rental place in town called PayLess Video.
Gauntlet was super popular in the arcades where I was at, but I didn't get to play it a lot at first because the bigger kids would hog it. But if there was an extra slot, the bigger kids would invite me to play and they were really cool and helped me out as we played and stuff.
I never saw TwinBee in an arcade, but I do have a TwinBee Collection I imported on the PSP. The last game they made for TwinBee's 10th anniversary was really good. But you don't pilot bees in that game series. Instead you pilot cartoony robots with giant gloves and they're piloted by human characters, a boy, a girl, and a baby! There was even a TwinBee anime cartoon at one point in Japan.
1943 is still one of my top favorite shooters of all time. I just got done reviewing a collection of shooters from Psikyo on the Switch, you'd really like it.
Did you know there was a version of Shadowgate on the NES?
I never rented Mickey Mania nor did I own it. But I played it a lot. How? Well, back in the day, my friend and I would go to the Blockbuster Music near my house, and they had a lot of video game demo stations. Remember those? One of them had Mickey Mania and I played it a lot there. I liked the first level where it was first black and white and gradually changed to color as you progressed.
I don't think I could make a list of arcade games in the 80's that I liked, because there are just so many of them! The early 80s was definitely the 'golden age' of arcade games. I'd say the 'silver age' was when Street Fighter 2 came out.
I can only make a list of my top five favorite games of all time, and they are Pac-Man, Final Fantasy 6, Animal Crossing on GameCube, Super Mario Kart, and the PSOne Namco Museums.
My favorite 2600 game is Pressure Cooker, but it was made by the same folks who did Stampede.
I was always fascinated by Xevious as a kid. One time as a kid I got a big roll of dot matrix printer paper and spread it out from the front door to the back. Then I drew some Xevious backgrounds on one side (and Zaxxon scenes on the other), and got out my toy spaceships and played pretend Xevious on the printer paper. I got in a little bit of trouble for using up so much paper, though! Did you ever think you were flying over a golf course in Xevious?
I freaking love Time Pilot. Sinistar scared me as a kid. And Marble Madess is one of my favorite Atari arcade games. I liked it so much I got the NES version.
Mega Man games have better graphics and sound than Mario games, I think.
While I think it's a TINY bit overrated, DKC is still a great game. The platforming is good, but the graphics and especially the SOUND just blew me away. It still amazes me that the water music is coming from a SNES!
I got DKC for Christmas that year and the next summer I spent most of the time in Alabama visiting my mom and little brother Jeff, who lived out of state at the time. Jeff was only like, one year old, and could barely talk. He only knew a few words, like Da Da, Ma Ma, No, Cookie, etc. But when I came over and showed him DKC for the first time, he just sat there staring at it for the longest time. Then when mom came in the room, he looked at her, pointed at the TV, and started babbling 90 miles an hour! Even though he couldn't talk much, we could tell he was telling us all about the game! By the end of the summer, he learned how to say "Donkey Kong" so he could tell me that he wanted to play it. That ended up being one of his first words!
I gave Kid Icarus: Uprising a fair shake, but I just didn't like it. Controls tlat out sucked. Sorry, Sakurai.
Of course, I never liked the original Kid Icarus on the NES for the same reason. Controls were just awful. Way too floaty.
I never played this on the SNES. I always wanted to, but it was never at the movie rental places nearby. I was a teen then with not a lot of spare money so I was leary about buying it full price becuase most of the mascot platformers I played before were awful, llike Aero the Acrobat and such. That's another reason why I don't like Sonic as much, and why I played mostly RPGs back then.
Since I was never into comic books that much, I didn't play very many of the comic book games on the SNES. This one included. I think I might've rented a couple of comic book games when I knew I would have a friend over who liked comic books, but I think that was just regulated to a couple of Superman titles.
My knowledge of X-Men and other Marvel characters mostly comes from Marvel vs. Capcom games, LEGO games, and the movies. I don't really even have a favorite Marvel character. Although if I had to pick one, She-Hulk from Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was kind of neat I guess.
Yeah the Zelda game where you wake up on a shoreline is Link's Awakening, my favorite Zelda game. As you know, the remake on the Switch was my GOTY last year.
Here are the other games on that list that I like:
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Super Metroid
Super Mario Bros. 3
Ms. Pac-Man
Donkey Kong
Mega Man 3
