Dear Lord - where the hell is GALAGA?! I love your articles and lists, GamezRadarz, but no "best of arcade" compilation can be complete w/out this 1981 classic (and superior sequel to 1980's Galaxian). Just sayin'. Peace!
It wasn't a great game, really, but I think the sheer 3D wow of Hard Drivin' coupled with its nails game (did anyone ever see anyone manage that loop the loop?) and 'real drivng' concept was properly innovative and captured the imagination and the public's interest in getting to play something 'real'.
A forerunner of Gran Turismo, the 'real driving simulator'?
I've got my own personal favorites, of course and would hardly expect all of them to make the list. Still, I'm surprised that you listed three separate fighting games but not a single light-gun game. Surely the genre deserves *some* recognition?
Most of my quarters went to X-Men (the big dual screen one), Street Fighter Alpha 2, Virtual ON, Windjammers, Killer Instinct 1 & 2, Bust A Move, and Twilight Zone Pinball.
Four words: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So what if it was a licensed game? It might not have been the original side-scrolling beat-em-up, but it is by far the most enduring example of this classic genre: more players than Double Dragon, more personality than Final Fight, and more colorful graphics than most of the games to follow it. Only the Simpsons arcade game or X-men even comes close.