What is your favorite lesser-known arcade video game?

[Systematic Chaos]

And by that, I mean excluding the mega-hits from Atari, Williams, Taito, Namco, etc....

Mine would have to be Thief and its cousin, Nato Defense, both from Pacific Novelty Company (which went out of business after releasing their third game). Both were maze games, similar to Pac-Man, but in Nato Defense you had to maintain an inventory of ammo to shoot the tanks that chased you. In Thief the "energizers" were dollar signs. What made them so cool to me was that there were 16 mazes per game and the difficulty ramped up very quickly.

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=T&game_id=10086

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=N&game_id=8811

[Lerkfish]

1. zaxxon

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=Z&game_id=12757

I played many a quarter in college on that game, and was the high scorer.
that, and galaga.

[Bossy Monkey]

2. Stratovox

"Lucky! Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!"

[frylock]

3. moon cresta

Moon Cresta would have been a rather unmemorable game were it not for the docking sequences that punctuate the blasting action. Unlike most shoot-em-ups, that have a number of seperate lives, Moon Cresta had three stages of the one ship. The first stage could only fire a single shot, but after 2 waves of Cold Eyes, and 2 waves of Super Flies, the first stage can dock with the second stage to give greater firepower. After waves of Four-Ds and meteors, the third stage can be docked with, to give the player a maximum of five shots at one time. All three docked stages were commonly called the "Christmas Tree". Despite the increase in firepower, the three stage Moon Cresta ship is cumbersome, and makes avoiding aliens and bullets a bit difficult. Often found in cocktail tabletop form.



on edit: One of the great things about this game was that you weren't limited to the 3-letter naming convention when posting a high score. My friends and I would fill the high scores with some pretty funny (and rude) names!

[derby378]

4. Maybe either Vanguard or Kickman

Vanguard was another Sega/Gremlin shoot-em-up release.

Kickman was a Bally/Midway console that I especially excelled in when I was a teen. Racked up a score of 54,000,000 before I gave up. Shoulda gone for an endurance record.