Real Credit-Feeders

[JoshF]

Let's make a list of all the arcades games that require more than one credit to clear. They're pretty easy to spot, just look for impossible to dodge obstacles that make it a matter of time before game over regardless of skill. Basically, look for Eugene Jarvis's name in the credits.

Here's two to start off:
Revolution X
Terminator 2: Judgment Day

I suspect Spider-Man: The Video Game but maybe I'm missing something.

[icycalm]

Basically, look for Eugene Jarvis's name in the credits.

lol

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/ac/narc/review.php

[EightEyes]

Does Gauntlet count?

I remember being excited to play the home version of this, so I could actually get to the "end" of the game. The ability to feed credits at will actually saps EVERYTHING from this game, and reveals it as a gluttonous wreck of a thing. Shame.

[icycalm]

Actually, there's someone on Shmups (gameoverdude) who claims to have 1CCed Narc, and he's a reliable guy, so I guess Narc should be off the list. It still sucks though.

[Cpt. Coin-op]

Do Rampage and the sequel Rampage: World Tour qualify? (IIRC the arcade version of Rampage doesn't end.)

[JoshF]

I know BBH has 1CCed Narc and Total Carnage, and a guy named The Pro has 1CCed Smash TV. I don't know if that means they're not credit feeders though. For instance, in the last stages of all those games, death is an inevitability and you just better hope you've gotten enough extends. That's a credit-feeding design at the very least, even if it is possible to overcome it. I'll say it's a toss up for now if you don't mind.

Do Rampage and the sequel Rampage: World Tour qualify? (IIRC the arcade version of Rampage doesn't end.)

I wouldn't say so. If I recall correctly, both Rampages follow the golden-age concept of "see how long you can play before your health/lives eventually chip away." You could probably play for an hour in those games, whereas in Revolution X you'd be a god if you made it to level 3.

Oh, and I forgot Atari's Batman game. Just look at those projectiles in Flugenheim Museum, and if you dodge them you'll just get stabbed instead.

Macaw knows a bunch of these. Technos and Konami converted some of their games into credit-feeders for the American releases. Makes you wonder why 1CCing is such a foreign idea to some people.

[Macaw]

Yeah Konami stuff definitely got it the worst for world releases. Crime Fighters, Crime Fighter 2 (Vendetta), and metamorphic force are some I can think of right now that have the retarded system where inserting coins during a play merely adds more health to your meter, instead of giving you another 'credit'.

For the Jarvis stuff and the topic in general, obviously the American point of view with coin-op games was very different, and it was a specific intention to design the game so players are pretty much dying all the time and having to shovel credits in the machine (whereas the Japanese point of view was to make the games balanced because people only use 1 credit, and this fueled the numerous tournaments for arcade game high scores and such) Most of you know this though of course.

Anyway, there is an interview with Jarvis and another designer of Smash TV on the Midway classics collection on ps1 which is pretty interesting. They discovered during testing that people would eventually get so good at the game that they could blaze through it very quickly, and on a single credit. Instead of making the game more cheap, they just added in the key system, where you had to obtain a certain number of keys in a run to access the 'pleasure dome', otherwise you had to start the game again. Not gonna stop people from clearing it with a single credit, but definitely would had made certain people shove more coins into the machine desperate to discover this secret area. One of the designers also mentions he was able to 1 credit the game as well.

[JT]

Besides the games already mentioned, you could probably add most of the other titles released by Williams-Bally-Midway-Atari throughout the late 1980s and all through the 1990s. The most credit hungry games they released by far were their sports games, starting with the NBA Jam series. Each period of play costs one credit so you can't even finish a single match without inserting additional credits, regardless of how well you've played. In fact, this "feature" was a huge selling point to arcade operators.

Some of the later Midway titles rectified this somewhat - I know the original NFL Blitz allowed you to play the next period of the match for free if you were in the lead. The Cruisin' games have given free races for first place finishes. But the "rubber band" AI in these games is relentless, often nullifying any skill you may have.

[Cpt. Coin-op]

If those are indeed considered credit-feeders, that clearing style is still done today in sports games.

I know Dirty Pigskin Football by Sammy (Atomiswave) does this--1 credit for each of the first 4 games, and if you actually pay your way that far into it (you don't even have to win any of the rounds), you get a free game in the finals. ("Rubber band" AI is very much included, as all computer players are faster than you no matter what.)

EDIT: Christ, it completely slipped my mind, but the Mario Kart Arcade GP games do this as well. I just now realized why all the Chuck E. Cheese's have been doing the "All game sessions = 1 token," and it's because most of the arcade games in the ones I've been to are credit-feeders in one form or fashion.

[JoshF]

I know Neo Geo and CPS2 sports games included time options, in case there were any tournaments or generous operators.