Defender and Galaga, mostly.

"As a kid?" You mean I'm not still a kid?

Robotron 2084

But not a kid. I had to regularly shoot St. Louis Blues hockey games
and Robotron's speed and density kept me sharp.

 
River Raid, but I was no longer a kid when video games came along.

Born in ‘80, so I cut my teeth on NES, but really hit my stride on SNES.

I dominated StarFox, F-Zero, and the original MarioKart.

-Rob

Battle Zone.

I had my initials on every one of those machines I could find. I even had a full-size machine of my own for a time.

I'd still be playing it if I had a two-stick controller.

Galaga, This came out of a Mr Gattis many years ago. Also has Pac Man and Ms Pac Man.

Microprose's Gunship. LOVED that game, the 1986 version. I loved the subsequent version as well but the original along with EA's Wasteland and Sid Meir's Pirates were by favorites.

As a kid in my early 20s when video games were the rage: Space Invaders.

I was never very good at any of them. I was too old when the rage hit. My son was a wizard in his youth. He loved Mario Bros.

i recall being pretty good at Joust

----------------------------

When I was a kid, everything was mechanical.
The etch-a-sketch was the first thing I remember and even that was mechanical.
Then there was the vibrating or Electric Football game but that had very little user input.
Kids nowadays, they miss out on all the good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8y0_XVnCII

Gee, maybe Tempest?

In high school, I was all about Cobra Command. That laserdisc game was always tougher to track down in arcades and bowling alleys.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 - We played tournaments all over the country. I was never as good as Justin Wong but we played well for our area of the country.

NFL Fever was Xbox's answer to Madden, never went anywhere, but I never lost in it. Played all over the city when we got our first xbox at 18 years old during release. Never lose 1 game somehow.

Galaga also for me. We had an Aladdin’s Castle and, two or three units down at the same mall, an aforementioned Mr. Gatti’s Pizza.

One otherwise quiet after-school afternoon, it was just me and Galaga at Mr. Gatti’s. “Turned the machine over” score-wise in the parlance of the day. It was the only time I ever did that and, of course, no one else with me to witness it. What a blast!

Years later, a church we used to attend added a Galaga to their recreation-room. I admit - I slipped-away from a class or service or two to play a few rounds haha…

Missile Command.

Pong, it was all there was at the time..


Later in arcades, PacMan, Galaga, any racing game I'd stay on and dump quarters until I had the track record...

galaga and centipede.
Loved an arcade version of Mortal Kombat and did pretty good with it.
Pinball machines

By the time the first video games appeared (table-top and stand-up console models for bars and arcades), I was no longer a "kid." (I regard myself as having been lucky to have grown up without them, honestly. We had to make up our own games--mostly outside.)

I was actually in the video game industry during those early years--working for a small manufacturer and distributor. I spent a lot of time on the bench testing them. I'd have friends stop by after the place was closed and we'd play all sorts of video games. (Asteroids, Tank Commander (?), Tailgunner, Space Invaders, Pacman, etc.)

As a result of all that: I burned out on video games and don't play them to this day.

One exception: There was one video game that attracted me, many years ago: 688 Attack Sub. Ran it on my Commodore Amiga.

Didn't have video games when I was a kid, but in my 20s I was bad-ass on Tempest.