First, let me lay the criteria. We're not talking yellin about what was the best arcade game (we'll do that tomorrow) - Today we're talking compressed wood chips and plastic. The mighty cabinet, the CRT-holdin, kick-resistant piece of furniture that housed what we know know as Roms. It's design, it's innovation, it's ridiculousness. Let me kick this off. The eight player 3-screen Xmen machine... eh maybe. The AfterBurner II machine was awesome, I loved how the seat shook when I played like crap. The Space Harrier machine was a blast. But my vote goes to.... The original Street Fighter 1 arcade machine. You were walking around the arcade with your measly one dollar in tokens (while desperately looking for a free credit sign blinking), trying to figure out which one of these extremely difficult games you were going to play standing up. You walked past the Operation Wolf clones, the 1000 neo geo machines, the konami sidescrollers and their clones, the pinballs, the hang-ons, and there it would be - a fighting game where you had to pound on the keys with all your might to beat up old japanese men. Insert 1 coin to begin? Fuck yeah! I don't even understand what I liked about this cabinet. It made the game unnecessarily hard. Throwing a hadoken was next to impossible. I felt like I was going to pop a shoulder and bleed to death by the time I got to the third guy. But you were beating the shit out of the machine so it didn't matter. It was a workout - and if your friends were with you, you know at some point they couldn't constrain themselves and they'd start beating the shit out of the machine too. And the smug motherfuckers who worked at the arcade could not say SHIT! They had to stand there and watch us wail on this thing. And it was heaven, a quarter a time. Did it catch on? Nope. The game was too hard, and they broke too often. I wonder why? Anyway, so that's my nomination. What's your vote?