I can't believe that Gauntlet in the arcade came out the same year as Super Mario Bros. Granted, I didn't actually play SMB until over a year later, but it's mind boggling how time seemed to pass sooo much slower when we were young.
Anyhow, the impact of SMB and Tetris speaks for itself but it's definitely Mario for me. I played it for the first time in an arcade on one of Nintendo's Play Choice machines and I couldn't stop thinking about playing it again, just like SMW and SM64 several years later. Between this and those weird Zelda commercials, I knew I wanted an NES for sure.
Some fun games here like Tetris and Paperboy, but my personal runner up would be Space Harrier. Playing that for the first time in an arcade on the sit-down, full-motion unit was amazing. Loved Sega's arcade games.
