25 Greatest Old School Videogames Of The Day

Most of these are from Entertainment Weekly, but I added a few of my own favorites at the end. Some of these I never played: Gauntlet, Contra, Elevator Action or Spy Hunter. The rest I know all too well.

Which games were your favorites?

DONKEY KONG (1981)

These days, Mario is the top banana in the House of Nintendo. When the plucky plumber appeared in his first videogame in '81, though, let’s not forget it was the big ape who got top billing. Sure, Donkey Kong was the villain and Mario the hero in this game. But, as my childhood doodles will attest, I’ve always rooted for DK. — Gary Eng Walk

NBA JAM (1993)

I'll never forget the first time I played NBA Jam while at a birthday party held in an arcade. One particularly pale gamer had commandeered the only cabinet with this 2-on-2 hoops game. But since I was 12 years old and exceedingly small, he accepted my innocent request for a game. Not knowing the controls, the first thing I did was pull down a rebound with David Robinson and launch a full-court shot — nothing but net! My opponent unleashed an insane tirade about how ''f---ing unrealistic'' it was that Robinson would make a full court shot and proceeded to destroy me. — Chris Schoenberger (The most frustrating videogame you will ever play. You kick its ass for three quarters, then the overcharged AI turns the computer's players into monsters who sink threes from the half court line and block every shot you make. - C.)

GAUNTLET (1985)

I would spend every lunch hour I could — and most of my lunch money — at the pizzeria right around the corner from my high school, because they had Gauntlet, that D&D characters stuck in a beast laden dungeon classic. Hacking, slashing, shooting my way through ghosts and orcs and evil wizards, only to inevitably hear the words ''Warrior, your life force is running out.'' — Marc Bernardin

CONTRA (1987)

The thing about this game was the joystick, which not only moved you up, down, left, and right, but also swiveled. That swiveling came in handy when you were running through the jungle, surrounded by…well, whoever surrounds Rambo-esque freedom fighters in the jungle. But I calloused my hands something fierce whipping that joystick around. And, I almost got myself fired from the video store I was working at, as I was way more invested in getting to the end of the game than I was in fetching a copy of Milo and Otis. — Marc Bernardin

MISSILE COMMAND (1980)

You can keep your marauding apes, muscle-bound mercenaries, and suave spies — what was at stake in this quarter-gobbling classic was the fate of six entire cities. The lives of millions of innocent citizens were in your (trackball-rolling and button-mashing) hands! I remember trembling with fear and excitement trying to prevent the thin spidery lines of incoming missiles from laying waste to the burgs I was sworn to protect. Or it might’ve been the six cups of Coke I usually downed in the Chick-Fil-A right next to Spaceport. — Wook Kim

PAPERBOY (1984)

It probably sounds like the least exciting job in the world, but for some reason, delivering papers in a virtual world once provided hours and hours of entertainment. The premise was simple: deliver papers to the right houses in a certain amount of time. Only, I loved doing the job incorrectly: chucking newspapers at windows (instead on neatly placing them in mailboxes) or coaxing the neighborhood's pesky dog into chasing after me. — Lindsay Soll

DOUBLE DRAGON (1987)

In the first scene, a thug knocks my girlfriend unconscious and carts her away on his back like a sack of potatoes. Of course I’m going to go after him, knocking down anyone in my way! And my brother Jimmy’s coming with me! We’re Double Dragons! Gonna kick the crap out of EVERYBODY. The dual-play function on this arcade classic, if I remember right, was mind-blowing at the time. And I’m no misogynist or anything, but I did get a kick out of hitting the leotard-clad Elayne Boosler-type women-thugs with my baseball bat. — Gregory Kirschling

SPY HUNTER (1983)

One thing I never got to check off on my adolescent to-do list was getting good enough at Spy Hunter to get to the upper level where the spycar acquired heat-seeking missiles. I was always just stuck there at the bottom levels, firing off my machine guns and bumping armored cars off the road, maybe only once or twice advancing to the point where I got to spray out my oil slick or deploy my smokescreen. But whaddaya gonna do? Spy Hunter, with its bitchin'‚ Peter Gunn-theme music, was a great ride. — Gregory Kirschling

ELEVATOR ACTION (1983)

Even though I totally sucked at it, Elevator Action might’ve been my favorite old-school arcade game. I loved how cinematic the concept was: you’re a spy, and after rappelling down to the top of a building, you ride the elaborate open-door elevator system down to the bottom, collecting secret documents and offing gun-toting Black Hats along the way. If you think about it, Elevator Action was Die Hard before Die Hard was even invented. Which made you a video-game John McClane. Sweet! — Gregory Kirschling (My idea of elevator action is something entirely different than this - C.)

RAIDEN (1990)

Though Raiden has been re-imagined on various home consoles through the years, the spaceship shoot-'em-up was best enjoyed with the traditional joystick configuration of the arcade version. Those alien forces may have had zero artificial intelligence, but when their pre-routed attack waves started coming in rapid succession, there was really no time to think. Navigating the blur of spacecraft and physics-defying ammunition, I felt like Maverick from Top Gun...but in the year 2090. — Chris Schoenberger

DIG DUG (1982)

Featuring perhaps the most memorable and catchy sound effects of all time (its tinny theme song is destined to be my iPhone’s ringtone — well, once I figure out how to do it), Dig Dug had the coolest monsters this side of the Muppets. Pookas and Fygers: I salute you. And sorry about all that nasty inflating and bursting. — Gary Eng Walk

MORTAL KOMBAT II (1993)

Moms love to tell you that it’s only fun until someone loses an eye. The notoriously gory MK series taught us our moms lied: it’s actually fun up to — and after — someone loses an eye. Or a head. Or a beating heart. What made MKII so memorable was that if a parent (or court-ordered child psychologist) were watching, instead of finishing off your opponents with a violent ''fatality'' move, you could always trick them by performing a ''friendship'' that instead presented them with a bouquet of flowers. Awwwww. — Gary Eng Walk (The fatality moves were gnarly -- and awesome. One of the female fighters would devour her losing opponent whole and then spit out his bones. I see some symbolism in that, don't you? -C.)

STREET FIGHTER 2 (1987)

Say it with me now: ''HA-DO-KEN!'' Street Fighter 2 was an after-school fight club for pre-teen Tyler Durdens. The genius of the game was the option to play it from beginning to end with each global character or just take on wave after wave of wannabe challengers. — Jef Castro

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1989)

Of all the elements in the late '80s TMNT craze, my favorite by far was the arcade game. I think it's in part because I got to play as Donatello, the smartest and most sensitive of the heroes in a half-shell (and thereby the one I wanted to be). More importantly, you could join in a game at any time, which meant you didn't have to wait for the 19-year-old dork with $50 in quarters to finally leave. — Adam B. Vary
(My favorite weapon was the bo staff. You'd jam the stick into the bad guy's gut, then fling his ass across the room. The nunchuks were second best. The other weapons sucked. - C.)

MS. PAC-MAN (1981)

OK, so it was basically Pac-Man with a few minor tweaks — more mazes, smarter ghosts (such as Clyde, who had a gender rethink and became a demure orange ghostess named Sue) — but the romance between the Mr. and Ms. was the ace in the hole for me. I never got past "pretzel" level, but watching the digital lovers bonk noses (noses?) and fall in love (awww!) was more than worth my two bits. — Adrienne Day

TRON (1982)

Tron-the-videogame earned more money than Tron-the-movie's first theatrical release. At least that's what the Internet just told me. But even if that's hogwash, the game stilled ruled, because I was one of the very few chicks I knew that was actually good at it, and I needed respect back in the early days of male-dominated gaming. Tron's light-cycle subgame was admittedly a weakness, but after mastering the ''Grid Bugs'' and pulverizing the enemy's battle tanks, I knew in my heart that Ms. Pac-Man was for wusses. — Adrienne Day (Tron sucks. - C.)

JUNGLE HUNT (1982)

Remember at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indy faces those bloodthirsty Peruvian natives? Thanks to Jungle Hunt that could be you. In fact, your vine-swinging journey was even more perilous — because your politically incorrect nemeses were freakin' cannibals! Also, you got to knife crocodiles. And that’s just gangsta. — Nisha Gopalan

POLE POSITION (1982)

Gene Hackman in The French Connection. Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Burt Reynolds in The Cannonball Run (just the first one). None of them held a candle to me and my lead foot burning rubber on the faux-car “cockpit” version at the arcade. Sure, the gearshift was basically set to “fast” or “slow,” but life was a lot simpler back then. — Nisha Gopalan (A game that got old fast, because the car was terrible on curves. But flattening billboards on purpose was fun. - C.)

CENTIPEDE (1981)

Chucking the then-clunky joystick (I’m talking to you, Space Invaders!) for a swift trackball, this assault on a vertically descending ’pede was a thrilling exercise in rapid hand movement. Now that I live in NYC, I’m proud to have taken a tough stance on bugs at a young age. — Nisha Gopalan (I've always hated this game. - C.)

My additions...

PITFALL (1982)

My very first taste of 8-bit home console heaven.

GALAGA (1981)

Galaga owns more hours of my life than any other game, and I still can't beat the third Challenge Stage.

FROGGER (1981)

I still love this game. In later rounds, the traffic and logs became so ridiculously fast that you knew you were fucked before you ever moved.

FOOD FIGHT (1983)

In college, my friend Les' dorm had one game in the lobby, and this was it. Not Pac Man. Not Space Invaders. Not Frogger. Food Fight. An odd choice, but it didn't take long to get hooked on a game where you pummel angry chefs with various types of food.


DEFENDER (1980)

A tough game to master. I hated the speedy little red spaceships, but, if memory serves, you had an atomic-type bomb that would take care of them and anything else on the screen.


ATARI ARCADE FOOTBALL (1978)

You could always spot kids who played this game. They were the ones whose palms were black and red from rolling the shit out of the big trac ball that made your player run. You only had four plays on offense or defense, so this was a glorified version of Rock-Paper-Scissors as you tried to guess what play your opponent had chosen so you could pick the defensive play to stop it. I just blitzed on every down, because it worked on every play except the screen pass.


DARK CASTLE (1986)

At my first job out of college, my buddy Len and I got paid to play this game. Our bosses didn't know this, of course; they thought they were paying us to write print ad copy.


Source: EW.com

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