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Top Ten Classic Video Games
10. Pong

Origins: Pong was predicated on a casino game called 'Tennis for Two' which was a simulation of a game of tennis on an oscilloscope. Physicist William Higinbotham, the designer, goes down ever sold as creating one of the first electronic games to employ a graphical display.

The Concept: The game is supposed to represent a casino game of Tennis or Table Tennis (Ping Pong). Each player has a bat; the bat could be moved vertically. The screen has two horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the screen. A ball is 'served' and moves towards one player - that player must move the bat in order that the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back the other way. Depending on where the ball hits the bat, the ball will move around in different directions - should it hit one of the top or bottom lines, then it'll bounce off. The theory is simply to help make the other player skip the ball - thus scoring a point.

Game play: although it sounds utterly boring, the overall game play is in fact very addictive. It is easy to play but very difficult to understand, especially with faster ball speeds, and more acute angles of 'bounce'.

Nostalgia: for me this can be a father of video gaming. Without Pong you almost certainly wouldn't have video gaming - it started the craze that could continue grow and become a multi-billion dollar industry. I am going to always remember this game!

9. Frogger

Origins: this game originated by Konami in 1981, and was the first game to introduce me to Sega. At the time it had been very novel and introduced a fresh style of game.

The Concept: Easy - you would like to walk from one side of the street to another. Wait one minute - there's lots of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Made it - hold on, who put that river there. Better jump on those turtles and logs and get to another side - hang on that's a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy - the cars and logs are in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the number of logs and cars, and the speed may differ. You will need to move you frog up, down left and right, avoiding the cars, jumping on logs and avoiding nasty creatures and obtain home - do that several times and you also move to the next level.

holywin88 : Yet another simple concept that is amazingly addictive. This game relies on timing; you're dinking in and out of traffic, and sometimes going nowhere. The graphics are poor, the sound is terrible, however the adrenalin really pumps as you try to avoid that extremely fast car, or the snake that is hunting you down!

Nostalgia: I love this game for most reasons. I played it for a long period, but hardly ever really became an expert - however, it was the initial ever game I were able to reproduce using Basic on my ZX81 - I even sold about 50 copies in Germany!

8. Space Invaders

Origins: Tomohiro Nishikada, the designer of Space Invaders was inspired by Star Wars and War of the Worlds. He produced on of the initial shooting video games and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.

THE IDEA: aliens are invading the Earth in 'blocks' by moving down the screen gradually. As the intrepid savior of the Earth it's your task to use your solitary laser cannon, by moving horizontally, and zapping those dastardly aliens out of your sky. Luckily, you have four bases to cover up behind - these eventually disintegrate, but they provide some protection from the alien's missiles.

Game Play: this is usually a very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts just a little nearer to you, and moves a little fast - so every new wave is really a harder challenge. The game involved a fair level of strategy and good hand eye co-ordination.

Nostalgia: I wasted considerable time playing this game. While originally simply green aliens attacked, some clever geek added color strips to the screen and the aliens magically changed color the low they got - that was about as hi-tech as it got back in the days of monochrome video games!

7. holywin88 : Galaxians expanded on the area Invaders theme insurance firms aliens swoop down on the defender. It had been among the first games to possess colored sprites.

Concept: Take Space Invaders, then add color, remove the bases and make a number of the aliens swoop down at you and you have Galaxians. Basically the concept is equivalent to Space Invaders, you're defending the world against alien invaders, but rather than the whole screen full of aliens moving down at you in a nice orderly fashion, you get groups of aliens swooping down in haphazard ways.

Game play: in the event that you liked Space Invaders then you'll love this. The strategies are different, as you often have to avoid several different sets of alien 'swoopers' but when you can shoot them because they swoop, then you get some great bonus points. The game is difficult and soon you get used to some of the patterns

Nostalgia: this was among the first games that I played on a desktop computer that was almost exactly like the arcade fame. I had a vintage Acorn Electron, which game was almost perfect with this little machine. I miss my old Acorn Electron!

6. Defender

Origins: This game was created by Williams Electronics in 1980. The Game was created by Eugen Jarvis, Sam Dicker, Paul Dussault and SLarry DeMar. It was among the first games to feature complex controls, with five buttons and a joystick. While slow to catch on due to its difficulty, it still was a favorite game.

Concept: Almost all of the shoot-em-up games of the era were horizontal shote-em-ups. This game changed the playing field when you are a vertical shooter. Just as before aliens are intent to do nasty what to earth - this time they are trying kidnap 10 humans. You are in charge of the only real defender and must kill the aliens before they kidnap the humans. You fly over a 'landscape' and will see your humans mulling around at first glance. The aliens appear and drop towards the humans - you can kill them at this time, but should they grab an alien, you need to shoot the alien, and catch the human before the alien reaches the most notable of the screen.

Game play: This is a great game that was easy to play but tough to master. Shooting the aliens and catching the humans gave the very best bonuses, which formed a major section of the strategy. There were some different type of aliens that chased you making the game a lot more hectic than others; often it was just a relief to finish a level. While not as addictive as some, it did give a feeling of achievement when you reached a high score.

Nostalgia: I continued vacation with a friend for weekly and we spent the entire week in the arcade playing this game and the main game on my list (I will not reveal the name now!). It was one of the better memories of my teen years!

5. Missile Command

Origins: In July 1980, Atari published a revolutionary game. It didn't have a joystick, but had a ball that controlled an on screen cursor. It was programmed by Dave Theurer and licensed to Sega.

Concept: Those pesky aliens are receiving smarter. Instead of sending space ships right down to fight, they're hiding in deep space and sending a bunch of missiles to blow up the Earth's cities. This game was unique since it use a 'round' joystick. You used this to move to a spot on the screen and then fire a missile into this spot - the culminating explosion would destroy any missiles that hit the 'cloud'. The missiles were essentially lines that moved down from the top of the screen at varying angles and speeds - a number of them would put into multiple 'missiles' half way down.

Game play: this is a very strategic game. Placing your bombs in the right place and timing them right could essentially clear the alien missiles quickly and easily. As the game move on you found yourself spinning the wheel frantically trying to get the bombs in the right place. This game was adrenalin pumping fun - sometimes you appeared to be against impossible odds and yet you'd breath a sigh of relief when one city survived.

Nostalgia: this was among the first games I played on a table top machine. While these didn't really catch on, it was still fun to be able to put a can of soda down when you played!

4. Breakout

Origin: This game was heavily inspired by Pong. It was created in 1976 by Atari, with Nolan Busnell and Stew Bristow being the key designers. It's probably just about the most cloned games ever, even today you can find new games using the same theme developing. Apparently the Apple II computer was inspired by this game - wow where would Steve Jobs be now without Breakout.

Concept: The idea is simple - you have a bat in the bottom of the screen that can move backwards and forwards. Above you is really a wall of bricks. A ball will move from your own bat - each time it collides with a brick, the brick disappears and the ball bounce back at you. Your task is easy - stop the ball going off the bottom of the screen by placing your bat in the way and bouncing the ball back at the wall - you might also need to remove all of the bricks in the wall to progress to the next level!

Game play: that is a fairly difficult game to understand. As the bricks get lower each level and the ball speed increases, it becomes more and more difficult to 'break out'. Also, sometimes the angle that the ball comes off the bat is so acute that it's very difficult to judge where the ball will bounce! It's one of those games where you merely keep on saying 'just yet another game' and before you know it five hours have passed.

Nostalgia: when I lived in Wales we had just a little utility room that housed books and my little ZX Spectrum - I used to invest hours playing this game as my dad sat and studied. It was like a male bonding session!

3. Hang On

Origin: This game was released in 1985 and was developed by Sega. It had been among the first '3D' racing games and something of the first ever to introduce a 'realistic' aid to playing the overall game - that it a more substantial replica motorcycle style cabinet, with speedo, brakes and a throttle. This game became the benchmark for future racing games and result in the highly praised Out Run series. The overall game cleverly used 'billboards' and trees to provide you with the feel that you're moving at high speed.

Concept: You are a motorcycle racer - you sit on top of a bike and also have to race around a 3d race track, overtaking other riders and reaching certain checkpoints inside a time limit. The game featuring different places and conditions (such as for example night).

Game play: Another easy game to play but very difficult to master. Timing the turns was essential, especially if other bikers got truly in the way. Each slight touch of another bike, or crash right into a barrier slowed you down and made it harder to reach the checkpoint with time. The awesome graphics (for enough time) made this game pleasurable to play as you really felt you were in a race. It is another game that kept you coming back for more.

Nostalgia: As a youngster I always wanted a real motorbike, so this gave me a feeling that I actually had one. I was very good as of this game (an d Pole Position) and constantly had my name on the high score table - it's possibly the only game I could truly say I was a master.

2. Pacman

Origin: Developed by Toru Iwatani, and programmed by Hideyuki Moakajima San, this game came out in mid 1980. The name comes from a phrase that pertains to the sound when your mouth opens and closes (allegedly). Namco produced the game, but it really became popular in the us when Midway released it.

Concept: You're Pacman and you are very hungry. You find a maze filled with 'dots' and zip around eating them. Unfortunately there's some ghosts who aren't too happy relating to this and they will chase you and eat you - but hey, there's some really big dots that provide you the energy to banish the ghosts back to their central cage. The maze is complex, filling the complete screen, but there are no dead ends - gleam passage way between each side of the screen. In the guts, may be the cage that holds the ghosts - occasionally bonus fruit appear next to the cage. You essentially need to eat all the dots so as to progress.

Game play: This is usually a simple concept, but with pretty decent graphics and an addictive tune it became an enormous success. There is a lot of technique to the game - each ghost follows a set pattern (although eventually they'll forget this and follow you) - in fact there are books dedicated on the very best route to avoiding the ghosts. The game gets harder as you go, with the ghosts speeding up and getting smarter.

Nostalgia: there's something concerning the music in this game that's just so catching -even as I write it I can hear it in my own mind. It's one of the first games that I can remember using music as a significant selling point. I wasted many hours playing this game, and even though I was never great I always had fun attempting to devise new routes. It is also probably my most successful programming achievement - I designed a version of this for the Acorn Atom and I actually sold several hundred copies (again in Germany) - I am proud that as a twelve year old, I was able to use logic and programming skills and make some cash doing it.

1. Asteroids

Origin: It's truly amazing to believe that this game was first released in 1979 - I've been playing it for 30 years now! Produced by Atari and created by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, the overall game cleverly used vector graphics and real inertia physics to convert a simple concept right into a classic game.

Concept: Your little space ship has strayed into an asteroid belt. By using thrusters, a trusty laser cannon and a hyperspace unit, you must move your spaceship in all directions over the screen and avoid the asteroids. It is possible to go anywhere on the screen and also going off the edge is OK - it just happens to be a wrap around universe. The asteroids come at you from all angles. Initially they are large, and are fairly slow. Once hit they put into smaller asteroids, and these smaller asteroids split again - small the asteroid the faster it goes. Occasionally a nasty alien ship can look and start firing at you - he'll occasionally hit the asteroids and split them. The idea of the game is easy - destroy all of the asteroids without colliding into them or getting shot by an alien.

Action: Wow what can I say. To essentially succeed at this game you must use strategy - firing at all asteroids will fill the screen with plenty of small fast moving asteroids, making it difficult in order to avoid collisions. Which means game required that you pick off one asteroid at the same time, and then deal with small asteroids. While achieving this, you also had to maneuver gingerly; with real inertia, you often found yourself drifting without realizing it and suddenly you'd be in the center of 4 or 5 asteroids.