Time for a walk down retro video lane. Let’s stipulate for the record that today’s video games are immensely better than the first wave of games that came out in the 80s. First of all, you get to play the best games like Halo or Call of Duty or John Madden Football from the comfort of your home. Does the couch really make a difference? No, but the pause button sure does! Try doing that once you drop a quarter into an arcade game. Still, those vintage arcade games had a lot going for them. You could go in, become the high scorer and leave your initials behind forever enshrined. That is until the next guy comes along and beats you. The following list of the best classic video games ever is 100% subjective but we can all agree these were some fun games:
Pac-Man
You really can’t talk about video games without talking about Pac-Man. The first time that great muncher showed up was in 1980. He was a hit right out of the box. You pretty much couldn’t go to any bar without hearing those wonderful electronic chomping sounds. It stands alone as the one video game that probably generated the most in Pac-Man related merchandise. It’s a safe bet that for anyone who has ever played video games, they played Pac-Man at least once.
Donkey Kong
Want to find out how obsessed some people are over Donkey Kong? Check out the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It’s about two grown men who built their lives around being Donkey Kong champs and their efforts to hold onto that title. Donkey Kong was one of the first video games with an actual storyline. That certainly paved the way for all the MMOs that followed. This is also where you first met Jumpman. He would later be identified as Mario who had a brother that turned out to be super.
Tron
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be beamed into a game? In Tron, the movie, you got an answer to that. In Tron, the video game, you got to play the games that were shown in the movie. Confusing? Not to the millions of fans who dropped millions on Tron. In fact, the video made a lot more money than the movie.
The Legend of Zelda
You know a game is successful if it spins off into a sequel. At the present, there are 19 Legend of Zelda sequels. This makes it one of the most successful and enduring video console games ever made. You get to play as Link, who has to run around the Kingdom of Hyrule to collect the Triforce and save Zelda. It’s fun to play the original game and then pick up the latest incarnation. Talk about advancements in video play.
Of course, there are hundreds more games that no doubt bring back found memories of wasted hours in a video arcade. Many of those games show up as “retro” versions on modern game systems. It’s the circle of video games.
