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It’s easy to talk about old games as if they were all classics, but there are many games out there that really could do with being locked away in a vault, never to see the light of a VDU screen again. Classic games are often ones that made a big impact at the time they were released and have that special replay value that other games can only aspire to have.
A classic game is one that is well designed and doesn’t have too many flaws or bugs. It transcends any loss of graphical flare from the wear of time and you don’t even care that the sound is a series of plinky-plonky noises that can barely be called music.
Classics are not called classics on a whim, and although many people agree on a game’s status, not everyone will consider a game in the same light. I decided to think about some of the games I would label as classics myself and briefly describe why I thought these games deserved this title.
Pacman
Games from as far back as gaming history goes have been labelled classics, PacMan is one such game. The simple formula of putting a small round blob in a maze and then adding lots of small pills for him to eat before he can complete the level is either pure genius or madness. Either way, it was a big hit in the new fangled arcades that were springing up at the time.
It takes something this simple to show what gaming can achieve and it’s a testament to that game that it is played by many people across the world today. Online versions, 3D versions and many other variations of Pac-Man have been released over the years, but the one main constant in most successful versions of the game was that the gameplay kept the same simple rules, maybe adding bits here and there, but mostly keeping that famous Pac-Man formula.
Gauntlet.
A game that brought dungeons and dragons to the arcade with style. Gauntlet became popular partly for the fact that you couldn’t really miss the cabinet, due to the fact that it had four joystick and every few minutes would suggest that ‘red elf has shot the food’. It wasn’t the first time that speech had been used in a game, but the phrases in this one would stick in the minds of gamers for years to come.
The game involved up to four players taking on the form of elves, dwarves, valkyries and wizards in a quest to get through the many mazes full of ghosts, ghouls and other nasty critters. The action was pretty simple, shoot enemies, collect food and keys and find the exit. Some levels had objectives, others were a mad rush to get out alive.
In the end people came back because the experience of playing in co-operation with 3 friends was something new and cool, being able to shoot your team-mates led to some pretty nasty quarrels too! The levels were vast at times and there were enough to make the game one of the busiest ones in the arcade, but the home conversions really started the rush to create exciting multi-player games and succeeded in re-creating the fun of the arcade Gauntlet experience.
Tetris.
Everyone and their mother knows this game. It seems ridiculous that Nintendo only needed one title to make their new handheld Gameboy unit successful. The fact that it was a puzzle game made its popularity even more surprising. The idea, as everyone knows, is to rotate and move falling blocks so they fit together in a line at the bottom of the screen.
The idea was so simple and the fact that there were no characters or storylines meant that many people who’d never even played a videogame before soon took to this Russian masterpiece of minimalist construction. This game just blossomed and grew in popularity that at one point it even graced the side of a building during the world’s biggest game of Tetris! Perhaps it is a testament to the simplicity of the thing or to Nintendo’s ability to sell a handhold console that everyone wanted, but Tetris had that instant appeal and more than that, it still has it, even after all this time.
Super Mario (NES). Platform games had been done before Nintendo came up with this gem. They’d been pretty successful too, but the small Italian plumber would show them how it was really done in platform land. The game involved jumping, running and collecting and that was about it, but the characters and scenery just made this something special.
For the first time a real games character had been created, seemingly coming on to the scene with a history, family and his own enemies all thought out in advance. There was a definite feeling of this character being something more than just a set of pixels. Of course, Mario had starred in games before and many more games since, but the NES version really pulled all the characters together like never before and gave the other platform developers something to aspire to.
Elite.
The BBC Micro didn’t have too many memorable games, it was used more as an educational machine, but where there were kids, there was bound to be an instant audience for gaming. Games were starting to get talked about in school and kids were pulling parents to get one of those shiny new 8-bit wonders from their local Boots or WHSmiths stores. The pace had been set for gaming and home gamers experienced the thrill of playing arcade machines at home, all that instant action.
But something appeared that gamers had never seen before, a game where you could fly through the universe and trade with alien races or become a bounty hunter or pirate, looting other ships. This wasn’t some dumb text adventure, it was mapped out right in front of the gamers eyes in pure wireframe. Game players found themselves getting lost in a game that was increasingly using up their spare time, they would aspire to get to the next status, finally getting the much sought Elite status. There was talk of witch space, that area of space where you were lucky to come out alive, of vicious alien ships with powerful weapons and of planets with untold riches.
Elite changed gaming by changing the rules, it immersed the player in the game with its graphics and surprised everyone with the depth of the game. Pretty soon it was the stuff of legend and even now many gamers wish for a modern version that would do the original justice.
These are just a few of the games that are often thought of as classics, there are many more, but they all gave us something memorable and entertaining. These games were probably responsible for taking up many gamers childhood or getting people interested in games in the first place. Time moves on though, and soon the current generation of games will be looked back on. Among these will be the modern classics of gaming, perhaps including such titles as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Gran Turismo. Only time will tell.
A classic game is one that is well designed and doesn’t have too many flaws or bugs. It transcends any loss of graphical flare from the wear of time and you don’t even care that the sound is a series of plinky-plonky noises that can barely be called music.
Classics are not called classics on a whim, and although many people agree on a game’s status, not everyone will consider a game in the same light. I decided to think about some of the games I would label as classics myself and briefly describe why I thought these games deserved this title.
Pacman
Games from as far back as gaming history goes have been labelled classics, PacMan is one such game. The simple formula of putting a small round blob in a maze and then adding lots of small pills for him to eat before he can complete the level is either pure genius or madness. Either way, it was a big hit in the new fangled arcades that were springing up at the time.
It takes something this simple to show what gaming can achieve and it’s a testament to that game that it is played by many people across the world today. Online versions, 3D versions and many other variations of Pac-Man have been released over the years, but the one main constant in most successful versions of the game was that the gameplay kept the same simple rules, maybe adding bits here and there, but mostly keeping that famous Pac-Man formula.
Gauntlet.
A game that brought dungeons and dragons to the arcade with style. Gauntlet became popular partly for the fact that you couldn’t really miss the cabinet, due to the fact that it had four joystick and every few minutes would suggest that ‘red elf has shot the food’. It wasn’t the first time that speech had been used in a game, but the phrases in this one would stick in the minds of gamers for years to come.
The game involved up to four players taking on the form of elves, dwarves, valkyries and wizards in a quest to get through the many mazes full of ghosts, ghouls and other nasty critters. The action was pretty simple, shoot enemies, collect food and keys and find the exit. Some levels had objectives, others were a mad rush to get out alive.
In the end people came back because the experience of playing in co-operation with 3 friends was something new and cool, being able to shoot your team-mates led to some pretty nasty quarrels too! The levels were vast at times and there were enough to make the game one of the busiest ones in the arcade, but the home conversions really started the rush to create exciting multi-player games and succeeded in re-creating the fun of the arcade Gauntlet experience.
Tetris.
Everyone and their mother knows this game. It seems ridiculous that Nintendo only needed one title to make their new handheld Gameboy unit successful. The fact that it was a puzzle game made its popularity even more surprising. The idea, as everyone knows, is to rotate and move falling blocks so they fit together in a line at the bottom of the screen.
The idea was so simple and the fact that there were no characters or storylines meant that many people who’d never even played a videogame before soon took to this Russian masterpiece of minimalist construction. This game just blossomed and grew in popularity that at one point it even graced the side of a building during the world’s biggest game of Tetris! Perhaps it is a testament to the simplicity of the thing or to Nintendo’s ability to sell a handhold console that everyone wanted, but Tetris had that instant appeal and more than that, it still has it, even after all this time.
Super Mario (NES). Platform games had been done before Nintendo came up with this gem. They’d been pretty successful too, but the small Italian plumber would show them how it was really done in platform land. The game involved jumping, running and collecting and that was about it, but the characters and scenery just made this something special.
For the first time a real games character had been created, seemingly coming on to the scene with a history, family and his own enemies all thought out in advance. There was a definite feeling of this character being something more than just a set of pixels. Of course, Mario had starred in games before and many more games since, but the NES version really pulled all the characters together like never before and gave the other platform developers something to aspire to.
Elite.
The BBC Micro didn’t have too many memorable games, it was used more as an educational machine, but where there were kids, there was bound to be an instant audience for gaming. Games were starting to get talked about in school and kids were pulling parents to get one of those shiny new 8-bit wonders from their local Boots or WHSmiths stores. The pace had been set for gaming and home gamers experienced the thrill of playing arcade machines at home, all that instant action.
But something appeared that gamers had never seen before, a game where you could fly through the universe and trade with alien races or become a bounty hunter or pirate, looting other ships. This wasn’t some dumb text adventure, it was mapped out right in front of the gamers eyes in pure wireframe. Game players found themselves getting lost in a game that was increasingly using up their spare time, they would aspire to get to the next status, finally getting the much sought Elite status. There was talk of witch space, that area of space where you were lucky to come out alive, of vicious alien ships with powerful weapons and of planets with untold riches.
Elite changed gaming by changing the rules, it immersed the player in the game with its graphics and surprised everyone with the depth of the game. Pretty soon it was the stuff of legend and even now many gamers wish for a modern version that would do the original justice.
These are just a few of the games that are often thought of as classics, there are many more, but they all gave us something memorable and entertaining. These games were probably responsible for taking up many gamers childhood or getting people interested in games in the first place. Time moves on though, and soon the current generation of games will be looked back on. Among these will be the modern classics of gaming, perhaps including such titles as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Gran Turismo. Only time will tell.
Page:
Yeah good post AGAIN pb! Someone in the SR Bugs forum asked 'Are you Danni??' lol! Only cuz in the mag. it says 'Danni doesn't buy games she wins them!' and they assumed that cuz you won so much you might be Danni! I don't reckon you are, cuz she's probably too busy modelling or something...
Nice post pb! GAD winner for sure...
Nice post..
I see you are doing your best to hit the big 30...and you have an extra 2 weeks too! its like they knew
mwuahaa
yeah hmm meh
I see you are doing your best to hit the big 30...and you have an extra 2 weeks too! its like they knew
mwuahaa
yeah hmm meh
AliBoy wrote:
> I personally wouldn't say Elite was a
> classic,
That's what I mean about people having differing opinions, but I would guess that Elite was considered a classic by a large percentage of gamers who have been playing since the 80's.
> I personally wouldn't say Elite was a
> classic,
That's what I mean about people having differing opinions, but I would guess that Elite was considered a classic by a large percentage of gamers who have been playing since the 80's.
Nice post, you never fail to impress. Shame for the rset of us who posted today as I think this has to be the winner.
I personally wouldn't say Elite was a classic, there aren't many games out there that can be described as classics but I just hope that there are more to come.
I personally wouldn't say Elite was a classic, there aren't many games out there that can be described as classics but I just hope that there are more to come.
Great post.
"red elf has shot the food"
I love stuff like that so much... I'm going to have to write a topic about that soon. :0)
"red elf has shot the food"
I love stuff like that so much... I'm going to have to write a topic about that soon. :0)
It’s easy to talk about old games as if they were all classics, but there are many games out there that really could do with being locked away in a vault, never to see the light of a VDU screen again. Classic games are often ones that made a big impact at the time they were released and have that special replay value that other games can only aspire to have.
A classic game is one that is well designed and doesn’t have too many flaws or bugs. It transcends any loss of graphical flare from the wear of time and you don’t even care that the sound is a series of plinky-plonky noises that can barely be called music.
Classics are not called classics on a whim, and although many people agree on a game’s status, not everyone will consider a game in the same light. I decided to think about some of the games I would label as classics myself and briefly describe why I thought these games deserved this title.
Pacman
Games from as far back as gaming history goes have been labelled classics, PacMan is one such game. The simple formula of putting a small round blob in a maze and then adding lots of small pills for him to eat before he can complete the level is either pure genius or madness. Either way, it was a big hit in the new fangled arcades that were springing up at the time.
It takes something this simple to show what gaming can achieve and it’s a testament to that game that it is played by many people across the world today. Online versions, 3D versions and many other variations of Pac-Man have been released over the years, but the one main constant in most successful versions of the game was that the gameplay kept the same simple rules, maybe adding bits here and there, but mostly keeping that famous Pac-Man formula.
Gauntlet.
A game that brought dungeons and dragons to the arcade with style. Gauntlet became popular partly for the fact that you couldn’t really miss the cabinet, due to the fact that it had four joystick and every few minutes would suggest that ‘red elf has shot the food’. It wasn’t the first time that speech had been used in a game, but the phrases in this one would stick in the minds of gamers for years to come.
The game involved up to four players taking on the form of elves, dwarves, valkyries and wizards in a quest to get through the many mazes full of ghosts, ghouls and other nasty critters. The action was pretty simple, shoot enemies, collect food and keys and find the exit. Some levels had objectives, others were a mad rush to get out alive.
In the end people came back because the experience of playing in co-operation with 3 friends was something new and cool, being able to shoot your team-mates led to some pretty nasty quarrels too! The levels were vast at times and there were enough to make the game one of the busiest ones in the arcade, but the home conversions really started the rush to create exciting multi-player games and succeeded in re-creating the fun of the arcade Gauntlet experience.
Tetris.
Everyone and their mother knows this game. It seems ridiculous that Nintendo only needed one title to make their new handheld Gameboy unit successful. The fact that it was a puzzle game made its popularity even more surprising. The idea, as everyone knows, is to rotate and move falling blocks so they fit together in a line at the bottom of the screen.
The idea was so simple and the fact that there were no characters or storylines meant that many people who’d never even played a videogame before soon took to this Russian masterpiece of minimalist construction. This game just blossomed and grew in popularity that at one point it even graced the side of a building during the world’s biggest game of Tetris! Perhaps it is a testament to the simplicity of the thing or to Nintendo’s ability to sell a handhold console that everyone wanted, but Tetris had that instant appeal and more than that, it still has it, even after all this time.
Super Mario (NES). Platform games had been done before Nintendo came up with this gem. They’d been pretty successful too, but the small Italian plumber would show them how it was really done in platform land. The game involved jumping, running and collecting and that was about it, but the characters and scenery just made this something special.
For the first time a real games character had been created, seemingly coming on to the scene with a history, family and his own enemies all thought out in advance. There was a definite feeling of this character being something more than just a set of pixels. Of course, Mario had starred in games before and many more games since, but the NES version really pulled all the characters together like never before and gave the other platform developers something to aspire to.
Elite.
The BBC Micro didn’t have too many memorable games, it was used more as an educational machine, but where there were kids, there was bound to be an instant audience for gaming. Games were starting to get talked about in school and kids were pulling parents to get one of those shiny new 8-bit wonders from their local Boots or WHSmiths stores. The pace had been set for gaming and home gamers experienced the thrill of playing arcade machines at home, all that instant action.
But something appeared that gamers had never seen before, a game where you could fly through the universe and trade with alien races or become a bounty hunter or pirate, looting other ships. This wasn’t some dumb text adventure, it was mapped out right in front of the gamers eyes in pure wireframe. Game players found themselves getting lost in a game that was increasingly using up their spare time, they would aspire to get to the next status, finally getting the much sought Elite status. There was talk of witch space, that area of space where you were lucky to come out alive, of vicious alien ships with powerful weapons and of planets with untold riches.
Elite changed gaming by changing the rules, it immersed the player in the game with its graphics and surprised everyone with the depth of the game. Pretty soon it was the stuff of legend and even now many gamers wish for a modern version that would do the original justice.
These are just a few of the games that are often thought of as classics, there are many more, but they all gave us something memorable and entertaining. These games were probably responsible for taking up many gamers childhood or getting people interested in games in the first place. Time moves on though, and soon the current generation of games will be looked back on. Among these will be the modern classics of gaming, perhaps including such titles as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Gran Turismo. Only time will tell.
A classic game is one that is well designed and doesn’t have too many flaws or bugs. It transcends any loss of graphical flare from the wear of time and you don’t even care that the sound is a series of plinky-plonky noises that can barely be called music.
Classics are not called classics on a whim, and although many people agree on a game’s status, not everyone will consider a game in the same light. I decided to think about some of the games I would label as classics myself and briefly describe why I thought these games deserved this title.
Pacman
Games from as far back as gaming history goes have been labelled classics, PacMan is one such game. The simple formula of putting a small round blob in a maze and then adding lots of small pills for him to eat before he can complete the level is either pure genius or madness. Either way, it was a big hit in the new fangled arcades that were springing up at the time.
It takes something this simple to show what gaming can achieve and it’s a testament to that game that it is played by many people across the world today. Online versions, 3D versions and many other variations of Pac-Man have been released over the years, but the one main constant in most successful versions of the game was that the gameplay kept the same simple rules, maybe adding bits here and there, but mostly keeping that famous Pac-Man formula.
Gauntlet.
A game that brought dungeons and dragons to the arcade with style. Gauntlet became popular partly for the fact that you couldn’t really miss the cabinet, due to the fact that it had four joystick and every few minutes would suggest that ‘red elf has shot the food’. It wasn’t the first time that speech had been used in a game, but the phrases in this one would stick in the minds of gamers for years to come.
The game involved up to four players taking on the form of elves, dwarves, valkyries and wizards in a quest to get through the many mazes full of ghosts, ghouls and other nasty critters. The action was pretty simple, shoot enemies, collect food and keys and find the exit. Some levels had objectives, others were a mad rush to get out alive.
In the end people came back because the experience of playing in co-operation with 3 friends was something new and cool, being able to shoot your team-mates led to some pretty nasty quarrels too! The levels were vast at times and there were enough to make the game one of the busiest ones in the arcade, but the home conversions really started the rush to create exciting multi-player games and succeeded in re-creating the fun of the arcade Gauntlet experience.
Tetris.
Everyone and their mother knows this game. It seems ridiculous that Nintendo only needed one title to make their new handheld Gameboy unit successful. The fact that it was a puzzle game made its popularity even more surprising. The idea, as everyone knows, is to rotate and move falling blocks so they fit together in a line at the bottom of the screen.
The idea was so simple and the fact that there were no characters or storylines meant that many people who’d never even played a videogame before soon took to this Russian masterpiece of minimalist construction. This game just blossomed and grew in popularity that at one point it even graced the side of a building during the world’s biggest game of Tetris! Perhaps it is a testament to the simplicity of the thing or to Nintendo’s ability to sell a handhold console that everyone wanted, but Tetris had that instant appeal and more than that, it still has it, even after all this time.
Super Mario (NES). Platform games had been done before Nintendo came up with this gem. They’d been pretty successful too, but the small Italian plumber would show them how it was really done in platform land. The game involved jumping, running and collecting and that was about it, but the characters and scenery just made this something special.
For the first time a real games character had been created, seemingly coming on to the scene with a history, family and his own enemies all thought out in advance. There was a definite feeling of this character being something more than just a set of pixels. Of course, Mario had starred in games before and many more games since, but the NES version really pulled all the characters together like never before and gave the other platform developers something to aspire to.
Elite.
The BBC Micro didn’t have too many memorable games, it was used more as an educational machine, but where there were kids, there was bound to be an instant audience for gaming. Games were starting to get talked about in school and kids were pulling parents to get one of those shiny new 8-bit wonders from their local Boots or WHSmiths stores. The pace had been set for gaming and home gamers experienced the thrill of playing arcade machines at home, all that instant action.
But something appeared that gamers had never seen before, a game where you could fly through the universe and trade with alien races or become a bounty hunter or pirate, looting other ships. This wasn’t some dumb text adventure, it was mapped out right in front of the gamers eyes in pure wireframe. Game players found themselves getting lost in a game that was increasingly using up their spare time, they would aspire to get to the next status, finally getting the much sought Elite status. There was talk of witch space, that area of space where you were lucky to come out alive, of vicious alien ships with powerful weapons and of planets with untold riches.
Elite changed gaming by changing the rules, it immersed the player in the game with its graphics and surprised everyone with the depth of the game. Pretty soon it was the stuff of legend and even now many gamers wish for a modern version that would do the original justice.
These are just a few of the games that are often thought of as classics, there are many more, but they all gave us something memorable and entertaining. These games were probably responsible for taking up many gamers childhood or getting people interested in games in the first place. Time moves on though, and soon the current generation of games will be looked back on. Among these will be the modern classics of gaming, perhaps including such titles as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Gran Turismo. Only time will tell.
Page: