The 27 Greatest Video Games of the 1980s
The 1980s contribute 27 of the game canon's all-time entries, led by Tetris (1985). Rankings aggregate 17 authoritative lists; every entry links to its full evidence.
1. Tetris
Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer, in the mid-1980s. In Tetris, falling pieces consisting of four connected blocks, known as tetrominoes, must be sorted into a pile. Once a horizontal line of the playfield is filled with blocks, the line disappears, granting points and preventing the pile from reaching the top.
2. Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze video game developed by General Computer Corporation (GCC) and published by Midway Manufacturing for arcades. It is a sequel to Pac-Man (1980), and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco.
3. Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Directed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, it is the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.
4. Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the Kong family of simians. Donkey Kong games include the original arcade game trilogy by Nintendo R&D1; the Donkey Kong Country series by Rare and Retro Studios; and the Mario vs.
5. The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is a video game series created by Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, but some installments and re-releases have been outsourced to Flagship, Grezzo, and Tantalus Media.
6. Galaga
Galaga is a 1981 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It was released by Midway Manufacturing in North America. It is the sequel to 1979's Galaxian, and the second game in the Galaxian series.
7. Robotron 2084
Robotron: 2084 (also referred to simply as Robotron) is a twin-stick shooter video game developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released by Williams Electronics for arcades in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a dystopian future where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt.
8. Defender
Defender(s) or The Defender(s) may refer to…
9. Warlords
Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of history, albeit in a variety of different capacities within the political, economic, and social structure of states or ungoverned territories.
10. Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite ( or ; from French: élite, from Latin: eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful or wealthy people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "the richest, most powerful, best-educated, or best-trained group in a society".
11. Herzog Zwei
Herzog Zwei (pronounced [ˈhɛʁtsoːk ˈtsvaɪ]; German for 'Duke Two') is a real-time strategy video game developed by Technosoft and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis. An early real-time strategy game, it predates the genre-popularizing Dune II. It was released first in Japan in 1989 and worldwide in 1990.
12. A Mind Forever Voyaging
A Mind Forever Voyaging is a 1985 interactive fiction game written and designed by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom. Set in a future United States in 2031, players assume the role of PRISM, an artificial intelligence tasked to observe the impact of sweeping conservative policies on a simulated South Dakota town over several decades, leading to societal and ecological collapse.
13. The Sentinel
Sentinel may refer to…
14. Gauntlet
Gauntlet or the gauntlet may refer to…
15. Arkanoid
Arkanoid is a block breaker video game developed by Taito. It was released in arcades in 1986 by Taito and in North America by Romstar. The game revitalized the concept established by Atari, Inc.'s successful Breakout from a decade earlier and established the model for numerous games to follow.
16. Metroid
Metroid is an action-adventure game franchise created by Nintendo. The player controls the bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from Space Pirates and their attempts to harness the power of the parasitic Metroid creatures. Metroid combines the platforming of Super Mario Bros.
17. Frogger
Frogger is a 1981 action video game developed by Konami and published by Sega for arcades. It was released in North America by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs, turtles, and alligators.
18. Marble Madness
Marble Madness is a 1984 platform game designed by Mark Cerny and published by Atari Games Inc. for arcades. Set in an isometric perspective, the game tasks the player with guiding a marble through six courses, populated with obstacles and enemies, within a time limit.
19. Manic Miner
Manic Miner is a platform game written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith. It was published by Bug-Byte in 1983, then later the same year by Software Projects. The first game in the Miner Willy series, the design was inspired by Miner 2049er (1982) for the Atari 8-bit computers.
20. Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2 is a 1988 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. After the smash hit Super Mario Bros.
21. Populous
Populous may refer to…
22. Joust
Jousting is a medieval and renaissance martial game or hastilude between two combatants either on horse or on foot. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The term is derived from Old French joster, ultimately from Latin iuxtare "to approach, to meet".
23. Lode Runner
Lode Runner is a puzzle-platform game developed by Doug Smith and published by Broderbund in 1983. Its gameplay mechanics are similar to Space Panic from 1980. The player controls a character who must collect all the gold pieces in a level and reach the end while being chased by a number of enemies.
24. Mega Man 2
Mega Man 2, known in Japan as Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily, is a 1988 platform game developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was released in Japan in 1988 and in North America and PAL regions the following years.
25. Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia is a video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner. It is centered around a series of action-adventure games focused on various incarnations of the eponymous Prince, set in ancient and medieval Persia. The first two games in the series, Prince of Persia (1989) and Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame (1993), were published by Broderbund.
26. SimCity
SimCity is an open-ended city-building video game franchise originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, SimCity, was published by Maxis in 1989 and was followed by several sequels and many other spin-off Sim titles, including 2000's The Sims, which itself became a best-selling computer game and franchise.
27. Bubble Bobble
Bubble Bobble is a platform game series originally developed and published by Taito. The first entry in the series, Bubble Bobble, was released in 1986 as an arcade cabinet. In most entries in the series, players control two dragons named Bub and Bob.