Critics Club IV: Greatest Game of 1980 - 1982

[Neon Ignition]

We move on to the 80's now for the second round of classic games that saw release, the industry and its recogniseable names on the rise in frequency as we progress in search of...

The Greatest Game of All Time

This second round we'll be choosing our favourites from the period of...

The Greatest Game of 1980 through 1982

Grouped together thanks to small output the 80's endured as gaming found itself birthed into consumer minds.

Which titles are your fondest remembered, which are the milestones and which is the very best?

[Neon Ignition]

It's surprising that these years lead up to the greta crahs of 83 and yet how quickly the number of well regarded, key name games increases over such a short span as soon as the 70's ended.

[Mr Ono]

During that period I only really played Defender, Scramble and Burger Time in our local arcade.

Oh, and Burning Rubber as well.

[wakka]

Interesting how quickly things step forward here. I wasn't born till 1990 so this is all well before my time, and I've only played a small fraction of what's on the list.

Pac-Man and DK are of course amazingly enduring (and still fun to play) but I think it's also notable that this is when Infocom kicked off. Zork and Deadline are amazingly sophisticated explorations of what a computer game could be considering the era. I don't think I realised they were this early in videogaming as a whole.

[Anpanman]

Some great memories here like playing Scramble, Rally-X at the arcades in Blackpool, Missile Command though was awesome. The control method was revolutionary and the game had a real presence in the arcade's.

Even though I never got into Pac-man, one thing this game and others at the time had was a great sound effect or throbbing backing note or intro jingle that stuck in your mind as well as any jingle on the radio.

Talking of presence and sound though, I certainly remember the first time I came across Defender, it was at the arcade on the Queens Building Heathrow in August 1981. What a bloody noise! No-one went near it - they were probably terrified but I did, the machine looked brand new, fresh out of the box and the gaming experience was simply like nothing anyone had seen before.

Spent the whole journey back home to Manchester on the coach thinking about the game.

Happy days.