Donkey Kong This classic game first appeared at the arcades in 1981, and was the first to introduce such characters as Mario, Donkey Kong and Peach. Donkey Kong was the product of a Nintendo artist named Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto did the entire game himself (even the music), the only help he got was with the name. He and a manager decided they'd call it "Donkey Kong" because "kong" would imply a gorilla was involved, and "donkey" was used because their Japanese-to-English dictionary said it meant "stubborn, wily, and goofy." The story : Donkey Kong has stolen Mario's girlfriend and taken her to the top of a steel structure. You move Mario over girders and up ladders, leap over tumbling barrels, dodge lethal fireballs and jump onto fast-moving elevators, trying to rescue Mario's girlfriend from Donkey Kong.
Frogger Strangely addictive game that I remember playing on my old Amstrad PC back in the day when Windows and MS-DOS was still in its embryotic stages. You are the frog and your task is to make it across the road without being hit by traffic, and finally make it across the river by skilfully hitching a ride on the floating logs. Sounds simple enough, but it's the end pockets which are the hardest - and watch out for those pesky crocodiles!
Pacman If you haven't played this all time classic game it must be because you've been hiding out in a shack on top of a mountain in Montana for the last 20+ years. The object of the game is to move around the small yellow blob (Pacman) and chomp up the white dots. Oh, and watch out for Blinky, Pinky, Inkey, and Clyde (the spooky ghosts).
Space Invaders You can't get anymore retro than this classic shoot-em-up game. Yes, the graphics are chunky - a far cry from X-Box or PS2 standards - but at the time it seemed like 'space-age' technology.
Tetris Tetris is life. Think about it : As time passes, life's little problems incessantly pour down in chunks. Somehow, someway, you must conquer these hurdles, fitting them together so you can move on. Ok, maybe I'm taking the metaphor too far. In any case, this is one of the all time classic games and it was Alexey Pajitnov who created Tetris on an Electronica 60 while working for the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Tetris was released in the United States in 1986. The game's popularity was tremendous, and many were instantly hooked - it was a software blockbuster.
