10. Pong

Origins: Pong was based on a game called ‘Tennis for Two’ which was a simulation of a game of tennis on an oscilloscope. Physicist William Higinbotham, the designer, goes down in history as creating among the first electronic games to employ a graphical display.

The Concept: The game is intended to represent a casino game of Tennis or Table Tennis (TABLE TENNIS). Each player has a bat; the bat can be moved vertically. The screen has two horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the screen. A ball is ‘served’ and moves towards one player – that player must move the bat in order that the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back another way. Depending on where betwing88 hits the bat, the ball will move around in different directions – should it hit one of the top or bottom lines, then it’ll bounce off. betwing88 is simply to make the other player skip the ball – thus scoring a point.

Game play: although it sounds utterly boring, the overall game play is in fact very addictive. It is easy to play but very difficult to understand, especially with faster ball speeds, and much more acute angles of ‘bounce’.

Nostalgia: for me it is the father of video gaming. Without Pong you probably wouldn’t have video games – it started the craze that could continue grow and become a multi-billion dollar industry. I’ll remember this game!

9. Frogger

Origins: this game was developed by Konami in 1981, and was the first game to introduce me to Sega. At that time it was very novel and introduced a fresh style of game.

The Concept: Easy – you wish to walk in one side of the street to another. Wait a minute – there’s a lot of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Managed to get – hang on, who put that river there. Better jump on those turtles and logs and move on to the other side – hang on that is clearly a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy – the cars and logs come in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the number of logs and cars, and the speed may differ. You must move you frog up, down left and right, preventing the cars, jumping on logs and avoiding nasty creatures and get home – do this several times and you move to another level.

Game Play: Another simple concept that’s amazingly addictive. This game relies on timing; you’re dinking in and out of traffic, and sometimes going nowhere. The graphics are poor, the sound is terrible, however the adrenalin really pumps as you try to avoid that very fast car, or the snake that is hunting you down!

Nostalgia: I really like this game for many reasons. I played it for a long period, but hardly ever really became a specialist – however, it was the first ever game I were able to reproduce using Basic on my ZX81 – I even sold about 50 copies in Germany!

8. Space Invaders

Origins: Tomohiro Nishikada, the designer of Space Invaders was inspired by Star Wars and War of the Worlds. He produced on of the initial shooting video games and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.

The Concept: aliens are invading the planet earth in ‘blocks’ by moving down the screen gradually. As the intrepid savior of the planet earth it’s your task to use your solitary laser cannon, by moving horizontally, and zapping those dastardly aliens out from the sky. Luckily, you have four bases to cover up behind – these eventually disintegrate, but they provide some protection from the alien’s missiles.

Game Play: this is the very repetitive game, but highly addictive. betwing88 starts just a little nearer to you, and moves just a little fast – so every new wave is a harder challenge. The overall game involved a fair level of strategy as well as good hand eye co-ordination.

Nostalgia: I wasted lots of time playing this game. While originally simply green aliens attacked, some clever geek added color strips to the screen and the aliens magically changed color the low they got – that has been about as hi-tech as it got back in the days of monochrome video games!