Top Ten Classic Video Games

10. Pong

Origins: Pong was based on a casino game called 'Tennis for Two' that was a simulation of a game of tennis on an oscilloscope. Physicist William Higinbotham, the designer, falls in history as creating one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display.

The Concept: The game is supposed to represent a 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 on the top and bottom of the screen. A ball is 'served' and moves towards one player - that player must move the bat so the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back the other way. Depending on where the ball hits the bat, the ball will move around in different directions - should it hit among the top or bottom lines, then it'll bounce off. The theory is simply to make the other player miss the ball - thus scoring a point.

Game play: while it sounds utterly boring, the game play is actually very addictive. You can easily play but very hard to understand, especially with faster ball speeds, and 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 will always remember this game!

9. Frogger

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

betwing88 : Easy - you wish to walk in one side of the street to the other. Wait one minute - there's lots of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Made it - hang on, who put that river there. Better join those turtles and logs and get to another side - hold on that's a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy - the cars and logs are in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the amount of logs and cars, and the speed may differ. You need to move you frog up, down left and right, avoiding the cars, jumping on logs and avoiding nasty creatures and obtain home - do this several times and you move to another level.

Game Play: Just one more simple concept that is amazingly addictive. This game depends on timing; you find yourself 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 most reasons. I played it for some time, but hardly ever really became an expert - however, it had been the initial 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 first shooting video gaming and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.

betwing88 : aliens are invading the planet earth in 'blocks' by moving down the screen gradually. As the intrepid savior of the Earth it's your task to utilize 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, however they provide some protection from the alien's missiles.

betwing88 : this is the very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts a little nearer to you, and moves a little fast - so every new wave is really a harder challenge. The game involved a fair level of strategy in addition to good hand eye co-ordination.

Nostalgia: I wasted considerable 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!