Top Ten Classic VIDEO GAMING

10. Pong

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

The Concept: The game is supposed to represent a casino game of Tennis or PING PONG (TABLE TENNIS). Each player has a bat; the bat could 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 that the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back the other way. Depending on where in fact the ball hits the bat, the ball will move around in different directions - should it hit among the top or bottom lines, then it will bounce off. The idea is simply to help make the other player miss the ball - thus scoring a point.

Game play: although it sounds utterly boring, the game play is really very addictive. It is easy to play but very hard to master, especially with faster ball speeds, and much more acute angles of 'bounce'.

Nostalgia: for me this is the father of video games. Without Pong you almost certainly wouldn't have video gaming - it started the craze that would continue grow and become a multi-billion dollar industry. I'll always 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 IDEA: Easy - you would like to walk in one side of the street to another. Wait one minute - there's lots of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Managed to get - hang on, who put that river there. Better join those turtles and logs and move on to the other side - hold on that is clearly a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy - the cars and logs are in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the quantity of logs and cars, and the speed can vary. You must 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: Another simple concept that's amazingly addictive. This game depends on timing; you're dinking in and out of traffic, and sometimes going nowhere. The graphics are poor, the sound is terrible, but the adrenalin really pumps as you stay away from that very fast car, or the snake that's hunting you down!

Nostalgia: I really like this game for most reasons. I played it for some time, but never really became a specialist - however, it was the first ever game I managed 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 gaming 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 utilize your solitary laser cannon, by moving horizontally, and zapping those dastardly aliens out of the sky. Luckily, you have four bases to hide behind - these eventually disintegrate, but they provide some protection from the alien's missiles.

Game Play: that is a very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts a little closer to you, and moves just a little fast - so every new wave is a harder challenge. The overall game involved a fair amount of strategy along with good hand eye co-ordination.

Nostalgia: I wasted a lot 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 lower they got - that was about as hi-tech as it returned in the times of monochrome video games!

7. Galaxians

Origins: Galaxians expanded on the Space Invaders theme insurance firms aliens swoop down on the defender. It had been among the first games to possess colored sprites.

Concept: Take Space Invaders, then add color, remove the bases and make a few of the aliens swoop down at you and you also have Galaxians. Fundamentally the concept is the same as Space Invaders, you're defending the world against alien invaders, but rather compared to the whole screen full of aliens moving down at you in a nice orderly fashion, you get groups of aliens swooping down in haphazard ways.

holywin88 : if you liked Space Invaders then you'll love this. The strategies are different, as you often have to avoid two or three different sets of alien 'swoopers' but if you can shoot them because they swoop, then you get some good great bonus points. The game is difficult and soon you get used to some of the patterns

Nostalgia: this was among the first games that I played on a pc that was almost exactly like the arcade fame. I had an old Acorn Electron, which game was almost perfect with this little machine. I miss my old Acorn Electron!

6. Defender

Origins: This game was made by Williams Electronics in 1980. THE OVERALL GAME was designed by Eugen Jarvis, Sam Dicker, Paul Dussault and SLarry DeMar. It was one of the first games to feature complex controls, with five buttons and a joystick. While slow to catch on because of its difficulty, it still was a favorite game.

Concept: The majority of the shoot-em-up games of the era were horizontal shote-em-ups. This game changed the playing field by being a vertical shooter. Just as before aliens are intent to do nasty things to earth - this time they are trying kidnap 10 humans. You're in charge of the sole defender and must kill the aliens before they kidnap the humans. You fly over a 'landscape' and will see your humans mulling around on the surface. The aliens appear and drop towards the humans - you can kill them at this time, but should they grab an alien, you need to shoot the alien, and catch the human before the alien reaches the very best of the screen.

Game play: This is a great game that has been an easy task to play but tough to understand. Shooting the aliens and catching the humans gave the very best bonuses, and this formed a major the main strategy. There have been some different type of aliens that chased you making the overall game much more hectic than others; often it was just a relief to complete a level. Without as addictive as some, it did provide a feeling of achievement when you reached a higher score.

Nostalgia: I continued vacation with a friend for a week and we spent the complete week in the arcade playing this game and the main game on my list (I will not reveal the name now!). It had been the most effective memories of my teen years!

5. Missile Command

Origins: In July 1980, Atari published a revolutionary game. It didn't have a joystick, but had a ball that controlled an on screen cursor. It had been programmed by Dave Theurer and licensed to Sega.

Concept: Those pesky aliens are receiving smarter. Instead of sending space ships down to fight, they're hiding in deep space and sending a lot of missiles to blow up the Earth's cities. This game was unique since it work with a 'round' joystick. You used this to go to a point on the screen and fire a missile into this spot - the culminating explosion would destroy any missiles that hit the 'cloud'. The missiles were essentially lines that moved down from the most notable of the screen at varying angles and speeds - a number of them would split into multiple 'missiles' half way down.

Game play: that is a very strategic game. Placing your bombs in the proper place and timing them right could essentially clear the alien missiles efficiently. As the game move on you found yourself spinning the wheel frantically trying to get the bombs in the proper place. This game was adrenalin pumping fun - sometimes you appeared to be up against impossible odds yet you'd breath a sigh of relief when one city survived.

Nostalgia: this was one of the first games I played on a table top machine. While these didn't really catch on, it was still fun to put a can of soda down while you played!

4. holywin88 : This game was heavily inspired by Pong. It had been created in 1976 by Atari, with Nolan Busnell and Stew Bristow being the main element designers. It's probably the most cloned games ever, right now you can find new games based on the same theme developing. Apparently the Apple II computer was inspired by this game - wow where would Steve Jobs be now without Breakout.

Concept: The idea is simple - you've got a bat in the bottom of the screen that may move backwards and forwards. Above you is really a wall of bricks. A ball will move from your bat - every time it collides with a brick, the brick disappears and the ball bounce back at you. Your task is easy - stop the ball going off underneath of the screen by placing your bat in the way and bouncing the ball back at the wall - you also have to remove all the bricks in the wall to progress to the next level!

Game play: this is a fairly difficult game to master. Because the bricks get lower each level and the ball speed increases, it becomes more and more difficult to 'break out'. Also, sometimes the angle that the ball comes off the bat is so acute that it's very difficult to guage where in fact the ball will bounce! It's among those games where you just keep on saying 'just one more game' and before very long five hours have passed.

Nostalgia: when I lived in Wales we had just a little utility room that housed books and my little ZX Spectrum - I used to spend hours playing this game as my dad sat and studied. It had been like a male bonding session!

3. Hang On

Origin: This game was released in 1985 and originated by Sega. It had been among the first '3D' racing games and one of the first to introduce a 'realistic' aid to playing the game - that it a more substantial replica motorcycle style cabinet, with speedo, brakes and a throttle. This game became the benchmark for future racing games and result in the highly praised Out Run series. The overall game cleverly used 'billboards' and trees to give you the feel that you're moving at high speed.

Concept: You are a motorcycle racer - you sit on top of a bike and have to race around a 3d race track, overtaking other riders and reaching certain checkpoints within a time limit. The game featuring different places and conditions (such as night).

Game play: Just one more easy game to play but very difficult to understand. Timing the turns was essential, particularly if other bikers got truly in the way. Each slight touch of another bike, or crash into a barrier slowed you down and managed to get harder to reach the checkpoint in time. The awesome graphics (for the time) made this game pleasurable to play as you really felt you were in a race. It is another game that kept you returning for more.

Nostalgia: As a youngster I always wanted a real motorbike, which means this gave me a sense that I actually had one. I was very good as of this game (an d Pole Position) and constantly had my name on the high score table - it's perhaps the only game I possibly could truly say I was a master.

2. Pacman

Origin: Produced by Toru Iwatani, and programmed by Hideyuki Moakajima San, this game came out in mid 1980. The name is derived from a phrase that pertains to the sound when your mouth opens and closes (allegedly). Namco produced the overall game, but it really became popular in the us when Midway released it.

Concept: You are Pacman and you are very hungry. You discover a maze full of 'dots' and zip around eating them. Unfortunately there's some ghosts who aren't too happy concerning this and they will chase you and eat you - but hey, there's some really big dots that provide you the power to banish the ghosts back to their central cage. The maze is complex, filling the complete screen, but you can find no dead ends - there's also a passage way between each side of the screen. In the center, may be the cage that holds the ghosts - occasionally bonus fruit appear next to the cage. You essentially have to eat all the dots as a way to progress.

Game play: This is usually a simple concept, but with pretty decent graphics and an addictive tune it became a huge success. There is a lot of technique to the game - each ghost follows a collection pattern (although eventually they'll forget this and follow you) - actually there are books dedicated on the best route to avoiding the ghosts. The game gets harder as you go, with the ghosts speeding up and getting smarter.

Nostalgia: there's something concerning the music in this game that is just so catching -even as I write it I could hear it in my own mind. It's one of the first games that I can remember using music as a major feature. I wasted many hours playing this game, and even though I was never great I always had fun attempting to devise new routes. It is also probably my most successful programming achievement - I designed a version of the for the Acorn Atom and I actually sold several hundred copies (again in Germany) - I am proud that as a twelve year old, I was able to use logic and programming skills and make some money doing it.

1. Asteroids

Origin: It's truly amazing to believe that this game was initially released in 1979 - I am playing it for 30 years now! Produced by Atari and created by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, the overall game cleverly used vector graphics and real inertia physics to convert a straightforward concept right into a classic game.

Concept: Your little space ship has strayed into an asteroid belt. By using thrusters, a trusty laser cannon and a hyperspace unit, you must move your spaceship in all directions over the screen and avoid the asteroids. It is possible to go anywhere on the screen and also going off the edge is OK - it just is undoubtedly a wrap around universe. The asteroids come at you from all angles. Initially they're large, and so are fairly slow. Once hit they split into smaller asteroids, and these smaller asteroids split again - small the asteroid the faster it goes. Occasionally an awful alien ship will appear and start firing at you - he'll occasionally hit the asteroids and split them. holywin88 of the game is easy - destroy all the asteroids without colliding into them or getting shot by an alien.

Game play: Wow what can I say. To really succeed as of this game you must use strategy - firing at all asteroids will fill the screen with a lot of small fast paced asteroids, rendering it difficult in order to avoid collisions. Therefore the game required that you pick off one asteroid at a time, and then deal with small asteroids. While achieving this, you also had to maneuver gingerly; with real inertia, you often found yourself drifting without realizing it and suddenly you would be in the middle of 4 or 5 asteroids.