Top Ten Classic Video Games

10. Pong

Origins: Pong was based on a 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 intended to represent a game of Tennis or Table Tennis (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 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 in different directions - should it hit among the top or bottom lines, then it will bounce off. The idea 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. 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 can be the father of video games. Without Pong you almost certainly wouldn't have video gaming - 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 originated by Konami in 1981, and was the first game to introduce me to Sega. At the time it was very novel and introduced a fresh style of game.

THE IDEA: Easy - you wish to walk in one side of the road to the other. Wait  betwing88  - there's a lot of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Made it - hold on, who put that river there. Better join those turtles and logs and get to another side - hang on that is clearly a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy - the cars and logs are in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the number 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 get home - do that 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'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 try to avoid that extremely fast car, or the snake that is hunting you down!

Nostalgia: I really like this game for most reasons. I played it for a long 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 games and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.

The Concept: aliens are invading the Earth in 'blocks' by moving down the screen gradually. As the intrepid savior of the 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 behind - these eventually disintegrate, however they provide some protection from the alien's missiles.

Game Play: this is the very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts just a little closer to you, and moves a little fast - so every new wave is really a harder challenge.  betwing88  involved a fair amount of strategy together with 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 lower they got - that has been about as high tech as it got back in the times of monochrome video games!