Classic Video Games Bucket List

Two parallel worlds and 45 characters; the strange sequel to Chrono Trigger.

A summer camp for psychics and the levels inside people's heads; Tim Schafer's cult platformer.

Cartoon tanks on a grid with COs and their powers; Intelligent Systems' perfect handheld tactics.

Samus in first person on Tallon IV, scanning everything; Retro Studios' miracle.

Guitar, bass, drums and a microphone in one living room; Harmonix's full band.

Base building, research and squads that die in the dark; the 1994 original of the tactics genre.

A shooter that plays like a rave; Mizuguchi's synaesthesia on the Dreamcast.

Crash your rivals into walls for boost; the arcade racer at its most violent.

Dogfights against the Kilrathi and a branching campaign; Chris Roberts in 1990.

The first big MMORPG, player-run houses and the murder of Lord British.

Agent 47 at a Mardi Gras and an opera; the best of the old Hitmans.

The Nameless One wakes on a mortuary slab; "what can change the nature of a man?"

Invertebrates with bazookas, holy hand grenades and concrete donkeys; the party strategy game.

The blacklist of fifteen racers and a BMW M3 GTR; the Need for Speed people remember.

Britannia at its most alive, baking bread and solving a murder; the RPG Richard Garriott perfected.

Roll a sticky ball over everything until it is a star; the Namco oddity with the best soundtrack.

A murder mystery in a rural Japanese town solved by entering the TV; friendship as a game mechanic.

Cyrodiil, the Dark Brotherhood questline and Oblivion gates opening in a world that levels with you; Bethesda's 2006 breakthrough.

Sixteen levels under Tristram's cathedral; the click-and-loot game begins.

Giant robots, religion and a second disc told from a chair; Square's most ambitious RPG.

Rewind time, run along walls and the Prince who narrates his own mistakes.

Arrows on a floor mat and a cabinet in every arcade; the rhythm game that got people moving.

Thirteen civilisations from the Dark Age to the Imperial Age; still played competitively.

Anywhere City, three gangs to play against each other and a respect meter.

Alucard explores Dracula's castle, then the castle upside down; the other half of Metroidvania.

Two minutes to hit the goals, Superman by Goldfinger; the best-reviewed sports game ever.

Build a park and lay a coaster track piece by piece; Chris Sawyer wrote almost all of it in assembly.

The BFG, the imps and the shareware episode that ran on every office PC in 1993.

Leon in a Spanish village with a chainsaw man; the over-the-shoulder camera every game copied.

Raiden instead of Snake and a plot about information control that predicted the internet.