Classic Video Games Bucket List

Nintendo's mascots fight on a GameCube; still played in tournaments twenty years on.

The free follow-up pack, the same London eight years earlier.

Sixty minutes to save the princess, rotoscoped animation and the first cinematic platformer.

Instagib, Facing Worlds and the announcer; the arena shooter of 1999.

The swinging-sixties expansion; driving on the left, in the only GTA set outside America.

The Facility, the watch menu and four-player split-screen; the N64 shooter that changed consoles.

120 stars, the castle and the first analogue 3D playground.

Four players, the blue shell and Rainbow Road; the kart racer of every dorm.

Sixteen giants, a horse and an empty land; nothing to do but the impossible.

Four fighters, a Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack and two-player co-op; the best beat-em-up of its era.

Cure Bloaty Head and Slack Tongue while the patients queue; Bullfrog's comedy management sim.

An island of puzzles and books that are doorways; the best-selling PC game of the 1990s.

A travel agent for the dead in an Art Deco afterlife; Tim Schafer's noir.

Garrett in the shadows of the City; stealth as a whole game.

A hundred and fifty creatures, a Game Boy and a link cable; catch them all.

Ryo Hazuki in 1986 Yokosuka, forklift shifts and a revenge that took a sequel; the open-world prototype.

The atmospheric map, the wall jump and the baby Metroid; the SNES masterpiece.

A worm in a super suit; the strangest and best-animated platformer of the 16-bit era.

Eight robot masters in any order; the NES difficulty and the Dr Wily theme.

Naked Snake in a 1964 jungle, the Boss and the ladder; the series peak.

Wumpa fruit and a marsupial running into the screen; Sony's answer to Mario.

A physicist teleported to an alien planet; Eric Chahi's wordless cinematic game.

Solid Snake on Shadow Moses, Psycho Mantis reads your memory card; Kojima's cinematic stealth.

Guybrush hunts the treasure of Big Whoop; the sequel with the ending fans still argue about.

Lara Croft in Peru, the T. rex in the valley and a whole new kind of hero.

The 1986 original: a gold cartridge, no map and "it's dangerous to go alone".

Digitised fighters and fatalities; the game that created the ESRB.

Bullet time, a graphic-novel story and a New York winter; Remedy's noir shooter.

Do a barrel roll; Arwings, the Rumble Pak and branching routes.

The real driving simulator with licence tests; 140 cars on the PlayStation.