Classic Video Games Bucket List

Over six hundred cars and a rally discipline, split across two discs for arcade and simulation.

Four players from four countries in one Dreamcast lobby in 2000, talking past the language barrier with a symbol chat.

A monk, a hive of demon insects and two side dungeons; the 1997 expansion Blizzard did not make itself.

One button per limb, eight fighters and eight sub-bosses; Namco answer Virtua Fighter in 1994.

The 2000 original: a board-game Japan on the campaign map and thousands of ashigaru on the battlefield.

Twelve missions a side on Draenor, with named heroes who stay dead if you lose them.

Europe from 1087, with a Pope who excommunicates you and crusades to send the troublemakers on.

EA rename their basketball line in 1994 and start counting; the first NBA Live, after the NBA Playoffs games.

Square's first MMO, from 2002, where a party needed a healer before it could leave town; the servers are still up.

Rogue add turrets, tesla mines and a gravity well; the harder of the two Quake II packs.

Five power-up costumes and a running commentary of jokes; the last of the 3D Raymans.

Heihachi comes back and drops Kazuya into a volcano; the first Tekken people kept playing at home.

Hand-painted 2D worlds and a difficulty curve that stopped a generation; Michel Ancel, 1995.

Walls and uneven ground in the arenas, which the players disliked enough that Tekken 5 flattened them again.

The same tiny squads sent into space and back through history, with the graveyard on the hill still filling up.

The parks go 3D and you can ride your own coaster from the front seat, at night, with fireworks.

A prison ship crashes on Na Pali and the Skaarj hunt you out of it; the 1998 engine that ran for twenty years.

Rogue send you back to ancient Rome and forward again across two episodes; the second mission pack.

Hipnotic add three episodes, a Mjolnir that arcs lightning and a proximity mine launcher; the first mission pack.

Ryu tours ten fighters in 1987, on a cabinet whose two pressure pads read how hard you hit them.

Onslaught adds vehicles and power nodes to maps built for them, on top of the 1999 bot ladder.

Marshal John Dalton collects artefacts across seven colony worlds; the single-player sequel Legend Entertainment made in 2003.

Top-down and unforgiving since 1997: die and you lose experience, skills and part of what you were carrying.

Two characters swapped at will and no item boxes at all, starting on a train in the woods below the mansion.

Three selectable fighting styles per character over a roster in the thirties; the last of the 2D Alphas.