Retro Bucket List

Xatrix drop a second marine on Stroggos with an Ion Ripper and a Phalanx cannon.

The first of the series on the PlayStation, and the first squeezed onto a Game Boy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sega launch the series on the Dreamcast in 1999 against a franchise EA had owned for five years.

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

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

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

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

Norrath in 1999, where dying left your corpse and your gear where you fell and you had to walk back naked; still running.

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

Fly for the Rebellion in 1993, managing shields and laser power by keyboard; the sim TIE Fighter answers.

The 1994 original: two campaigns in Azeroth, mouse-driven, before anybody had heard of the setting.

The isometric 1993 original, the year EA bought the licence and the crowd was a single looping chant.

A hero with no arms or legs against a pirate occupation; the 3D platformer that made the leap cleanly.

Race for pink slips: lose and the other driver drives your car home.

The same city seen by an adult magazine reporter, in the timeline Innocent Sin left behind.

A classroom game summons the other selves of a group of Japanese schoolchildren; the 1996 first Persona.

Four more campaigns and a shelf of new artefacts bolted onto Heroes II by Cyberlore in 1997.

The 1994 first game: a whole continent generated at random and a staff broken into eight pieces.

An arcade mode that finally puts a rival on the stage beside you, over the championship the first game shipped with.

RECS builds a fresh course out of a typed-in code, so the trilogy closes with a track generator.

Occult SS experiments and the castle to escape again, this time on the Quake III engine.