Retro Bucket List

Venice, the Great Wall and a dagger in a dragon; Lara at her most confident.

Jet packs, polar bears and the best of the original trilogy.

One track learned by heart and a drift held on the brake; the PlayStation launch game that loaded into RAM.

Desert, forest and mountain, each surface changing how the car sits; the 1995 arcade cabinet with the wheel.

Build a track out of loops and corkscrews, then watch the replay of the crash from six cameras.

Garrett against a mechanist cult; more thieving, less undead.

Mode 7 tracks, a feather to hop the wall and a ghost of your own best lap; the kart racer that started it.

A motorbike race where you swing a chain at the rider alongside you and take his bike when he falls.

Pick up fares and drop them at the door before the meter runs out, to a soundtrack of The Offspring.

More scenery, a track designer and the version the community still builds in.

Fifty years of one manufacturer in an evolution mode that starts in 1950; the most careful game in the series.

A procedural province the size of Great Britain, in 1996.

Eight games in one cartridge, with a helper to hand to a second player.

The harder, prettier sequel to the rotoscoped original.

The turn-based hexes before Heroes III; six factions and a soundtrack in MIDI.

Sid Meier's 1991 original: settlers, huts and one more turn from the beginning.

Run the dungeon, slap your imps and defeat the heroes; Molyneux's reversal.

Orcs and humans at sea and in the air; the RTS that made Blizzard.

Salt the chips, water down the drinks and watch the queues; Bullfrog's management sim.

The super shotgun and the Icon of Sin; thirty more levels of 1994.

The Strogg war on Stroggos; the first Quake with a story and coloured lighting.

The 1999 original: Warehouse, the Pump and a soundtrack of Goldfinger and Dead Kennedys.

Twinsen against a dictator on a planet of four species; a French classic.

The job system at its most flexible, and a tree that talks.

Eddy Gordo, Jin Kazama and the arcade fighter of the PlayStation era.

A ward of Candlekeep on the Sword Coast; the Infinity Engine begins.

Six degrees of freedom in mine shafts; the shooter that made people motion-sick in 1995.

A hacker wakes on Citadel Station with SHODAN in the walls; the immersive sim starts here.

The 1997 original: twelve ancient civilisations, from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

The first 3D fighting game, all polygons and precise timing.