Hand-animated run-and-gun chaos; the prettiest sprites the arcade ever produced.
Pixel rooms, furni and Bobba; the Finnish chat world.
The first 3D fighting game, all polygons and precise timing.
Rescue humans from abduction while flying both ways at speed; the hardest game of 1981.
Faster mazes and moving fruit; the fan hack that became the better game.
War has never been so much fun; squads of little men and a graveyard that grows.
Somersault past robots, search furniture, "another visitor; stay a while, stay forever".
Harvest spice, build a base, click and drag; the game that defined the real-time strategy.
Two brothers punch their way across the city for one kidnapped girlfriend.
Split-screen racing through fog, night and desert; the Amiga two-player staple.
Escape Castle Wolfenstein floor by floor; id's first-person shooter before Doom.
Yoshi carries baby Mario through a crayon world; the SNES platformer at its most inventive.
The Genesis Sonic made by fans, officially; the best Sonic since 1994.
An 8-bit knight with a shovel; the retro platformer done right.
Left click, right click, guess on the last square; the Windows game of every office.
Britannia at its most alive, baking bread and solving a murder; the RPG Richard Garriott perfected.
Fly for the Empire; the best space combat sim, from 1994.
Sixteen levels under Tristram's cathedral; the click-and-loot game begins.
The first big MMORPG, player-run houses and the murder of Lord British.
Dogfights against the Kilrathi and a branching campaign; Chris Roberts in 1990.
The Nokia 3310 game everyone played in 1999.
Base building, research and squads that die in the dark; the 1994 original of the tactics genre.
A purple dragon glides through pastel worlds; Insomniac's first hit.
Dual fighters and the captured ship; the shoot-em-up perfected.
Guide a hundred green-haired creatures to the exit by giving them jobs; the DMA puzzle hit before GTA.
Wumpa fruit and a marsupial running into the screen; Sony's answer to Mario.
Eight robot masters in any order; the NES difficulty and the Dr Wily theme.
Yoshi, the cape and 96 exits on the SNES; the launch title that still plays perfectly.
Digitised fighters and fatalities; the game that created the ESRB.
Jumpman climbs girders to save Pauline; Mario's first appearance, 1981.
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