Donkey Kong
A carpenter called Jumpman, later known as Mario, climbs girders to save Pauline.
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54 archive picks
Galaga
The objective of Galaga is to score as many points as possible by destroying insect-like enemies. The player controls a starfighter that can move left and right along the bottom of the playfield. Enemies swarm in groups in a formation near the top of the screen, and then begin…
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Frogger
The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of hazards. Skillful players may obtain some bonuses along the way.
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Centipede
Centipede is a vertically-oriented shoot 'em up arcade game produced by Atari, Inc. in 1980. The game was designed by Ed Logg along with Dona Bailey, one of the few female game programmers in the industry at this time. It was also the first arcade coin-operated game to have a…
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Defender
Defender is an arcade video game developed released by Williams Electronics in 1980. A shooting game featuring two-dimensional (2D) graphics, the game is set on a fictional planet where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development wa…
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Ultima
Ultima (later titled, Ultima: The First Age of Darkness) is the first game in the Ultima series of role-playing video games created by Richard Garriott. The game was one of the first definitive commercial computer RPGs, and is considered an important and influential turning po…
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Tempest
Tempest is a 1981 arcade game by Atari Inc., designed and programmed by Dave Theurer. It takes place on a three-dimensional surface, sometimes wrapped into a tube, which is viewed from one end and is divided into a dozen or more segments or lanes. The player controls a claw-sh…
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Castle Wolfenstein
Castle Wolfenstein is a slow-paced stealth game set in World War II. The game's main objective is to traverse the levels of the castle to find the secret war plans and escape alive. Progressively higher military ranks are earned upon each successful escape with the war plans,…
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Wizard of Wor
Wizard of Wor is an action-oriented game for one or two players. The game takes the form of several maze-like dungeons infested with monsters. The players' characters, called Worriors, have to kill all the monsters. Player one has yellow Worriors, on the right, and player two…
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Scramble
The player controls an aircraft, referred to in the game as a "Jet," and has to guide it across a scrolling terrain, battling obstacles along the way. The ship is armed with a forward-firing weapon and bombs; each weapon has its own button. The player must avoid colliding with…
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Kaboom!
Kaboom! is an unauthorized adaptation of the 1978 Atari coin-op Avalanche. The gameplay of both games is fundamentally the same, but Kaboom! was re-themed to be about a mad bomber instead of falling rocks. Gameplay in Kaboom! consists of using a paddle controller to catch bom…
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Qix
Draw boxes to claim as much screen as possible without getting in the path of the "Qix" and "Sparx". Draw slower for more points and hope that you have enough coins. Simple but very addicting!
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Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
The Mad Overlord Trebor was once only power-mad, but went off the deep end after he acquired a magical amulet of immense power, only to have it stolen from him by his nemesis, the evil archmage Werdna. Werdna, not quite sure how to use the amulet properly, accidentally causes…
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Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz
The adventure begins in the Barrow from "Zork I" armed only with the trusty brass lantern and sword of elvish antiquity. The purpose of the game is not initially clear. Like its predecessor, Zork II is essentially a treasure hunt. Unlike the previous game, the ten treasures a…
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New Rally-X
New Rally-X is a maze and driving arcade game that was released by Namco in 1981. It runs on similar hardware to that of its predecessor, and as its name suggests, it is a revised version of that title, which was released in the previous year. The only differences are that it…
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Stargate
Arcade shooter where you protect humans from being captured by aliens. Created by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, it is a sequel to Defender which was released earlier in the year. Some home ports of Stargate were renamed to Defender II for legal reasons.
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Gorf
Gorf actually consists in the Arcade version of five different types of space shooters. The first one ist basically is a Space Invaders clone. In the second one a formation of space ships is hovering at the top of the screen while single space ships will disengage from the for…
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Stampede
The objective of Stampede is to round up all of the cattle you encounter. To do so, the player must lasso each one in order to capture it. The player is initially only allowed to let two cattle pass; if a third one slips by, the game is over. An important caveat to this is tha…
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Bosconian
The object of Bosconian is to score as many points as possible by destroying enemy bases and ships. The player controls a small fighter ship that can move in eight directions and can fire both forward and backward. Each level consists of a number of green space stations that m…
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Mouse Trap
Mouse Trap is a 1981 arcade game released by Exidy, similar to Pac-Man. It was ported to three home systems by Coleco; Coleco's ColecoVision, Mattel's Intellivision, and the Atari 2600.
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Lock 'n' Chase
Lock 'n' Chase is a 1981 maze arcade game developed and published by Data East in Japan in 1981, and later published in North America by Taito. Lock 'n' Chase was Data East's response to Pac-Man. The game's main character is a thief. The object of the game is to enter a maze a…
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Freeway
Freeway is a video game designed by David Crane for the Atari 2600 video game console. It was published by Activision in 1981. One or two players control chickens who can be made to run across a ten lane highway filled with traffic in an effort to "get to the other side." Ever…
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Softporn Adventure
A text based adventure game released in 1981 and has similar content to "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" developed by Al Lowe which is based on "Softporn Adventure". It was ported to PC in 1991 and has also been included in some Leisure Suit Larry Collect…
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Astrosmash
In Astrosmash you control a laser canon at the bottom of the screen; your goal is to earn as many points as possible by destroying the various incoming meteors, bombs, and other objects. Points are earned for destroying objects, while points are lost for letting them get past…
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Vanguard
Vanguard is a shoot 'em up game which leads the player through five different zones to the City of Mystery where the creature Gond awaits him which he has to kill. The five zones run horizontally as well as vertically and are filled with different enemies for each zone. Being…
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Tennis
Tennis offers singles matches for one or two players; one player is colored pink, the other blue. The game has two user-selectable speed levels. When serving and returning shots, the tennis players automatically swing forehand or backhand as the situation demands, and all shot…
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Midnight Magic
Midnight Magic utilized the Atari 2600 joystick for performing simulated pinball functions, such as activating the flippers and shooting the ball. Moving the joystick controller down pulls the pinball machine plunger back while pressing the joystick button shoots the ball into…
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K.C. Munchkin!
A copy of Pac-Man, but with various improvements. This game is primarily known for the Atari lawsuit against it which set an important precedent for copyright and lawsuits in videogames.
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Omega Race
Set in the year 2003, the game involves using a spaceship to destroy enemy droid ships. The player's ship is controlled with a spinner to rotate the ship, a button for thrusting, and a button for firing lasers. The enemies that the player must destroy or avoid are drone ships,…
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Amidar
Amidar is an arcade game programmed by Konami and published in 1981 by Stern. Its basic format is similar to that of Pac-Man: the player moves around a fixed rectilinear lattice, attempting to visit each location on the board while avoiding the enemies. When each spot has been…
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Super Cobra
You're a helicopter gunship pilot on a daring and dangerous mission: air surveillance of enemy territory. Success depends on how far you can penetrate enemy airspace. Can you handle the pressure? Because the further you go, the more difficult the mission becomes. Show that you…
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Venture
In Venture you control the adventurer Winky who sets out to collect treasure. You start out on an overview map of a dungeon which shows several rooms containing treasure. Since you cannot kill any enemies while rummaging through the dungeon corridors you have to dodge them on…
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Ice Hockey
Ice Hockey is a game of two-on-two ice hockey. One player on each team is the goalie, and the other plays offensive (although, the goalie is not confined to the goal). As in the real sport, the object of the game is to take control of the puck and shoot it into the opposing go…
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Video Pinball
Video Pinball is a loose simulation of an arcade pinball machine: ball launcher, flippers, bumpers, and spinners.
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Tank Battalion
A maze game where the player controls a tank and battles enemy tanks that pursue and attack.
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Jawbreaker
Jawbreaker is a video game programmed by John Harris and released in 1981 for the Atari 400/800 by On-line Systems. Originally intended to be a fairly straight Pac-Man clone, Jawbreaker emerged as a relatively inventive version with unique gameplay. It was widely lauded by re…
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Solar Fox
Run over or shoot "Fuzors" while ships on each of the four sides of the screen travel back and forth or up and down trying to shoot you.
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Turbo
Racing game that leads you through several surroundings (e.g. cities, snowy landscapes, bridges, tunnels etc.).
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Cosmic Avenger
In this side scrolling shooter you have to kill as many enemies as possible to raise your high score.
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Laser Blast
The object of Laser Blast is to destroy a series of land-based enemies. The player controls a fleet of flying saucers, operating one at a time. On the planet surface below are a group of three mobile laser bases, guarded by an invisible force field that prevents the player's s…
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Space Fury
Space Fury was one of the many popular vector games developed in the early 1980s in the same model as the famous Asteroids game released by Atari in 1979. Space Fury was developed by Sega for the Sega G80 Arcade system, and was also released in cartridge form for the ColecoVis…
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Star Strike
Launching from repair bay 28 of the Galatea, you guide your Blue Fighter Wing through the Launch Ring at lightspeed, entering enemy territory, sector Delta Five Niner! Your mission: Rescue the Orange Wing Center which was captured alive, before the enemy ingests his brain -- A…
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Lady Bug
Lady Bug is an insect-themed maze chase arcade game produced by Universal Entertainment Corporation and released in 1981. Its gameplay is similar to Pac-Man, with the primary addition to the formula being gates that change the layout of the maze when used. The arcade original…
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Route-16
A racing game where the main character is the greed. Several cars battle each other on maze-like rooms trying to get the money bags and avoiding the dangers. In this game, everybody cares just about the money, showing that the money is the "route" of all evil.
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005
005 is a 1981 arcade game by Sega, in which the player's mission is to take a briefcase of secret documents to a waiting helicopter. It is one of the first examples of a stealth game. The player controls a spy who must avoid the enemies as he makes his way through buildings an…
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Lunar Leeper
In this game, you must guide your spaceship around while picking up hostages located on the surface, and bring them to safety. Your task becomes difficult by lunar leepers who leap up and try to grab you or the hostages that are picked up by your ship.
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Threshold
Threshold is a typical shoot 'em up that places the player's spaceship at the bottom of the screen where he has to fend of the enemy. If the player misses an enemy and he reaches the opposite side of the screen he will reappear on the other side of the screen again. This goes…
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Astro Blaster
The player controls a ship (bearing a resemblance to the Battlestar Galactica) which can fire and move left or right. The player must continuously monitor the onscreen temperature and fuel gauges; if the ship overheats, its weapon is disabled, and if it is depleted of fuel, th…
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Ulysses and the Golden Fleece
You are Ulysses and your king has given you the task of finding the legendary Golden Fleece and bring it back to him. In order to accomplish your king's wishes you travel through vast lands and meet many people and creatures from ancient Greek mythology.
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Cranston Manor
You break into the mansion of the late millionaire Cranston in order to steal sixteen treasures which are said to be hidden within its walls.
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Space Hawk
Imagine a hunter, alone in Deep Space. You control his movements. He's armed with a "gas blaster." His prime target is the white Space Hawk. If a Hawk, deadly gas bubbles, comets or amoebas touch the hunter, he tumbles into infinity! There are just three ways to escape: move o…
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Eliminator
This 1981 vector graphics arcade game is available in both two- and four-player configurations. A top-down space shooter set within a bounded playfield, where the player maneuvers a ship using rotation, thrust and forward-firing controls (much like Asteroids or Space War). Ea…
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PBA Bowling
Get your ball and rack up the pins, as one of America's favorite sports makes its Windows 95 debut in PBA Bowling. The official computer game of the Professional Bowlers Association, PBA Bowling brings the excitement of one of America's best-loved pastimes to your PC. With a…
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