Gaming
Top 7 Retro Games
The best retro games are not simply old games we remember fondly. They are games whose ideas still work: rules you can understand in seconds, challenges that keep you coming back, and mechanics generations of developers have borrowed from. Pac-Man turned a maze into a battle of timing and nerve. Tetris made falling blocks endlessly compelling. Super Mario Bros. helped define the modern platform game, while Sonic made speed part of a character’s identity. Street Fighter II brought competitive fighting into the arcade mainstream. Doom helped transform PC action gaming, and Space Invaders helped establish the arcade video game as a global phenomenon. This Top 7 spans different genres and eras, so it is not a direct technical comparison. It is a ranking of games that remain playable, recognisable and influential long after their original hardware disappeared. Which one would you put at number one?
Pac-Man made a simple maze feel like a tiny action film. Every dot tempts you further into the level, every ghost changes the risk, and a Power Pellet briefly turns the hunter into the hunted. Its brilliance is how much personality emerges from a handful of rules and four colourful enemies. Released in 1980, it became one of gaming’s defining characters and helped push arcade games beyond the image of an exclusively space-and-shooting hobby. It remains instantly readable: you can watch a few seconds of play and understand the objective, yet mastering the maze takes judgement, memory and nerve.
Tetris might be the purest example of a game built around one perfect idea. Rotate falling shapes, complete horizontal lines and stop the stack reaching the top. There are no elaborate characters or worlds to learn; the drama comes from the gap you leave, the piece you need and the speed at which your plan can collapse. Created in 1984, Tetris travelled across computers, consoles, handhelds and phones because the core mechanic works almost anywhere. Its appeal is both calming and stressful: you can settle into a rhythm, then suddenly realise you have made a mess you may not be able to fix. Few games make a player’s own decisions feel so directly responsible for both triumph and disaster.
Super Mario Bros. turned running and jumping into a language that almost anyone could learn. World 1-1 introduces movement, enemies, power-ups and secrets through the level itself, rather than stopping to explain every rule. The result feels welcoming at first but rewards timing, exploration and precision as the journey progresses. Released for the NES in 1985, it helped establish the side-scrolling platform game as a defining console genre. Its influence is visible in decades of games that use movement, level design and hidden rewards to teach players how to play. The original remains worth experiencing because the controls and pacing still feel purposeful, not merely nostalgic.
Sonic’s big idea was to make speed feel exciting without removing the need for skill. Green Hill Zone invites you to race through loops and slopes, but careless momentum can send you into enemies or obstacles. Learning when to accelerate and when to slow down is part of the pleasure. Released for the Mega Drive in 1991, Sonic gave Sega a mascot with a different personality from Mario: faster, sharper and built around forward motion. The game’s visual identity, music and level design made it a landmark of the 16-bit era. It is also a reminder that speed alone is not enough; the best levels make movement feel like something you master.
Street Fighter II helped turn the arcade into a place where players competed against each other, not just the game’s computer-controlled enemies. Its roster of distinctive fighters, special moves and timing-based combat gave players reasons to practise, develop rivalries and return for rematches. Knowing a character’s attacks mattered, but so did reading an opponent and anticipating their next move. The 1991 arcade release became a major force in the fighting-game boom and helped shape the competitive scene that followed. Its lasting appeal lies in the balance between accessibility and depth: the basic objective is obvious, yet mastering match-ups and execution can take years.
Doom changed expectations for what a PC action game could feel like. Its fast movement, maze-like levels, hidden areas and aggressive enemies created a sense of speed and pressure that distinguished it from slower, more methodical games. Released in 1993, it became a landmark in first-person shooters and helped popularise networked multiplayer and player-made modifications. Its technical legacy matters, but the original game is still worth playing for the level design: corridors open into arenas, ammunition becomes a tactical concern, and finding a secret can change how a level unfolds. Doom made the computer feel like an arcade machine capable of delivering a much more intense kind of action.
Space Invaders helped make the arcade game a cultural event. Its descending formation of aliens creates a simple but escalating problem: shoot accurately, move between cover and stop the invaders reaching the bottom of the screen. As enemies disappear, the remaining formation moves faster, turning a steady rhythm into a panic-inducing final stretch. Released in 1978, it became a huge international hit and helped establish video games as a commercial entertainment phenomenon. Its graphics are spare by modern standards, but the tension is still legible without explanation. Space Invaders belongs here not because it has the most elaborate mechanics, but because it helped prove how compelling a video game could be.
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