Top 30 Arcade Games from the Golden Age (1978-1985)

This was at a time when the first truly addictive video games started to appear in arcades all around the world. When the home computers and consoles of the time just didn't cut the mustard. They couldn't compete with the spectacular whizz, bangs and whistles that their arcade counterparts could provide for just 10p.

The year arcade video games first kicked in was 1978. Sure there were games before that but none of them fueled the fire of the video game craze like Space Invaders did that year. I was 9 years old and it was just the right time to see this gaming revolution happen right before my very eyes. One armed bandits and pinball machines were pushed into a corner to make way for rows and rows of video games. Their interactive, glowing screens lighting up otherwise dingy looking hangouts where adults would gamble their money. I wasn't interested in that.

The period from 1978 up until 1985 is, in my mind, the golden age of arcade video games. So many new ideas, creativity and inventiveness. I wonder if people back then had any clue how the position of video games in the cultural landscape would look over 35 years later. In 1985 I left school and it seemed like the world was going through so many changes including the slow down of arcade games as 16bit home computers and consoles began to catch up in complexity and quality. But don't worry, I'll be talking about the silver age of video games from beyond 1985 in the not too distant future.

So without further ado here are my Top 30 Arcade Golden Age Video Games. Please be aware that these are my own personal choices not based on sales, profits or other top arcade game lists, but solely on my memory of what I thought was good and what was fun to play.

Favourite Amiga 500 Games

The finest computer of all time.

The Amiga 500. The best computer of all time?.... YES. Having witnessed the intense 8bit rivalry between Spectrum and Commodore 64 users I took care to choose what I thought was the better machine between the Amiga 500 and the Atari ST in the 16bit era. I believe I made the right choice. The graphics and sound capabilities of the Amiga 500 seemed way ahead of it's time. The ST gave it a run for it's money but just never seemed quite as good.

All the beans on toast was worth it.

I blew half my college grant on it, possibly back in 1989, and lived on beans on toast for weeks, but it was worth it. The applications for it were very cool, great art and music programs. Amiga's were used in TV production, that's how powerful they were. But the major reason for an arcade junkie like me.  The games.

It was all about the games.

I got a solid 4 or 5 years out of it before moving on to PC's. Not a very long time compared with my ZX Spectrum years but still it was the best time in my videogames playing life and therefore a time I'll never ever forgot.

Workbench 1.3

So here are my favourite twenty Amiga games. Not in any order besides alphabetical. I'll let you decide which you think is the number one game. Hell, It might not even be in this list which just goes to show how many great games existed for the finest computer of all time.

Favourite Playstation Games

Back in 1995 before PS4, PS3, PS2 and PSOne there was Playstation. Originally a joint project with Nintendo as a SNES-CD console, Sony's first entry into the video games console market, which at this point was known as the fifth generation, proved to be a massive success and the best selling console of this generation against so many other competitors.

Competitors like Panasonic 3DO, Amiga CD32, Atari Jaguar, Neo Geo CD, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and that's just the systems I can remember. I'm sure there were many more.

The Playstation was by no means perfect. I remember many systems having the CD laser head warp with heat and then it became difficult to read the data from the discs, unless you turned the machine upside down and placed a bag of frozen peas or similar on top of it. Well that's what worked for me.

However, here are some key points which I feel ensured the Playstation was more of a success than any of the other consoles I've mentioned above.

1. 3rd party software developers were embraced.

2. CD storage and retrieval media used rather than cartridges.

3. Marketing Playstation to teens and young adults rather than families.

4. Released on time. N64 was too late. Sega Saturn was rushed.

I was lucky enough to be one of the people that chose the Playstation over the other consoles. Even though it was said to be less powerful, only 32bit, than the N64 and the Saturn, both 64bit, it just seemed to have a larger and more varied catalog of games available for it.

So here are my fifteen favourite original playstation titles. Please be aware that they are not necessarily the best games for the Playstation, some of their sequels are much better, but these games are definitely the most memorable for me. It may surprise you that there are no Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid games in the list but at the time I just never got to play them.

Retro Cartoons Quiz

I have many fond memories of the cartoons I used to watch when I was still at school. I was never really interested in movies at that age. In fact before leaving school I'd only seen a handful of movies ,like Tron, Raiders of the lost ark and First Blood, at the cinema. I wasn't really into Disney cartoons either. Well not as much as the Hannah Barbara and Filmation stuff.

Cartoon time back then was mainly Saturday mornings and an hour or so after school during the week. Kids nowadays have got a lot more time and choice to watch cartoons with a dozen or so devoted channels showing nothing but cartoons. I couldn't have even dreamed that when I was a kid.

Once I'd left school in 1985 I suddenly got into movies. There was only one decent local cinema open around this time called The Odean. However, a few years later this was boosted by two multiplex's called Showcase and UCI, with a whopping 21 cinema screens, that were built in the Derby in 1988. By that time the cartoons had been completely forgotten.

It seems like my golden age for cartoons was for about 10 years between 1975 and 1985. Obviously some older cartoons would fall into that category even though they started out before 1975 as they were repeated often.

So yet again it's time for a Retro Rekall Memory Test Quiz. Twenty six of the finest cartoons that pop into my mind when I reminisce about those Saturday mornings are shown below. Note, half of them started before the beginning of my cartoon golden age back in 1975, one is even from the forties. See how many you can recognise and put your answers in the comments. If you can guess all twenty six then you are a truly awesome retro cartoon quiz nerd. I won't bother giving the answers unless someone asks for them.