PAPERBOY

They don't make them like they used to. Ok, not true, but still - 80s and 90s are replete with oddities that made your usual genre of preference a unique gaming experience. Paperboy does exactly what it says on the tin, and not only will it cater to those Generation Xers who knew exactly what it meant to flip a burger or deliver newspapers to "learn to appreciate the value of money" and afford a new 8bit or 16bit gaming system, but it will also appeal to Millenials, and not just to those Millenials who  search for gaming document of days gone by.

The premise is simple- a paperboy has to deliver his round and throw papers to as many houses of subscribers without being bit by dogs, or hit by a myriad of moving objects, cars, carts, raving neigbours, breakdancers, toys  etc. With some time needed to get acquainted with controls and the scrolling, it plays well and you slowly grow to like evading death traps while trying to keep Daily Sun's readers happy. Even if you do get fired , you get fired to an awesome soundtrack playing in the back.

One can easily of a counterpart from the 90s it inspired. Less death and less guns , though.

And, uhm, don't play the Commodore 64 version , it's really bad.

PARADROID

Though it was later ported to several systems and its life was prolonged well into the early naughties, this gaming phenomenon is largely associated with the good-ole c64. It is still regarded by many as the greatest c64 exclusive ever  to have graced the screens of our TV sets.

Hostile service robots have "gone mad" and taken over a spaceship killing its entire human crew. Your robot is beamed aboard  with a mission to sweep the ship clean deck by deck, removing the unruly robots and investigating everything before pressing the ship's self-destruct button. Unlike many c64 multidirectional shooters, Paradroid doesn't overdo it on desperately trying to make  the best possible shooting experience for a player ,and  makes up for graphic limitations with suspense and nervous anticipation instead, as other units become visible only after you've entered a room. The in-game puzzle of invading other robots CPUs and busting their circuits is a great complement to the shooter and makes this one of the most intriguing gaming experiences of old. Body snatching and destruction  never had a level of sophisticated presentation that high in a game up to that point. The beeping sounds adding to the nervous anticipation and the cold hollowness of an abandoned ship  and the conscious decision to not include in-game music  further highlight  the masterful presentation and enrich the gaming experience.

Paradroid remains a ground-breaking classic and it's easy to realise its value once you've tried it.

THRUST

Does what it says on the tin.It's neither about its minimal design and simple graphics, nor about the unnervingly monotonous sounds of an engine thruster.The plot doesn't affect the gaming experience at all. It was done by one man from start to finish. But it's about physics and inertia and breaking a sweat while grapling the controls of your spacecraft, avoiding cave walls and thinking about your movements before you moved. It's graceful and addictive. it's timeless and unique.The cold design of the world traversed gives the player a common feel of a dystopian world without the usual   landscape and machinery visuals.It's truly an inspiration to hundreds of games that came afterwards. A game that could do with more in-game sounds and music, but hey- Rob Hubbard's title theme for the c64 version still rocks hard enough to make you ignore the above mentioned thruster sounds.

ALTER EGO

The oldest bildungsroman in gaming I can think of was a welcome relief from genre's dominant fantasy subject matter during the 80s. ALTER EGO was  made by a psychology professor and sometimes the playing resembles answering an extensive questionnaire about your life and its travails while living a part you're assigned. On the other hand, introspection isn't bad.  You walk through  life replete with choices you make as a male or female (though including other genders would have been great) of many dispositions and a number of moods. You can give truthful answers or not, be benevolent or malevolent, and each answer determines the way your afterlife plays out. Sets of questions are grouped under icons on the screen that cover an area of life -emotional, social, defining moments and rights of passage, intellectual life and the accruement of knowledge etc and there are thousands upon thousands of questions appearing randomly. Your aim is to develop into a functional human being without dying in the process. Deliberately making wrong decisions  will also enable you  to have a differennt kind of fun and see how you can end your life in the game - and again, there are dozens of ways to do it.
The replay value and the fact that Alter Ego was one of the very few games in my c64 collection  with a "save game" option made playing this game a truly unique experienc. It could have done with some music and maybe some funny fx to spice it up, but  nevetheless it's ace.

CANABALT

This  free flash game with a man running from a world crumbling behind him, trying to escape death/apocalypse  jumping buildings was ported to a plethora of systems, and rightfully so. Running games were already in abundance at this time in gaming history, but the key to Canabalt's brilliance was its simplicity, both in terms of playability and the bleak urban surroundings  moving rapidly on the screen that seem to be reminiscent of  a nasty dream. It reminds me of those  easy-to-play-hard-to-finish games that reigned the 80s gaming universe, and the ease with which it successfully translated to c64 only proves my point further. It'a a game that would have been a smash whenever it appeared. This title is a personal favourite among endless runners.

You can download the c64 version at c64.com or wait until RGCD have made more cartridges.

WEB DIMENSION

WEB DIMENSION is one of those hidden gems of yore that  simply beg for a re-release. It was one of the first titles you got to play a Demiurge in, dabble in creation and construct paths to help evolution run its course.
A grey web that greets you at the beginning is your playfield. With a stretch of imagination you'd be perceiving it as anything but the actual spiderweb in no time. Each level  requires you to freeze the coloured organism into energy clusters  waiting for them by a web node (the grey web phase), stabilize these energy clusters (the blue web phase)  and make preparations for the transition to occur (the light-colour-changing-music phase) . The accompanying music  is stripped down to its bare tasty melody/rhythmic nuggets that get more flavoured  as you progress, thus letting you, the Demiurge, know you're closer to the Universal Music that resounds your glory  :)

 "To experience, enjoy, create. There is no beginning, no end, no rules, no lives to be lost, no score to be gained. Watch. Listen. Learn". (WEB DIMENSION manual: http://c64-games.blogspot.rs/2011/08/web-dimension-manual.html )

LEADERBOARD GOLF

I've never been a fan of watching sports on TV or playing sports games. Didn't really like them in the 80s and 90s (except for a passing interest in  NHL97/98 and DRAZEN PETROVIC BASKET (for obvious reasons :) ), and not liking football naturally excluded me from enjoying the PES or FIFA series that reign supreme nowadays.

LEADERBOARD GOLF was the only sports game that has ever made a lasting impression on me, and the first game on the c64 that came really close to a perfect simulation of any sport. With beautiful animations, mappings and views of the courses and excellent controls of the game, it was both easy and fun to play. A simple look at a walkthrough video doesn't even come close to what an actual player felt while playing this title in the 80s. I felt as if my c64 was somehow upgraded whenever I'd play it. It was also the only sports game my sisters enjoyed playing!

Later on, I found the Amiga, the Amstrad and the Atari versions had an even more impressive graphics.Then came the other games in the LEADERBOARD  series that brought us more courses and even smoother graphics, but the original title remained one of the pillars of the c64 legacy.

Still waiting for a decent swimming  game/simulation...

LED STORM (C64)/ MAD GEAR

You'd probably say I should have posted some other 8bit racer here. Well, no. This gem, and particularly its c64 version has it all. A jumping car vertically scrolling from level to level, jumping on/over cars or overtaking  them , the frog-like creatures that slow you down when they get stuck to your car if you don't shake them off, driving  damaged roads or open fields, taking boosters, enjoying  beautiful structures and sprites, jumping off ramps over missing bridge parts etc- it was the first time I saw any of that in a racing video game . I admit it, all the other versions of the game have everything I stated and some (the Amiga and the Atari ones) even finer graphics. What makes the commodore 64 version stand out is Tim Follin's masterful adaptation of themes from the arcade version, making them into something completely different on the C64. His greatness as a music composer really shines here. He introduces racing beats that skillfully combine techno and his ever-present prog-tinged melodies. Tim is/was one of the very few composers who managed to  push the  natural lushness of the SID chip way above its capabilities and trick you into thinking that your c64 had an additional sound chip installed. 16bit computers came nowhere near Commodore 64 when it came to the quality of sound. As you drive , it's the combined efort of excellent graphics and powerful music that keeps you glued to your seat  all throughout the game.

I loved Led Storm  and I played it so much that I ended up thinking  Deep Purple stole the riff from Tim Folin's opening theme. I never liked Deep Purple , and I still think Follin  is one od the greatest rebels in the history of original game soundtracks. The melody always comes first and I wish more game music composers realized this.

BLOCK OUT

Tetris was a success with every kid I knew, and so was Duotris on the c64 , but when I saw this game in the amusement park that came to my hometown  I was completely blown away by it!Having spent a few days playing this title for hours on end, I decided to buy a Commodore64 version of it, and although it was quite a decent conversion I got back to playing the arcade version. The elegance behind the original Tetris game was so simply unique that the only way to upgrade it in a way was to make a 3d version of it, and the results were impressive.There's a decent colour palette that doesn't get in the way of  playing the game, and a firm sense of depth while moving your tertominoes about.The giant head that challenges you and decides whether you live on or die gives you an impression you are actually solving your packing problems on a holodeck of some kind.
Though nothing beats its original predecessor, this title is highly addictive and rewarding. Whether this game helped me with my geometry lessons and indeed enhanced my spatial intelligence or not is completely irrelevant. It was and still is unique and fun to play.