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.

DRAGON'S LAIR

Before Dragon's Lair a truly cinematic gaming experience could have only taken place in the imagination if the player while they were mentally traversing magical kingdoms inside the confines of textual adventures.The game appeared almost a decade before interactive movies would become a thing  (and would fall from grace soon afterwards) and heralded the genre in the best way possible . I'm not really sure what kind of processing power a laser disc could have provided an arcade cabinet with , but my personal impression at the time was one of sheer awe. In the years when cheap animation reigned supreme on TV (MOTU,Tarzan etc). the emergence of a game that was visually even more appealing than the series was a huge thing. At that time the animated series wasn't being broadcast anywhere in Yugoslavia, so imagine my surprise when I first laid eyes on the game. Who could resist playing out a cartoon, being at the same time entertained and annoyed with a myriad of excellent ways to die. Nowadays people say the game is nothing more than a series of movie sequences you become an able director of after spending a fortune on your trial-and-error learning curve. Memorising steps to  victory wasn't something that was unknown to 80s gaming anyway (one can easily evoke  memories of titles that taunt the player in a number of largely similar  ways). so a credit should be given where it's due , and this game surely deserves the credit and pomp it got.  Whining about coins lost in the local arcade isn't the way to go about writing a  game review.

KUNG FU MASTER

Whether a particular movie served as inspiration for this legendary game or the whole  king fu action movie genre lent its cliches to it, there could be no doubt that Kung Fun Master changed the face of gaming and set some basic standards for side-scrolling beat-em-ups for good.
Lee is a classic kung fu hero who allows the player  to immerse themselves in a genuine kung fu experience as portrayed on big screens of the time. He displays a deliberately limited number of moves (3 kicks, 2 punches and 1 stiff jump) that require restraint, precision and patience and some getting accustomed to the game's rhythm in a player to fully appreciate it. Many contemporary kung fu/karate movie cliches crept in as well -The Caucasian girlfriend of a Caucasian fighter feeling neglected and left out due to his daily routines; a fight scene where many attackers kidnap the girl despite fighter's effort; a mysterious impotent man named after a letter who's  probably a bit too much into muscles and muscular physique and autoeroticism for  someone trying to play the role of an alpha-male; fighting inside a temple with one floor too many where fighters are literally swept off the floor; villains laughing for no reason; energy-draining Holders and little people who know kung fu; fire-breathing dragons released out of cracked spheres and poisonous snakes coming out of pots; butterflies sucking you dry and female kung fu bosses (evil disguised as beauty); enemy jams the fighter has to free himself from that are entertaining on the eyes. Add an excellent backing track,  impressive fx and graphics for a 1984 game to it all and you can easily understand why the experience of playing it in the arcade was truly magical. This  game scores high on playability and replay value with the kids of today that have tried it, and it only goes to show how good the game was.

BUBBLE BOBBLE

My sisters loved playing this classic, my dad loved it , hell, I even  got my mom to play it once - and she hated video games.What was so enticing about this title? Was it the fact that it was one of the few genuine 2-player experiences from the 80s that did it for this classic? Aside from trapping enemies in a bubble and popping them and jumping platforms, the two B brothers must have offered something je ne sais quoi  to earn the status of a classic. It must have been the head-spinning and the cuteness that did it for all of us.The cute factor and the world that displayed this cuteness worked just as well in the arcade or an amusement park or on my friends NES whenever I would play it - there was always somebody asking to join me in my Baburu Boburu adventures. And yes - the iconic game soundtrack was heaven!

For all that it’s a great game inspired by a merely good one, Bubble Bobble was not, in itself, hugely influential—with the possible exception of the magnificent sequel Rainbow Islands. Between them, perhaps, they simply managed to perfect the formula. RS

MARBLE MADNESS

Marble Madness aged incredible well, as if its makers knew there would one day be a retro-mania spanning across media such as music,film, gaming etc. So all the innovations used on the cabinet - the trackball used instead of a joystick to help you immerse into the game's world and its unique physics (and no buttons- a sincere thank-you to whoever came up with this idea!), the stylish graphics that could pass for some contemporary nostalgia-driven graphics of today, the interesting soundtrack that used a unique Yamaha audio chip that propelled  this 1984 title  to an almost 16-bit era soundwise. And it's as hard as an 80s' game gets- I remember being entertained and frustrated at the same time playing this in the arcade.

I have yet to try it on some emulator and although I guess it won't feel the same, it'll  still be worth revisiting for its architecture and physics.

LITTLE COMPUTER PEOPLE

I value this game over any other "God"-simulation or pet simulation as it blends the two concepts before each of them properly appeared in video games (feel free to correct me if there were previous uses of any of the two in video games or electronic games of any knd) . I absolutely adored being a caretaker for the little people who "lived" inside my computer in a wonderful two-storey dwelling.

When a new little person  is generated by the computer  they go about their daily routines and you can initiate contact or they might do it. They won't be coerced into talking to you. They decide whether to talk or play poker or play a piano tune for you or to themselves or otherwise. Using cuss words or hurling sarcasm at them will only get you further from them complying to your requests. A "pretty please" won't help either.This is exactly what makes this game so intriguing- at times I felt as if I was bullying them or encroaching on their privacy. I felt bad. And giving them gifts in forms of records, books. computer games didn't help. Sometimes I would go for days without playing the game, that's how uneasy I was about the whole thing.The only thing I had to do was to leave them food and see to their drinking water  to keep them alive. And so the pretense of little people living inside computers worked - I thought about  my characters starving to death or dying of thirst while I went about my own daily routines.

My late father finally said the disc had to go.

SUPER HEXAGON

Colours are swapped as the game goes on and as the setting changes and the hexagon maze  closes its walls on you in perfect sync with rhythms of fine tunes done by the contemporary 8-bit scene hero Chipzel. You're a simple triangle that looks simply infinitesimally small  in the spiraling maze system.

I find this game fascinating as it addresses some issues that today's games have in common- they lack clear, simple fun!I miss the old era of 8-bit games where you had one life ,-and once you're dead you're dead.And it's not about nostalgia , it's about a single game designer being pressed for time and coming up with a legendary game- I want those people at the forefront of todays gaming universe. Sure, this game could have been made on earlier machines and in earlier eras, but the speed and the sheer simplicity look  way better now and highlight the above mentioned issue. In this day and age we've forgotten about bringing table-like games to a world outside of hand-held devices, and games like these will always win the hearts of new generations.