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.

OPERATION WOLF

I was so impressed by this game and played the proots out of it and dreamt it and dreamt of taking it back home with me (or at least  ripping out the massive machine gun and taking it home).All other FPSs I played never got even remotely close to this gem in terms of their hold on me. The detailed graphics, the moving screen and the magnificent sprites, a difficulty level on a par with Green Beret's- any one of these characteristics would have won me over. It had the 80s-Rambo-like-soldier-plowing-through-some-third-world-country-boondocks grit and exaggeration written all over it, and an impressionable kid like myself was instantly hooked (Little did I know my country was going to become a third-world country in just a few years after that). There are 6 stages  the completion of which bring their respective goodies, with  on-the-go energy and ammunition boosts you would snatch off the screen as you enjoy the feel of a cold machine gun in your 8-year old hands.Lovely. All the Dooms,Bloods,Quakes, Half-Lives appeared  after the novelty wore off for me. I'd still pay for the arcade cabinet to own and have displayed in my room today - a subtle reminder that wargames leave a nasty taste in one's mouth after shite hits the fan and  the war appears on your doorstep when you're a teen.

BATTLEZONE

This game was the first to drop the vector graphic bomb on the gaming world- nothing was the same afterwards. It still looks and plays beautiful and may tickle even a present-day kid's curiosity with just enough sensory data and beauty to try it.And by beauty I mean being able to take any screenshot while playing and use it on a contemporary synthwave/electronica  album coverart before any other design. I definitely see the smooth vector display inspiring the makers of the original Tron movie as well. The game screen is divided to give the illusion of space and  shooting UFOs , tanks and missiles invokes just enough of a wargod in you to be in a state of constant excitement while playing. No wonder it stirred quite a buzz in the day.
Battlezone shouldn't be admired for its historic value but for the very play value that made it a gem among gems.

CHO ANIKI- Kyuukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyou Otoko

The Japanese call such games "idiot games" and "s++t games", and this series is so utterly nonsensical and original  in its content and visual identity  that you quickly realize there is no other game (series) like it.It is the bizarre combination of many elements that make this classic horizontal scrolling shooter a unique gaming experience. There's  homoeroticism everywhere, the media-perfect oiled male physique that  you were bombarded with as a kid during the 80s and that confused you greatly during the 90s ("wait , I loved He-Man, does that make me gay?", that type of stuff ).There's the surrealism that transcends kitsch to become so ugly that kitsch becomes its own antithesis. Fetishism is here as well -male feet and male noses,  Barbarian-style clothes to cover the scantily-clad lads pirouetting around, phallic secret weapons coming out of crotches or nipple areas etc.The bizarreness of imagery between levels leave you even more confused, even more so when you don't happen to know any Japanese,and can't explain the presence of a male-female pair, two kid angels, and two ripped bodybuilders simultaneously appearing on the screen. The downright-ugly 16-bit music abounds in different genres and styles and is aided by voice samples from many sources, making bizarre audio collages make the visual aspect even more bizarre.
I guess your background, upbringing and cultural values, taboos and tastes play a role in appreciating or hating the game, but at least it challenges the notion of what a computer games is and what it should address.