- Happy New Year, everyone!
Top game lists have been done to death on the internet but some topics still manage to get overlooked, like the 1970s. It was a groundbreaking decade for video games. While I think most people would agree that its genres were surpassed in the '80s, that doesn't mean there isn't stuff worth playing today both for gameplay and historical value.
One thing that sucks about trying to compare '70s games is that it's impossible to have access to playing everything. A lot of mainframe games remain lost. A lot of arcade games are super rare now and many haven't been emulated. And with some that are emulated, I don't feel I can properly judge them without real hardware (like the Triple Hunt gun games).
Also, many games are hard to determine release dates circa 1979/1980. Atari's Adventure is a significant game and we don't even know for sure what decade it hit stores. See this blog post covering that topic -blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2012/07/adventure-game-released-in-year-of.html1
I'm not sure how to rank dedicated consoles either. For example, the Radio Shack TV Scoreboard has a mix of tennis and light gun games but does it count as one sports compilation or multiple games?
Anyway, here's my current top 20:
1. Asteroids (Atari, Arcade)
2. Monaco GP (Sega, Arcade)
Last time I checked, this still hadn't been emulated in MAME but it's available in Sega Ages: Memorial Selection 2 for Saturn. And there's a homebrew PC version based on the arcade version called Monaco GP Remake.
3. Colossal Cave Adventure AKA Adventure (Crowther/Woods, PDP)
Prior to the re-discovery a few years ago of Peter Langston's Wander engine games dating as far back as 1974, this was widely considered to be the first text adventure. You can play at AMC's website since it appears in Halt and Catch Fire (great show, too!).http://www.amc.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire/exclusives/colossal-cave-adventure
4. Star Raiders (Atari, 400/800)
There were space shooters before it that did action well or simulation well but this was the game that successfully merged the two styles.
5. Space Invaders (Taito, Arcade)
6. Combat (Atari, VCS)
I like other '70s tank games like arcade Tank, Panzer Attack on Bally, Armored Encounter on Odyssey2, and Armor Battle on Intellivision but Combat is the most satisfying one. The controls and variations give it an edge.
7. Bomb Bee (Namco, Arcade)
Breakout meets pinball. It's the sequel to Gee Bee and predecessor to Cutie Q.
8. Super Breakout (Atari, VCS)
Even with fancier games in the genre over the past decades, this still holds up nicely. Block Buster on Microvision deserves a mention as well for a similar experience on a cartridge portable a decade before Game Boy.
9. Dungeon AKA Zork (Anderson/Blank/Daniels/Lebling, PDP)
Infocom adapted this to personal computers by dividing it into three games (among other changes). But that was starting in 1980. That's a more polished version but if you want the original '70s experience ported to a modern PC, download the file zdungeon and run it through a program like WinFrotz.
10. Head On (Sega/Gremlin, Arcade)
A pre-Pac-Man dot gobbler of sorts. I might have a preference for Atari's clone, Dodge 'Em, but I haven't found good evidence of it coming out before 1980.
11. Galaxian (Namco, Arcade)
12. Orthanc Labyrinth (Resch, PLATO)
Out of all the '70s RPGs I have played, this held my interest the most. dnd has more impressive characters including an end boss but even after playing for hours I'm way too bad at the game to make any real progress. I suck at Orthanc as well but it's not quite as frustrating. There were also more advanced multiplayer focused RPGs back then. If you want to play these emulated PLATO network games, register here: http://www.cyber1.org/index.asp#home1
13. Checkmate (Bally, Professional Arcade)
14. Lunar Lander (Atari, Arcade)
A remake of the 1969 game.
15. Tail Gunner (Vectorbeam, Arcade)
First-person vector graphics shooting from the back of a ship.
16. Lunar Rescue (Taito, Arcade)
It's like Lunar Lander with much simpler physics and shooter elements.
17. M79 Ambush (Ramtek, Arcade)
18. Night Driver (Atari/Micronetics, Arcade)
While Vectorbeam's Speed Freak gets props for being the most visually impressive 3d racer of the '70s, Night Driver has a better speed sensation.
19. Adventureland (Adventure International, TRS-80)
At a time when text adventures were mostly on mainframe computers, Scott Adams was bringing them to the emerging personal computer market.
20. Blasto (Gremlin, Arcade)
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