1987 Ranked
It's amazing HOW 80s the 80s were right up until the 90s, at which point it super was not the 80's
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I love Mega Man, but it did inspire an entire generation of people to equate masochistic pattern memorization with 'fun,' so I'm not gonna sit here and say it was a societal good
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Of the 'weird' Pac-Man variants released in an attempt to iterate on the already-perfected formula of the original Pac-Man, Pac-Mania is the best. While the game's thin, vertical perspective on the maze seems like an arbitrary limiting factor at first, adding a jump maneuver completely changes the dynamics of the game. Whereas the design of the original Pac-Man inevitably leads to moments in which the player realizes they've made an error and have navigated into an area in which they'll inevitably be caught, Pac-Mania's jump button is a phenomenal little 'get out of jail free card' that lessens that 'aghhh I fucked up a minute ago and now I have to watch myself fail' feeling, because theoretically, you can navigate your way out of just about anything with that button. This is a weirder, more esoteric, but probably less frustrating iteration of Pac-Man.
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Perfect video game title formula: Super + Abstracted Compound verb
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The arcade version of this game fascinates me, because it's basically a straight up linear platformer, like a console game, but designed with the arcade in mind. This game features merchants, hidden bosses, platforming, and upgradeable equipment - basically everything you'd want from, say, an NES Castlevania title - it's just all very streamlined and snappy to fit in the context of an arcade. And that's cool as hell! You could sink some money into this machine because you got invested in making story progress, rather than to beat a high score. I think that's neat!
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The first final game
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Bimmy and Jimmy's hurricane kick far surpasses Ryu or Ken's
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I understand that Punch-Out was already a game that Nintendo proceeded to staple Mike Tyson onto, but considering the fact that Punch-Out is about fighting Mike Tyson - and the fact that it's hard as hell - makes it genuinely funny to me that this game's title is more or less "Mike Tyson's Beat the Shit Out Of You!!! Simulator"
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Chronicles the year-long war in which Capcom obliterated Midway's land, sea and air game development studios
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I love the aesthetic and there's no question that, in terms of sheer ambition, Metal Gear is punching way above it's weight class of just about every game on this list except for Final Fantasy. Too bad it doesn't make any fucking sense at all to play!
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A thrilling amount of copyright infringement at play here
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APB is an absurd video game. It's an arcade game in which you pursue and apprehend '80s Saturday morning cartoon ideation of criminals. It's weirdly complicated for what it is, tasking the player with chasing the criminal by car, avoiding various obstacles, maintaining your *own* car in the event that it gets damaged, and safely returning to the station now and again when you catch the bad guy. Funnily enough, besides the tough time limit the player has with which to apprehend and jail the criminals, the main concern isn't damage to the police car, but instead "demerits" which get the player fired if they, say, drive their police car into city property, or private property, or, uh, people. APB is, uh, *optimistic* about the regulation of American police work, you might say.
If this sounds like a lot of stuff to do in a game you'll likely play for, oh, six minutes at a time - you're right! That *is* a lot of stuff to do within a six minute time frame. But, it's important to note, the driving mechanics aren't great in this game, so the other stuff the game tasks you with is almost a relief from the main thing it does.
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