Chris Cummins
The Adventures of Major Havoc – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games
Back in the '80s, vector graphics divided arcade gamers. Some liked how the geometric lines of releases like Star Wars were simplistic and visually pleasing, while others preferred the cartoonish 8-bit stylings of releases like Dig Dug and Frogger...
Pac-Land – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games
The original Pac-Man is arguably the most successful and influential video game ever. It spawned a hit song, a cartoon series, a merchandising empire that continues to this day and sequels aplenty. Some of these, like Ms. Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man, were huge hits...
Crossbow – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games
The legacy of Crossbow can be felt in games as divergent as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Dance Dance Revolution. Why? Because this forgotten 1983 lightgun adventure from Exidy (the masterminds behind Mouse Trap and Venture), was the first to include fully integrated digitized sound effects and speech that attempted to create a more realistic gaming experience...
The NewZealand Story – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games
Easily the most obscure game on this list (and certainly the only one whose name is reminiscent of a certain Limahl song), Taito's The NewZealand Story is about as twee as Zooey Deschanel selling letterpress hugs on Etsy.
As this video illustrates, The NewZealand Story approaches Hello Kitty levels of cuteness...
I, Robot – 10 Forgotten ’80s Video Games
Had Atari's I, Robot been a person in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, it would have been accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. That's a fairly obtuse way of saying that this game was so unlike anything else in arcades when it debuted in 1983 that it was ridiculously ahead of its time...