The 1980s wasn’t the decade video games were born; the origins of the medium go back a further 20 years, through the likes of Spacewar! and Pong. But it was in the 1980s that video games grew up, exploding in popularity and complexity and establishing many of their defining stars. It was the decade that gave us Mario and Zelda, Pac-Man, Final Fantasy, Prince of Persia, and SimCity. But it also gave us some much more obscure titles that have since fallen by the wayside. Here are five fantastic ’80s games that might have been forgotten, but still have something to teach us.
1
Tempest
Dave Theurer’s riveting Atari shooter is the game in this bunch you’re most likely to have heard of, but it still represents one of video gaming’s most compelling roads not traveled — an evolutionary branch that was never really developed, but that still stands out for its originality. Essentially, Theurer took the 2D plane of contemporary shooters like Space Invaders and Centipede and wrapped it into a tube which you then stare down in 3D, your craft clinging precariously to its lip as enemies crawl up at you. Etched in the sharp neon lines of a vector display, and controlled by spinning a wheel rather than tilting a stick, Tempest still feels futuristic 45 years later, and totally hypnotic.
If you’re ever lucky enough to see an original Tempest arcade cab, you have to try it; it’s like nothing else. If not, the good news is that UK game programmer Jeff Minter was so obsessed with Tempest that he made multiple remakes of it, authorized and otherwise, which are easier to find and play today, including the peerlessly trippy Tempest 2000 (included in this collection for current hardware).
2
The Lords of Midnight
- 1984, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore 64
Mike Singleton’s fantasy epic was a kind of Skyrim of the ’80s. Heavily influenced by The Lord of the Rings, it was a hybrid of a role-playing game, a strategy game, and the “graphic adventures” of the time. It gave the player remarkable freedom to explore its fantasy kingdom, recruit new party members, and amass troops to combat the forces of an evil witch-king who has cursed the Land of Midnight with a permanent winter.
The Lords of Midnight had a then-revolutionary “landscaping” presentation which allowed the player to freely explore Midnight in first-person. It looks very primitive now, moving around and changing orientation in single frames, like an outdoor Dungeon Master. But the eeriness of its setting, and the freedom the player is given in how to approach the campaign — by setting out on a solo adventure, by recruiting troops and making war, or both — are intoxicating even now.
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