Top 100 retro games

It is possibly the most awesome car ever made aside from the "Metal Attacker" in Blaster Master. It was even more awesome when you drive far enough to reach the boathouse and change into the speedboat.

An arcade-inspired action run and gun starring sweaty shirtless men charging through tropical jungles and blasting everything in sight with an overhead, birds-eye perspective, Ikari Warriors was the definitive videogaming outlet for bottled-up aggression. This game was macho, manly destructive fun with its simultaneous two-player action, but also ended up playing an important historic role in the industry — it put SNK on the map.

The company got its start with Ikari as its first major hit, and the success of this game fueled the studio to go on and ultimately create classic fighting franchises such as Fatal Fury and King of Fighters on the Neo-Geo, as well as the timeless Metal Slug series. The heroes of Ikari Warriors, Ralf and Clark, even went on to cameo in several of those later games, you can play as them in several King of Fighters sequels, as well as the most recent Metal Slug installments.

Not too bad for a couple of sweaty, shirtless Rambo clones. This was a defining day for my brother and I, though I'm sure neither of us knew it then.

When Ikari Warriors came out I went berserk for it, and having no income of my own I had to beg my brother Matt 12 years older than me to go out and rent it, which he denied time and time again. We'd head to Mr. Movies in Minnesota, I'd see the box art, freak out, and he'd pick up something else. Finally we rented it, played co-op, and dominated the game, even leaving the NES on overnight during the dreaded "Everyone looks like player 1 and 2" level. I was totally paranoid that I'd come back from school or day care or whatever and the game would be turned off.

Fast forward another 15 years or so and I spend my nights playing Call of Duty 4 while he frequents games like BlazBlue. I guess some things never change, eh Ikari Warriors? Following the success of DuckTales, the iconic Disney chipmunks Chip 'n Dale received an action-packed, after school cartoon series in the late '80s. Unlike DuckTales, however, Rescue Rangers is basically linear. With little emphasis on the scaled-up world of the titular chipmunks, many of the things lying around the inflated settings could be picked up and used as projectiles on exploration.

Rescue Rangers also ratcheted the difficulty down quite a bit, making it a good experience to share with a less-skilled partner. Despite their popularity, cooperative games were rarity on the NES and hey, when was the last time you got to spend some quality time with your little sister? Above all else, what surprised me most about Rescue Rangers is that it was so fun to play. I couldn't stand the cartoon I was a DuckTales sort of guy , but to my surprise the game was an addictive platforming masterpiece.

Discovering each new level was a joy. Legendary Wings may have the distinct honor of being the weirdest result of Capcom's efforts to diversify shooters in the s. Set in an ancient Greece-inspired future mind blown yet? If you can get past the partially naked winged dudes, Legendary Wings offers some other treats as well. For instance, a giant mouth spouts out vortexes that suck you into a side-scrolling stage with a creepy worm mini-boss.

If you fully power up your weapons you turn into a flaming, butt-kicking phoenix. Although originally an arcade game, the NES port of Legendary Wings is especially welcome on the NES due to its cooperative mode, which allows you to experience the weirdness with a pal.

Carry on about how this game just isn't as good as the arcades I do , but the truth is NES had some killer shooters, and this was one that I went back to over and over again. It had two player support — so even when my feeble, under-developed child hands couldn't hack it my bro could step up and dominate — and the addition of not only top view but also side scrolling portions sent my infant-like brain into convulsions.

What a glorious game, from the overall design down to the visuals and music. When I wasn't burning my eyes in playing 3D Rad Racer on my brother's water bed I was wasting my life away with this shooter. Now you can see why I'm so messed up….

The NES had a handful of memorable wrestling sims, including Nintendo's own Pro Wrestling and WWF WrestleMania, the first wrestling game to ever license the use of real world performers, but from a gameplay standpoint, none of them ever trumped Tecmo World Wrestling.

This grappler was unmatched in its diversity of moves and over-the-top personality, and remains today a favorite of thousands of fans across the world. Tecmo World Wrestling's main gameplay screen split the action, with the core wrestling taking place on the top half on the screen while the television's lower portion was dominated by the text bubbles of an overly enthusiastic ringside announcer calling all the play-by-play.

You worked your opponent into submission, going for the pin, and victory gave you the chance to take on tougher challengers, but not before training your chosen warrior to be stronger with interstitial mini-games.

It's still a blast to this day and Tecmo should bring it back. How could I forget the cutscenes? Watching elaborate slams and suplexes in the glorious 8-bit cinematics captured my imagination immediately. I also loved the take-offs of popular wrestlers that Tecmo had going on here. By , Capcom was churning out quality 2D platformers at frightening rate, making it entirely possible for the gamers of yesteryear to have missed this strangely licensed gem.

Little Nemo, an American comic strip, had received the anime treatment in Japan at the time and thus the game was created, but the license was no doubt long forgotten by American audiences when Nemo came stateside. In the game, our pajama clad mascot navigates the often psychedelic Slumberland with the help of wild animals. Gorillas, lizards, frogs and other feral friends can be temporarily tamed when Nemo feeds them candy do not try this at home , at which points he saddles them up Yoshi-style, allowing him to reach new areas.

But Slumberland is an unexpectedly dangerous place, and the game's advanced difficulty level no doubt took some unsuspecting youngsters by surprise. Little Nemo's cover art of a tyke in his pajamas most likely resulted in it finding its way into the hands of many a NES gamer's little sister, which is where probably where I first chanced upon it I had a strict "no girly games" policy when I was This kiddie Capcom platformer gave Mega Man a run for his money, though, and while I'm still not sure who this Nemo dude is, I had a great time pelting animals with candy all the same.

Qix is one of the finest examples of the NES's prowess at emulating arcade classics. Although the NES had trouble tackling some of its arcade contemporaries, games like 's Qix were a perfect match for its capabilities. While Qix was never lauded for its graphical flair, the NES got not only the look but the mechanics of this strange geometric puzzler down perfectly. In Qix, the titular entity bounds randomly about the playing field while the player attempts to gain ground by drawing boundaries with a stylus of sorts.

Complete a shape and the area is yours. If the Qix interrupts your line mid-stroke, you are destroyed. There is an art to snagging territory, and players eventually must learn how to manipulate the irrepressible Qix itself. Qix for NES is the definitive home version due to its spot-on emulation and availability, although it was also resurrected on various PC platforms and Nintendo even published a GameBoy version featuring characters from the Mario pantheon.

In it, there's a Qix-inspired mini-game, and in that instant, I remembered how much fun I had with the NES port during my childhood. Crazy how that happens, no? Pro-Am, and cast players as the captains of a high-speed, heavily-armored attack ship cutting through tropical waters to take on sharks, rival watercrafts and giant sea serpents.

The Cobra Triangle gunship was a versatile vessel, and the power-ups it could obtain were what made this one a blast to play. You could upgrade its engine, increase the rate of fire of its bullets, increase the number of its bullets, give it the power to fire secondary missiles and even wrap it in a force field.

It's like someone took the Gradius series' Vic Viper and transformed it from a spaceship into a jet ski. Totally killer! I played this game for the first time on a vacation to Wisconsin that was back when most kids had three NES games total, and liked it , and dug the game so much I had to own it.

In fact, I'm not sure I ever bought it, so if anyone ever sees Andy Folkers can you tell him I still have his copy of one of the best NES games of all time? Crap… I should really get this awesome gem of a game back to him. Although it's actually the second entry in the predominately Japanese TwinBee series, the re-branded Stinger was the only entry that saw release on the North American NES. A uniquely saccharine shooter, Stinger pits two quite capable, but very pastel space cruisers against some deceptively cute enemy forces.

An irate watermelon spits seed at you at the end of one level, while a very angry water faucet lurks at the conclusion of another. Things just get weirder from there, with household appliances eventually standing between you and whatever your adorable goal may be.

You can collect power-ups by "juggling" bells on heart-shaped beams of pure love, thus altering their colors and endowing you with different abilities. The entire game can be played with a wingman, but make sure whoever it is can appreciate a heaping dollop of cuteness, served Japanese-style with extra "cute" on the side. Vague memories of a strange, somewhat girly shooter plagued me as I restocked my NES collection a few years back.

I happily rediscovered Stinger despite its unfortunate title and packaging A space ship with boxing gloves? As I played it for the first time in two decades, I recalled many afternoons spent with the cutesy Twinbee fighters. Now if I could only figure out what that tank game with huge bosses was…. Sure it was the sequel to an awesome medieval platformer, but we're pretty sure it was Fabio's bare-breasted likeness smoldering on IronSword's cover art that made this game a smash hit with kids and moms alike.

The sequel features the same great stuff as the first: catchy, mead-swilling tunes; stylized fantasy graphics; and the peculiar use of "ye olde Engrish.

The game places a greater emphasis on exploration than the first, and can get a bit confusing, but if you hop around enough you can find your way through the game fairly easily. Although I initially displayed the poster of IronSword's cover art that shipped with the game on my wall, Fabio's polished pectorals quickly became a discomforting presence in my bedroom.

Nevertheless, I spent many hours with this awesome sequel — in the game, the cover model was substituted with a protagonist tastefully clad to the nines in iron plating. Early adopters who made the next-gen leap without looking back missed an incredible game design. Gargoyle's Quest II was the sequel to the Game Boy original Gargoyle's Quest, a game that was itself a spin-off of Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins starring that series' infamous flying red demon as its hero.

This NES follow-up refined and focused what started on the portable platform, offering a polished action experience married with overhead map and town exploration ripped right out of the best RPGs of the age. You could jump, cling to walls, spew fireballs and hover with your demon wings in action stages and then chat it up with the denizens of the Demon Realm, earn upgrades and items and more.

A great, overlooked game that deserves more recognition today than it got back in What an unsung classic this, and the Game Boy version, is.

This is another one that really paved the way for others too. Demon's Crest, perhaps one of the biggest under-selling games of all time compared to its quality, wouldn't have been possible without cutting its teeth on the NES and classic Game Boy.

Amazingly enough, this game still holds up too. Kung Fu is an enigma. A dumbed-down port of a superior arcade title by Irem, Kung Fu holds accolades simply for being one of the first third-party games released on the NES. Aside from its special place in history, however, Kung Fu is also a rewarding example of early "beat-'em-up" videogames in all of its 2D glory.

Made up of only five stages and a few types of enemies, a skilled gamer can get through Kung Fu in its entirety in less than ten minutes. What makes the game so special, then?

Apart from its fun gameplay and difficult boss battles, Kung Fu had inherent replay value simply because the game started over once you beat it with a higher difficulty level. This made it a prime game for high score hunting, with certain parts of the experience that were of the make and break variety. Could you get past the bee-throwing enemy on stage four without losing a life? It was integral if you wanted a high score.

And who could forget Mr. X's maniacal laughter each time he defeated Thomas, keeping his kidnapped girlfriend for his own. Who ever thought I could be addicted to such a simple, repetitive game? We could only afford a new game every few months growing up, and when we were stuck with a game like Kung Fu, you might think we were disappointed. It wasn't so. Kung Fu proved how good even the most simple games can be, and it's still a title I go back and play often to this day.

But back on the NES, there was no besting LucasArts' Maniac Mansion for deep, involved and genuinely funny pointing and clicking action. Though a bit cumbersome to control with just an NES D-Pad and menu bar of potential actions to take, this tale of seven diverse high school kids exploring a kooky manor populated with wacky, blue-skinned mad scientists and alien tentacles was nevertheless addictive, thanks in large part to the great variety of ways to win. You could take several different paths through the house, discover tons of interactions between characters and objects, and replay the game again and again with a completely different trio of the seven potential playable characters each with unique skill-sets and abilities.

Let's be honest — if you are going to play Maniac Mansion, you really should try the uncensored Commodore 64 version. Nintendo was pretty heavy handed about content on the NES, so some of the ribald stuff in MM was yanked. But even without it, Maniac Mansion was still an excellent adventure game with a good sense of humor. Super C, the somewhat unfortunately-titled sequel to Contra, features the same co-op shooter action of the first without toying with the formula too much.

If you are wondering, that formula is one part Aliens, two parts First Blood, and perhaps a dash of Predator to keep things exotic. A port of a graphically superior arcade version, Konami gave Super C lots of love to help it make a successful transition, including the addition of several unique levels. The pseudo-3D levels that broke up the side-scrolling action in Contra are replaced with vertical-scrolling levels, but the graphical style, gameplay and even the guns all remain identical to the original.

Super C, like Contra, is a nearly perfect cooperative experience, and is best enjoyed with a buddy to high five as the iconic level finish tune plays. All I remember is the Konami Code only worked once on this game and it gave players 10 lives instead of 30 per continue and — worse of all — it only worked once.

A complete reworking of an inferior arcade brawler of the same name, Rygar for the NES tells the heroic story of a man and his deadly yo-yo shield.

Unlike its source, the NES version is an exploration-focused game with both side-scrolling platforming levels connected by a top down overworld-like area.

Having more in common with Metroid or The Legend of Zelda than NES era brawlers, Rygar must find equipment upgrades — a grappling hook, pulley, crossbow etc. Strangely, though epic in scale, Rygar doesn't feature a way to save or even a password system, so make sure your NES is hooked up to a good power source before embarking on your quest.

Kratos' Blades of Athena are simply an upgrade of Rygar's one and only Diskarmor! The top-loading NES replaced the classic system, the Super Nintendo was over two years old, and the bit battle was waging all around it in full force. Capcom considered the NES obsolete at this point and refused to publish the game in the United States.

That's where Nintendo stepped in and published the game itself for a spring release. Mega Man 6 is considered by many to be the last worthwhile NES release in the catalog, and though that's not saying much when looking at the title's contemporaries, Mega Man 6 is still as good as it gets in many respects. The new Rush Adaptors combined Mega Man with his robotic dog into one unit for the first time, and yes, Dr.

Wily is again behind the robotic destruction coursing through the game, this time masquerading as the ill-disguised Mr. When the game dropped, I was on a weird banana oatmeal kick, and I would make a batch every few hours as I played the game over and over again. I still equate the smell of bananas to Mega Man 6 to this day. Weird, right? One of the NES's premier racing games may have a peculiar title, but we pose this question: would a racer by any other name be quite as rad?

Admittedly, the exhilaration of burning past the beach-going VW beetles in your red Ferrari the F1 was significantly less radical is indeed worthy of such high self praise. Nonetheless, the game remains an iconic entry in the NES catalog due to its simple race-or-die gameplay. And if racing in two dimensions isn't your cup of tea, grab your Power Glove, pop on a pair of 3D glasses, and experience Rad Racer in red and blue stereoscopic bliss.

Note: the Power Glove will not enhance gameplay, but you'll look pretty darn rad, we promise. I can remember looking at the Rad Racer flap at Toys R Us remember the old system of flaps and slips? That was enough for me. Thankfully, Rad Racer turned out to be a great racing game that was my second-favorite racer of the generation, right after OutRun on the Master System.

In it, our metal-clad protagonist, Kuros, sets out on a quest to save not one, but several distressed damsels and we're not talking about some ugly dude in mushroom regalia. Along the way you'll explore — via many, many knightly leaps — lofty treetops, labyrinthine caverns and an unexpectedly tall castle tower. In a cool adventure gaming twist, you'll need to meet a certain booty diamonds, not damsels quota before being able to exit each area, but don't expect a sign reading "Here Be Treasure.

Along the way you'll score various weapon upgrades, although Kuros's trademark duds never change. This makes it all the more mysterious that he appears as a strapping naked dude on the cover, but hey, those were different times.

Happily, this fine action platformer broke with the stereotypical dungeon crawlers, allowing you to hop around, bashing enemies with your Wand of Whatever without a single roll of multisided dice, virtual or otherwise. The NES had its fair share of unique puzzle games, and Adventures of Lolo 3 might take the cake as the genre's quintessential title on the console.

While two Lolo games preceded the release of the series' third iteration in the States, the game known by fans as Lolo 3 is most fans' favorite. What's more, it was a fledgling HAL Laboratory that created the series, a company more popularly-known today for the Lolo-like character Kirby. In premise, the Lolo games were as simple as can be. A stagnant, square-shaped screen presented the player's blobbish character with a puzzle.

To proceed to the next level, a treasure chest must be opened, but that chest is only unlocked when all heart icons on the screen are acquired. And that's where Lolo's difficult gameplay comes in, because it's getting those icons that are the true feat. You have to deal with enemies galore and traps aplenty; the game even gave the player the option to kill his or her character off by pressing the Select button if they found themselves trapped or unable to proceed, a true testament to Lolo 3's deep and difficult gameplay built on a deceivingly-childlike facade.

All of the Adventures of Lolo games were great, but the third chapter has the best puzzles of the whole series — and almost the most difficult. As much as I enjoyed, I honestly don't believe I ever beat it. I should fix that To capitalize on the puzzle trend, Nintendo threw its first-party hat into the ring and released Dr.

Mario on the console just in time for the holiday season. An interesting take on the Tetris formula, Dr. Mario presented gamers with a new puzzle-based quandary — how will you use the multi-colored pills thrown into play by a white coat-wearing Mario to eliminate the viruses plaguing your screen?

The answer was simple — line up the appropriate colors of pills matching the viruses, and voila, they disappear. Sound easy? Well it wasn't. As was the case with Tetris, Dr.

Mario got fast and furious the further into the game you got. Before you knew it, your screen was full of viruses with scant a place for your pills to go. Thankfully, unlike Nintendo's release of Tetris, Dr. Mario reveled in its two-player glory, and Nintendo's new hit proved not only to be a favorite among puzzle fans, but a game consumed by multi-player purists as well. I was so bored with Tetris. It wasn't even that compelling.

But when one of my favorite childhood icons, Mario, appeared in his own variety of puzzle game, I was hooked. The Tetris cartridge was circulated amongst us and our various neighbors forever after collected dust. After all, Dr. Mario had a two player mode.

Unforgiving, head-scratchingly perplexing, deep, dangerous and unlike anything else on the system in theme and feel. Shadowgate, originally made for Mac systems, was a point-and-click adventure game seen from a first-person perspective, wherein you ventured deep into a complicated dungeon filled with traps, monsters, riddles and hidden treasures around every corner.

A key eye for subtle detail was needed for success, as your exploration could often come to a sudden and gruesome end if you missed even a single key weapon or item early in the labyrinth. You were fighting the clock, too, and if you ever ran out of torches then it was Game Over for you.

Shadowgate's unique spin on the point-and-click concept spawned several spiritual successors like Deja Vu and The Uninvited on the NES, as well as its own direct sequel years later on the Nintendo But the original is still the best, which is probably why it was singled out for a Game Boy Color release ten years after its Nintendo console debut in As a kid, Shadowgate was straight spooky. Haunting music and the constant fear of running out of torches usually kept me from playing more than a half hour at a time, but I kept going back to it.

And never got anywhere. Friggin' troll, I've got only a copper coin! Last, you throw Radical into the mix. Just to be extra cool, and to remind you you're still in the '80s. And Kid Niki was indeed a radical adventure, starring a young ninja-in-training whose own princess-rescuing adventure was set apart by two defining features — his spiked-out, punk-rock hairstyle and his vicious spinning sword.

Not content to just slash his foes to death, Niki had to slice and dice them with a whirlwind blade just to be that much more radical. Tubular stuff, Niki. Totally bodacious to the max! Ah, Kid Niki, with your crazy hair and your even wackier spinning sword. You'd think a sword that spins would hurt you, but it doesn't. While Niki is a game that hasn't aged as well as titles like Super Mario Bros.

Simple, straightforward side-scrolling action, lots of baddies to send flying off the screen with a quick swipe of your blade, and stylish graphics for its time. I doubt anybody would rank the title in their top 10s, but for a plus-year-old action romp, it was — as the title suggests — pretty rad. The drama surrounding Tetris is one of the most storied sagas in the history of the NES. Tengen, an ambitious Atari-associated game developer, began releasing official NES games in Meanwhile, the company worked rapidly behind the scenes to override Nintendo's infamous lockout device that kept unofficial cartridges from being played on its console.

When Tengen released its first unofficial games using its new technology, Nintendo quickly sued. Ignoring Nintendo's claim to the Tetris name in the US a year later, Tengen released its own version of the world's most famous puzzle game on an unlocked, unofficial cartridge.

Tengen's tetris was pulled from shelves almost immediately when it was revealed that Nintendo's hold on the Tetris name stateside was legitimate. Unfortunately, almost everyone agrees that Tengen's version of the game was far superior to Nintendo's, even including a two-player mode which Nintendo's version sorely lacked.

Upvote your favourite retro games and use the suggestion box at the bottom to add games you think deserve a place in this hall of fame. Best retro games 1. Super Mario Bros. Having pretty much invented the platform game, Nintendo reinvented it with the secret-packed Super Mario Bros. The sprawling ambition of Super Mario Bros. The Frog Suit or Yoshi? The Super Leaf or the Cape Feather?

Not least when you figure out how the light and dark worlds slot together. Turbo might be the definitive version of Street Fighter II, but whichever one you played, the memories will no doubt still vividly linger.

Yet it was the spectacular loops, corkscrews and clever environmental tricks in the follow-up that proved his makers carried the same swagger. While everyone has their favourite Mario Kart — from the four-player-thrills of Mario Kart 64 to the weaponised mayhem of Double Dash!! Having failed to crack the US, president Hiroshi Yamauchi convinced young designer Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new game.

The rest is history. A high-end car, a beautiful girl, blue skies and a long strip of road to the horizon. Your pulse would quicken along with the music as the aliens came closer, while blasting the flying saucer was as satisfying as a Call Of Duty headshot. Doing your job well gets you the high score, but flinging papers all over the place and subverting suburbia is hella cathartic. But lowering the waterfowl population was just as satisfying.

It introduced new maps and was harder: and it made the yellow gobbler the most successful US-produced coin-op.

Today's Top Stories. Top Stories from Years of 'Popular Mechanics'. Every Single Aircraft Carrier in the World. Michael Stillwell. Gone Home Shenmue II Steam PS4 Xbox One The Shenmue series transformed adventure games into an open-world 3D experience with a cinematic, story-driven game. Fire Emblem: Awakening Nintendo 3DS The factor that set Fire Emblem: Awakening apart from its predecessors is the inclusion of a robust relationship system.

Original platform: Nintendo 3DS. Silent Hill 2 PlayStation 2 Silent Hill 2 succeeds in creating an atmosphere of pure terror by focusing more on the psychological and thematic elements of horror rather than simply battling against big scary monsters.

Original platform : PlayStation 2. Day of the Tentacle Zork Steam In the late '70s and early '80s, while the golden age of arcades made its way into shopping malls and bowling alleys, a different kind of game began to thrive at home. Original platform: PDP Star Fox 64 Nintendo 3DS Wii U There's a moment in the first level of Star Fox 64 where, if you fly through a series of seemingly innocuous arches, your wingman Falco tells you to follow him.

I love that moment. FTL Games. Mega Man 2 Original platform: Famicom, NES. PC Mac Dungeon Master pioneered and popularized many elements that would become staples of the role-playing game genre.

Original platform : Atari ST. Valve Corporation. Dota 2 Steam A sequel to the community-created mod Defense of the Ancients for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos , Dota 2 became a phenomenon itself, spawning one of the biggest e-sports communities in the world.

Original platform : PC. Soulcalibur 2 PS3 Xbox The Soul series of fighting games separated itself from the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter through its focus on weapon-based combat. Original platform: Namco System Arcade Board. Free Radical Design. Timesplitters 2 Visceral Games. Dead Space Steam PS3 Xbox Dead Space was a prime example of the cinematic storytelling experience that drove many of the best games in the s.

Twisted Metal Original platform: PlayStation. Cuphead Original platforms : Microsoft Windows, Xbox One. Polyphony Digital. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec PlayStation 2 With Gran Turismo 3 , the now-venerated racing series made the jump from PlayStation to PS2, and with it made a giant leap in graphics and realism.

Original platform: PlayStation 2. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time PS3 Steam Where the third entry in the original Prince of Persia trilogy failed to successfully transfer the series from its 2D roots to a 3D setting, Sands of Time succeeded. We try to forget about that last bit, though Donkey Kong Doom II: Hell on Earth. Duke Nukem.

Resident Evil 2. Final Fantasy I-II. Final Fantasy IX. Baldur's Gate. The Simpsons Arcade Game. Star Fox Bubble Bobble. Mega Man. The Secret of Monkey Island. Prince of Persia. RollerCoaster Tycoon. Donkey Kong Final Fantasy IV. Secret of Mana. Tekken 3. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Civilization II. Final Fantasy V. Twisted Metal. Mortal Kombat 3. Wolfenstein 3D. Golden Axe II. Streets of Rage. Pole Position. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.