Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
The 1980s were when the games industry truly entered its golden age, with a slew of classics released which still resonate today.
In this series, we look at the top 10 games of 1981, where some of the best-known characters and series in gaming history were born.
Too recent for you? Go back to 1980.
Prefer a rundown of the top ZX Spectrum games of all time? We've got that.
More interested in the Commodore Amiga? We've got your covered there too, with the top 30 here in three parts:
Top Amiga games 21-30
Top Amiga games 11-20
Top Amiga games 1-10
But for now, cast all thoughts of those other platforms and eras aside, and join as as we turn the clock back to 1981.
10. Tempest
Released by Atari in October 1981, Tempest gives the player a spaceship, but interestingly doesn't allow the player to roam around the screen in space, like other games of the period.
In Tempest the player must survive for as long as possible whilst crawling and hopping across a surface - which is sometimes on one plane, and sometimes wrapped into a tube. The surface is split into lanes, and enemies which land can be shot with the ship's blaster.
It was originally designed to be a 3D version of space invaders, but early iterations didn't work well, so it was re-imagined as a surface-crawling-lane-hopping-shooter. Wait, isn't that a new genre? Why haven't there been any other games in that category since?
The vector graphics used to represent 3 dimensions were impressive for the period, and were well-received at the time.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
9. Wizard of Wor
A maze-based shooter published by Midway as an arcade cabinet, Wizard of Wor allows up to two players to run clearing zones by killing monsters. The player characters are called Worriors, and the monsters all have ‘wor' in their names somewhere, like ‘Burwor' or ‘Woluk' for instance.
Interestingly, when there are two players, you can either co-operate and take out monsters, or even kill each other for bonus points (although player kills do count, and players do lose lives that way).
The different monsters have different abilities (such as turning invisible, or summoning another monster on death), and the titular Wizard of Wor can disappear and teleport. He also taunts the players with real speech - which in 1981 would have been quite unsettling.
It was later ported to various Atari home consoles, and the C64.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
8. Qix
No, it's pronounced ‘kicks'. Qix, from Taito, was originally another arcade cabinet, though it eventually made its way to various Atari consoles, the Commodore 64, PCs and even the Amiga.
In the game, the player controls a small object which can move around a rectangle. You can use the object to draw lines, and if those lines create an enclosed space, that capture the area. To finish a level, the player must use this technique to claim at least 75 per cent of the screen.
But there's jeopardy too of course. Touch an incomplete line, or an enemy (known as Sparx), then you lose a life. Also, take too long on a level and Super Sparx appear, who chase the player along incomplete lines.
Qix did well when first released, but ultimately proved too conceptual and confusing to really make a big mark - but it is a great example of the innovation that existed at the time. Nothing quite like it has been released since.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
7. Stargate
Seemingly unsatisfied with the huge hit that was Defender (which you *SPOILERS* may hear about later), William Electronics released its sequel, Stargate, in October 1981.
Much like its forebear, the player controls a ship across a horizontally scrolling world, with a single line denoting the mountainous landscape below. Stargate builds on its legacy by adding new ships (including Firebombers, Dynamos and Yllabian Space Guppies) to the mix, and gives the player's ship a cloaking device which also confers invulnerability for a short time.
Now, back to those weird alien names. They're actually Williams' attempts to poke fun at the competition, for example Yllabian is a reference to Bally Midway, one of the firm's rivals. There are also Phreds, Big Reds and Munchies, all of which resemble Pac-Man, one of the most popular games of the era, also released by Bally.
Stargate was ported to various models of Atari computer, the Commodore 64, Apple II and IBM PC.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
6. Ultima I
Ultima I:The First Age of Darkness, to give it its full title, is the very first of Richard Garriott's famous series. Released in June 1981, it was published by California Pacific Computer Company.
The game tasks the player with finding and destroying the Gem of Immortality, which is a shame because it sounds quite useful. Naturally it's not a straightforward quest, and the nasty wizard Mondain would quite like to keep the gem, and enslave the lands of Sosaria to boot.
Plot aside, Ultima I was one of the first commercial computer RPGs, and showed what the genre could be. Its influence is still felt today, not least due to the fact that it's labelled as the world's first open-world computer game.
Garriott developed Ultimate I in his first year at the University of Texas, with his friend Ken Arnold. They used Applesoft BASIC on an Apple II computer, then Arnold wrote code in assembly language for the simple, tile-based graphics system. It was the first game to do that too.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
5. Defender
Told you you'd hear about it later.
A horizontally scrolling shooter, Defender was released by Williams Electronics in February 1981. The player must destroy various waves of aliens, whilst defending astronauts.
It was originally an arcade cabinet, but as home computers took hold it was ported over to the Apple II, various Ataris, the ColecoVision, Commdore 64, IBM PC and many others.
Apparently the game was set in space, because development head Eugene Jarvis felt that having a black void as a background meant you could more easily get away with simple, unrealistic graphics. Which is probably why not too many early ‘80s arcade games were set in the jungle.
Also, the landscape being just a simple, undulating line was down purely to the hardware limitations of the era. Works though.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
4. Castle Wolfenstein - Apple II
This is where the rich Wolfenstein legacy begins. Released on the Apple II in 1981 by Muse, it soon made its way to PCs, Ataris and the Commodore 64. The game itself is a World War II shooter, where the player must navigate a labyrinthine castle, steal military plans, and not die.
Although Castle Wolfenstein is played from a top-down perspective, it inspired the birth of the FPS, with id Software releasing the seminal Wolfenstein 3D (famously featuring Adolf Hitler in a robo-exoskeleton as the final boss) in 1992. That itself led to Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory in 2003, Wolfenstein in 2009, and Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2014.
That's a lot of Wolfensteins. And it all started here, in 1981.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
3. Ms. Pac-Man
Debuting in 1980, it turned out that Pac Man was not to remain single for long, with Ms Pac-Man following hot on his heels in 1981. Released in January 1982 by Midway Manufacturing (the US publisher of Pac-Man), its huge popularity led to it being adopted by Namco, producers of the original Pac-Man. In fact, it holds the title as the most successful US-made arcade game of all time, with 115,000 cabinets sold in total. That's a lot of fairgrounds.
The game is essentially the same as its forebear, but with a few different mazes, some different colour schemes and designs, and some new behavioural patterns for the ghosts.
Intriguingly, the bug which rendered the original unplayable past level 256 also appears in this game. Although other bugs cause it to crash even earlier, and the 256th level bug has only been discovered via emulation.
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
2. Frogger
Frogger, an arcade game released by Konami in 1981, sees players attempt to help a small green frog not be flattened into paste by a variety of fast-moving and uncaring vehicles. Or be swallowed by a croc. Or, oddly for an amphibian, drown.
Copied endlessly in the following decades, recently and notably by Crossy Road, it's one of the most recognisable and iconic games ever. Okay it may not quite have the lore of Dark Souls, but it matches it for difficulty (especially a few levels in).
Interestingly, the game is so immersed in our culture, that it has even found itself referenced in gene sequencing, with the so-called ‘jumping gene' family in the common fruitfly known as ‘Frogger'. How many other games can make that claim? (Clue: none).
The highest known score was made by one Michael Smith of Springfield, Virginia, USA who managed 970,440 points. How bummed must he have been to miss out on the big million?
Top 10 games from 1981 - the classics that kick-started the golden age of computing
The '80s were when the games industry blossomed from a niche sideline into a huge mainstream behemoth. Join V3 as we look at the top titles of the period to appear on the Atari, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and others
1. Donkey Kong
Released by Nintendo in 1981, this first incarnation of Donkey Kong was an arcade cabinet featuring a great big shiny black joystick for movement, and three big buttons for dodging and jumping.
The idea, as if you didn't know, is navigate Mario (who was originally called Mr. Video) across a series of platforms, jumping over barrels and other obstacles, and climbing ladders, all with the eventual aim of rescuing Pauline (originally simply called ‘Lady' - lucky they managed to think of better names eh?) from a giant ape called Stephen. Wait no, it was called Donkey Kong.
By 1981 Nintendo had been trying (and mostly failing) to crack North America. Donkey Kong was the breakthrough - and what a breakthrough. It was a huge critical and commercial hit, and has permeated popular culture ever since.
Though for our money, its best ever incarnation was this.
Interestingly, with blatant cloning of Donkey Kong rife across a variety of industries, Universal City Studios attempted to rub more salt in the wound by suing Nintendo, claiming that the character violated its own trademark of King Kong. Fortunately for the Japanese firm, the lawsuit failed.
And that wraps up our look at 1981. Next up, 1982. Surprisingly.