My Top 10 Games of 1980

Videogames looked a fair bit different 45 years ago; looking back through what websites like Wikipedia consider important, 1980 had a greater focus on arcade gaming versus consoles, though the Atari 2600 did receive a number of all-time classics that year. But which were truly the best of them? Well, I certainly haven’t looked through everything released back then, but I have gone through a decent amount of them.

To go over my methodology, I am looking at titles first commercially available in the United States in the year 1980, as that’s where I’m from. I started by asking some friends for recommendations, receiving a small number of titles back. From there, I looked through Wikipedia’s page on gaming in 1980 and sought out a few more games that piqued my personal interest. Lastly, I played what I believe to be every release on the Atari 2600 from this year.

Even then, I still have a few notable blind spots, like how I haven’t gotten around to Rogue (the originator of the roguelike genre) yet, but I feel like I can stand by my list for now. I do wish every game — or even every major game — from this year was easily and legally accessible, because there’s a lot of history here that I simply haven’t been able to look into.

All that aside, onto the list.

10. Berzerk

In 1980, Alan McNeil designed Berzerk, a maze game where you, an intrepid human, must run around and fight robots to delve further and further into their territory. It was released by Stern Electronics in Chicago, Illinois for arcades sometime in November of that year; I wish I could provide a more specific date, but it's surprisingly difficult to nail a lot of these down, even with them being only 45 years old.

The gameplay loop of running around and trying to shoot at the robots can be a tad frustrating by today's standards, with aiming being fairly awkward and the hit boxes being unforgiving.

Even so, it's a simple process of trying to blast your way through robots and making it to one of the exits on the map in a timely manner. Plus, the revolutionary vocal work that has the robots shouting at you with belittling statements does a lot to keep up the charm for repeated playthroughs.

Lastly, Evil Otto, the wretched bouncing smiley face who comes in if you stay in one area for too long and can phase through walls to kill you, is a delightful inclusion that keeps up the pressure when you've got everything else figured out.

All that makes for an entertaining package for either a few minutes at a time or a long, quarter-eating session of trying to get as far as possible. It's not for everyone, but it is absolutely worth a play.

9. Zork I

Next up, going from a spectacle of visual and audio flair, we come to Infocom’s Zork I, which has absolutely none of those as a simple text adventure. Big Zork fans might say, “Uh, Erin? This computer game, a classic example of the text adventure from Infocom, was developed in 1977, a full three years before 1980! I can’t believe how silly you are!”

To such a statement, I would first say, “Be careful! With words like that, you’re likely to be eaten by a grue!” After that, I would add that the version created in 1977 went through multiple revisions throughout the next few years before it was split into three commercial releases, starting with Zork I in 1980.

Now that that’s out of the way… Zork I is a fun and interesting time, but it is also annoying as all heck. Moving around is nicely intuitive with writing down the cardinal directions, the treasure-gathering quest certainly takes you to a variety of interesting places, and it’s not too hard to figure out any given puzzle or item interaction with a bit of trial and error.

However, the game hates trial and error with a burning passion. If you mess up even a simple task, like forgetting to put out a candle before setting it aside or happening upon the pesky thief and getting unlucky, you will be locked out of finishing your quest. Sometimes, you won’t even realise you’ve messed up for several hours. I gave up exploring this world on my own a dozen tries in and turned to guides, and I still messed it up.

Zork I has a lot of great moving parts, and I can see where a lot of great text adventures and point-and-click adventure games get puzzles or mechanics, but it is best watched and studied, rather than played.

8. Dodge ‘Em

Comparatively, Dodge ‘Em, for the Atari 2600 is a delightfully simple experience. Developed by Carla Meninsky and released in September 1980, Dodge ‘Em is a simple and speedy maze game where you and an opponent are in these little cars and you have to collect all of the dots without ramming into your foe.

Notably, I am not very good at avoiding crashes in Dodge ‘Em, but the game moves quickly enough that I was able to get a lot of practice in. Eventually, I reached a point where my reflexes were well-honed, and I was ready to zip back and forth to avoid my enemy. Plus, I had fun the entire time. There is also a two-player function, as with many Atari 2600 titles, but I haven’t had a chance to mess around with it, though it seems like a good fit for this gem.

There’s not a lot of meat to Dodge ‘Em as far as I can tell, but it’s darn exciting, and it has a solid gameplay loop that I could sit with for hours without getting bored. There are games I prefer, sure, but if all I had was Dodge ‘Em? I’d be okay.

7. Pac-Man

Like Berzerk before it, we have another November US release with Namco’s Pac-Man, though the arcade classic was originally out in Japan on the 22nd of May. A more traditional maze game than Berzerk, Pac-Man has become one of the faces of classic gaming and is instantly recognisable.

The yellow chomping being and the four ghosts he eats and is eaten by need no real introduction, and the “collect all the pellets” gameplay is a solid loop. However, this first instalment, for all its strengths, can still be a rather clunky play, and it’s hard to go back to it after playing Ms. Pac-Man, which is a better experience in nearly every way.

Be that as it may, Pac-Man is an enduring classic for a reason, and its basics make for a fun formula for a time. The character design is charming, the high speed of each playthrough makes for engaging and addicting “one more quarter” sessions, and if we didn’t have Pac-Man, we wouldn’t have the scene in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where Scott infodumps about how Pac-Man used to be called Puckman before they changed it for obvious reasons. If that’s not enough for seventh place, what is?

6. Space Invaders (Atari 2600)

The second Atari 2600 game on this list is the excellent port of Toshihiro Nishikado and Taito’s 1978 arcade alien-shooting classic, Space Invaders. Released on the 10th of March, 1980, this version of Space Invaders was developed by Rick Maurer, and it quickly became a massive success.

The Atari Space Invaders pares down the original’s design, with fewer enemies overall, though it also includes co-operative multiplayer (which I haven't had the pleasure to test out).

However, while it's a simpler experience, I found this version to be a fun time, even by today's standards. The new alien designs, while a tad chunky, also do a great job of showing off some visual variety and look great on the system. As ports go, it's hard to find much wrong with Space Invaders.

5. Mystery House

Released on the 5th of May, Mystery House might surprise you as my favourite text adventure of 1980. It’s far less complicated and winding than Zork I, and it can sometimes feel oversimplistic, but its ability to be straightforward and understandable is a strength that Zork sorely lacks. It doesn’t hurt that it comes with visuals that blow (almost) all its peers of the year out of the water.

Written and designed by Roberta Williams and programmed by her husband Ken (the founders of what is now known as Sierra Entertainment, the one-time king of point-and-click adventures), Mystery House sees you at a party where every single guest is slowly killed off, one by one. It’s up to you to deduce who is doing this, why they’re turning to murder, and how to stop them.

The premise feels like a classic mystery novel in the same vein as Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, even if most of the characters don’t have anything more to them than their physical descriptions. Mystery House would have ranked a lot higher if there was any depth given to the majority of the cast, as each subsequent death would have felt a lot more insidious and horrifying, rather than feeling like business as usual.

However, even without a thrilling plot, the mechanics are a solid precursor to future adventure games. Plus, in my experience, I rarely, if ever, ran into moments designed to make me throw up my hands and start over from the beginning. Even the central mystery was easy enough to work through on my own, if mostly through the process of elimination.

I do wish there were more to do with the one gravedigging man outside, however. He mostly serves as a misdirection tool, never even ending up murdered by the villain. I tried to deliver the game’s final treasure to him to see if I could learn anything about him, but he didn’t seem to realise I was handing him precious gems.

4. Missile Command

With the Atari 2600 in full swing by 1980, it can be easy in retrospect to forget that Atari was still releasing arcade games. However, that didn't stop Missile Command, designed by Dave Theurer and released in June, from being one of the company’s best releases.

Like many arcade games of the time, Missile Command is stressful, seeing you defending cities from a frenzy of missiles that come from all over. It ramps up in difficulty with time and successes, but even at the start, watching the screen fill with missiles aiming at your cities can quickly become overwhelming.

Thankfully, you have three bases that each offer 10 missiles of their own to assist in intercepting your enemy’s weapons. However, there's no way to refill any given base beyond clearing the level, and each base can only reliably cover its own portion of the screen.

In my first few attempts, I quickly ran out of ammunition in my panic to defend myself as soon as possible. This was not ideal; Missile Command, for as quickly as it throws danger in your face, demands you keep a cool head and manage your aiming, timing, and missile reserves. It takes time for any given weapon to strike, whether they be yours or your enemy's, and so you have to get a sense for your tools and how quickly they fire before aiming for where your targets are going to be.

In a sense, as much as Missile Command is a classic shooter, it really feels like a fast-paced puzzle game; it was a joy to figure out on the fly which base should intercept which attack. I don't know if I'll ever be amazing at the game, but it has an addictive quality to it where I feel like I can keep getting measurably better with each attempt.

3. Adventure

Like Space Invaders before it, the best Atari 2600 title of 1980 was also released in March, so it must have been a great month for them. Adventure, developed by Warren Robinett (a founder of The Learning Company, my beloved edutainment game developer), is often highly regarded, and it's not very hard to see why.

In Adventure, you run around maze-like rooms as a little dot, picking up items to clear gates, slay dragons, or even discover one of the first videogame easter eggs. Even at this small scale, the game captures that overwhelming feeling of being chased by something much larger than you with the funny-looking dragons compared to your heroic little dot.

Adventure is also surprisingly easy, so long as you hold onto the right tools. It takes a bit of running around with the wrong items for a time, but the easier first mission helps a lot to wean you onto the mechanics and learn what you need to find. Going into Adventure, I was expecting something blindingly simple by today’s standards, but the bright colours and winding mazes are as charming today as they were 25 years ago.

2. Radar Scope

Up until now, I imagine the games I’ve listed have either been relatively obvious picks or were new to you, but this is not so with number two: an arcade release from Nintendo that is most famous for doing so poorly in the United States that the company had to quickly design a new game they could retrofit thousands of unsold arcade cabinets into, thereby resulting in arguably 1981’s greatest hit and Nintendo’s own mascot.

I am, of course, referring to Radar Scope, Nintendo R&D2 and lead developer Masayuki Uemura’s answer to Space Invaders. Released in Japan on the 8th of October before its disastrous December release in American arcades, Radar Scope used the tried and true formula of putting the player in the position of a scrappy single starship, shooting as many aliens as possible before they can breach your home’s defences.

However, the visuals saw a massive upgrade, with the action set in a seemingly 3D space. The colours are vibrant and the designs are clear; Radar Scope is the best-looking game of the year for certain. Heck, even the 3D stylings help to make everything pop off the screen, especially when the aliens swoop down and across the playing field to dive at you.
The sheer activity that the enemies show, especially with them swooping down, help Radar Scope feel far more dynamic than other shooter games of the year, making for a more entertaining moment-to-moment play session. It’s like a shooting gallery, where there’s always something new to draw your attention and keep you invested.

It can get tough, sure, but Radar Scope is a blast to play. I’m almost disappointed it was a commercial failure, but then we probably wouldn’t have Donkey Kong, so that would be a real Monkey’s Paw of a wish.

1. Heiankyo Alien (aka, Digger)

The original Heiankyo Alien was released for personal computers in Japan back in 1979 before it was ported to arcades in November of that year. However, it was then released in the States in September 1980 as Digger, so it counts! You can’t stop me! It’s my article!

Predating Pac-Man in both its original release and in the US, Heiankyo Alien is another maze game. Originally developed by the University of Tokyo’s Theoretical Science Group before being published on Japanese arcades by the Denki Onkyō Corporation and on American arcades by Sega-Gremlin, Heiankyo Alien sees you protecting the city of Heian-kyō from aliens.

Interestingly, rather than collecting pellets in order to clear a level, Heiankyo Alien demands you take care of every enemy on screen. Furthermore, instead of grabbing a power-up that allows you the power to defeat them temporarily, you start with the tool of their destruction/capture: a shovel. True to the US name, your goal is to dig holes, wait for the aliens to fall in them, and then quickly fill those holes back up.

On the face of it, the game design might seem almost too simple, but there’s an added wrinkle: you have to dig multiple times in the same place to give yourself enough time to actually fill the hole back up when an alien falls in, or else they’ll pop right back out after a second. Toss in the fact that you also can’t pass your own holes and you find yourself in a puzzle of manoeuvring around to keep yourself safe while also taking each alien out one by one. There’s also a time limit of sorts, but I found it manageable, even with a slower strategy.

The digging mechanics offer so much complexity from these simple ingredients. I figured out quickly that I can make a more effective trap when being chased by quickly digging a small hole and then digging a full hole right behind it, such that the enemy will be temporarily trapped for a few precious seconds, giving me enough time to finish their more permanent prison. I also adored setting my holes all around my little slice of the city, blocking every possible route to me with only a few holes. Turtling down like that might not seem like the most exciting approach, but it gave me a feeling of control and satisfaction over the situation that I rarely felt in any of the other games this year.

One of my favourite parts of playing a game by myself is the ability to experience it in a way that feels all my own, and learning my way around Heiankyo Alien’s mechanics not only allows me to slow down and be as methodical as I like, but also to figure out a way to accomplish that on my own.

However, once more, I am not an expert of 1980’s games. Rogue seems up my alley, and it might knock something off this list; that’s not even getting into the dozens of games I haven’t heard about or can’t access for whatever reason. If you’ve played anything you think is missing from this list, I beg you to tell me about them. If you specifically think I would like Atari’s Battlezone, then I beg you to tell someone else, as I am distinctly not a fan.