 Welcome back my friends to Classic Replay. This time, according to me, we celebrate the 25 best arcade games ever. Since the arrival of Space Invaders, video games have become a huge business and an international obsession. Most arcade games are violent, involving the destruction of aliens, which all adds up to a modern game of Cowboys and Indians. The 1980s were packed with programming genius. The Beatles were to the 1960s, programmers the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto and Eugene Jarvis were to video games and the 1980s. So without further ado, let's get this top 25 started. Long before I experienced Amidar, I played Omami on the Amtrak CPC, which is very similar to this. I mean, obviously it's a port. In this classic though, you have to escape from pursuing creatures that also turn squares and rectangles for different colors by drawing lines around them. It is possible to temporarily stop your pursuers by dropping blocks or bombs behind you. I like it because you've got to think strategically and spot patterns of movement. It's so addictive and it's sometimes known as painter. Back in the day, Asteroids was one of the most popular types of games. You freed the player from firing at aliens with a laser base confined to left and right movements. You now had what felt like a freely moving ship. It's up to you to pilot a spacecraft through what felt like a never ending asteroid storm. The spacecraft could fire or maneuver in all manner of direction and hype a space to another area of the screen. Success depended upon staying as close as possible to the center of the screen and destroying each asteroid in turn. A timeless classic. The ultimate 80s battle game with tanks. This was programmed at a time where vector graphics are beyond the capabilities of microcomputers. The game shows the view through a tanks window plus a radar display revealing the position of enemy tanks. The objective couldn't be simpler. Seek out and destroy the enemy. The original arcade had a realism that was never matched on the home computer. Large three dimensional moving shape remained fun to this day. And so many great memories playing bump and jump where the purpose of this racing game is not so much to win as to destroy as many opposing vehicles as possible. Either by jumping on them off the track or by jumping into the air and crashing on top of them. The game includes four seasons each indicated by different coloring. You can also complete a race by not destroying anybody but where's the fun in that? For me a stone wall classic. This was my first colorful space battle of a game. The three dimensional impression of flight was absolutely amazing. As you fly towards the distant horizon you must fire at various alien craft that grow in size as they get nearer to the screen. I remember this game really well. There were also four different settings. One resembling Luke Skywalker's flight down the trench of the Death Star in the film Star Wars and the alien fighters include large hopping creatures. This game famously went on to be the inspiration for Space Harrier. Another one of my favorites, Burger Time. The player has to maneuver a chef across a series of four raised platforms dropping the ingredients of a hamburger to the level beneath until the chef has put a bun together and a burger. Whilst trying to do this there's an ongoing pursuit where you're chased down by the ingredients themselves. The fast food includes runny fried eggs and hot dogs. Luckily you can momentarily stunt the fast food by throwing peppers at the pursuing enemy. You'll never look at a hamburger in the same way again. Centipede for me was a fantastic innovation on the original Space Invaders only this time set in a monster eating garden. Instead of the aliens advancing down the screen there is a centipede in pursuit made up of separate segments. The object is to destroy the segments before they can reach the bottom of the screen. The mushrooms grow at an alarming rate and can block the player's fire. Centipede is fast and colorful and lively to play. Donkey Kong and its designer owes its inspiration to the climax of the film King Kong. The original really is a fantastic movie especially where the giant ape carries a girl to the top of the Empire State building. Can you believe it the player controls Mario a daredevil figure who has to scale ramps and scaffolding to rescue his girl from the deadly Donkey Kong. There are four different screens on the first Mario climbs ladders and jumps over barrels to reach the girl on the second he has to contend with conveyor belts the third you have to contend with lifts and the fourth bring down the scaffold. Dig Dug is a fantastic little arcade game with all the appeals of Pac-Man. Our protagonist is a little robot from the future. His job is to protect a vegetable garden from two deadly enemies. A tomato in sunglasses and Green Fire Breathing Dragon. If Dig Dug succeeds, Vege appears everywhere and extra points are scored by passing over them. Dig Dug is an absolute cracker. I love it so much that I purchased the arcade original. Another great game from the arcade that walked a fine line of cuteness. The player's task is to guide a frog across a busy road. Staying clear of cars and snakes in the grass and a busy river. Where progress is made by jumping on logs and turtles. You'll also need to avoid crocodiles until the safety of a lily pad is reached. I still haven't worked out why the frog drowns if he falls into the river. Frogger has no right to be this addictive. But somehow, but strangely, the game designers have pulled it off. Ah, Luna Lander, another old favourite of mine. I remember when I started to learn Program Basic. I tried to make this game, but crashed and burned. You've basically got to land your Lander on the moon, on the surface of the moon. As you can imagine, the amount of fuel that you've got is limited to make it that little bit more difficult. And if you come in too fast to land, it's all over. Simplicity is bliss. Definitely one of my favourite games of all time. A game of nuclear warfare in which the player has to defend six cities from unrelenting attack by planes. You are armed with 30 anti-ballistic missiles and you have to place your missile sight, like you don't know, just ahead of the descending warheads in order to destroy them. The game becomes progressively more difficult as it continues with enemy missiles that can dodge attacks and ends when all the cities have been hit. I know this game first, but every time I play Moon Patrol, I always think of army moves on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Anyway, this is another space game in which the player moves a buggy across a craggy surface of the moon, shooting all the aggressive aliens. The buggy can jump over craters on the surface and those made by bombs, the aliens drop. In the latter stages, UFOs and tanks join into the fray as the game progresses, all designed to stop you from reaching the moon base. There's a lot more to this game than meets the eye. In Japan, it was known as Pukman. Now it was changed in order to frustrate Western graffiti writers. Everybody knows the premise of this game by now. It's a game of eat or be eaten. I'm not sure how true this is, but back in the day, the game is said to have earned more than 500 million. I love this game so much and I love the games it inspired as well. Miss Pac-Man, Pac-Man Junior and Super Pac-Man. In fact, I've just ordered an arcade one up Pac-Man machine. Mad for it. Who doesn't love Pengo? Pengo is a maze game with a difference. The maze consists of blocks and everything can be destroyed. I'm not quite sure how they got away with it, but the ghosts in this game are almost identical to those of Pac-Man. The maze also contains three indestructible cubes marked by a diamond. A great winning strategy is to line up the diamond blocks just away from the outer wall and to hide behind them so that Pengo touches the wall and paralyzes the ghost as they approach. Pengo can also kill a ghost by pushing an ice block against it. Back in the day, this game was crucial. If my memory serves me well, Phoenix was one of the first shooter maps to feature an end-of-level baddie, a giant boss. This is a well-balanced shooter. It might not look like much today, but once you start playing it, it never fails to invoke that one more go desire. I love its simplicity and addictive quality. If I had to pick one shooter, it's Phoenix all the way. Check out the Atari 2600 version as well, epic. There's no doubt this motor racing game has been bettered in the arcades, but still stays close to my heart. There are two stages. First, you have to qualify for the race by completing a lap of the twisting course with Mount Fuji in the background, but you have to do so in just 70 seconds. Then it's onto the race itself. You'll start a position on the grid depending on the time taken in the qualifying round. After that, it's a matter of zooming around the course as fast as possible, like an absolute nutter, without crashing or bursting into things. He's the greatest. He's fantastic. Wherever there is danger, Cuba's there. Or something like that. I thought I had a big nose, but this guy's got me beat. Cuba, back in the day, was a massive success. And like Pac-Man, the game is all about pattern recognition. You need to change the colors of the cubes on the lower part of the pyramid first. Despite the many arcade conversions I've played over the years, nothing can touch the arcade original. Here we go. I love this one. Good old Rally X. This one was unique in that it was a car racing game in which you have to travel a maze like track, avoiding rocks and passing over 10 flags while being chased by other cars. It is possible to hamper their pursuit by squirting oil on the road, as the game occupies a larger area than can be shown on the screen at any one time. The display includes a scanner showing the position of the flags and other rival cars. I feel the need, the need for Rally X. How do you even explain this one? What I can tell you is it was designed by Eugene Jarvis, the guy who created Defender. And Larry DeMar, like Terminator, the machines have taken over or are trying to take over, and it's your job to protect Earth. Each wave is nastier and smarter than the previous. If you're lucky enough to make it through to the later stages, you'll have to face upwards of a hundred enemies. This is highly playable stuff. I like my eggs scrambled and especially my games. Scramble betters Defender in every conceivable notion. You must fly over several different landscapes and avoid the barrage of heavily defended missile and gun emplacements. To add insult to injury, your ship quickly runs out of fuel. Strangely though, you get more fuel by blowing up fuel. Don't you just love the idiosyncrasies of computer games? You can shoot and bomb all manner of targets, but best of all, by the fifth level, you take on the enemy stronghold. The Amstrad CPC computer has an excellent arcade conversion of this, play it. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Sadly, YouTube won't let me play the sound or music on this video, so I've had to improvise. If you don't know about this game, you need to stop watching this video now. Either that or do your damnedest to hunt it down and play it. If you are still here, well, you must love your punishment, but I'm deadly serious. These aren't the video games you are looking for. For me, this is a Rembrandt of video games. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. May the force be with you, always. Space Invaders! Apologies in advance, I was just checking you're still with us, and after that little display, you've probably gone. Now then, now then, the most famous of all arcade games. Straight out of Japan, from the Tato Company. This is the game that introduced the new concept into gameplay. For those that didn't know, it's impossible to complete the game. As the game continues, the aliens get faster. All you can hope to do is survive as long as possible. It's still a massive and worthy challenge, and I still play it today. Fantastic stuff. Without question, this one's in the list. It's that good. In fact, it appears in the book, one thousand and one video games to play before you die. The attention to detail and sound has to be appreciated, and the arcade halls of yes the year were a better place for holding and giving such memories. I call them ups as an air of frustration, but the gameplay is truly challenging. In my eyes, this is a thing of beauty. A real sight for sore eyes. It was released way back in 1983, and I still play it. Just don't play the Amstrad CPC version. In my previous videos, you'll realise that I'm a massive fan of Zaxxon. It's an air attack game providing four different screens of activity, which owed its acclaim mainly to the quality of its graphics, drawn in a perspective to suggest three dimensions. The player has to pilot a fighter plane over a high wall and through the elaborate defence systems of the bizarre blue fortress. Your task is to attack a huge missile firing robot, after which the player moves into spaceflight mode to face off against enemy planes and satellites. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please do me the honour and subscribe. Oh, don't forget to like or comment, and until next time, bye.