In Anteater, you control your tongue through a side-perspective, single-screen maze (anthill). You have to eat ants with the tip of your tongue, while preventing bugs from touching any other part of your tongue. It's a unique game.

Arkanoid is a ball-and-paddle game with a twist. When you break blocks, power-ups appear, such as the ability to shoot blocks with lasers, or multiple balls. There are 33 levels, and the final level has you fighting a boss. A few times I was able to play this as a kid at the local Crystal's Pizza in Abilene, Texas. When I bought my first Amiga computer, Arkanoid came with it. I enjoyed the Amiga port more than the arcade original.

Asteroids is a vector game where you must shoot ateroids, which break into smaller pieces, until all the pieces are gone. Contact with any asteroid will cause your ship to explode. Occasionally a UFO will appear, which shoots at you. If you get in a pinch, you can use hyperspace to randomly warp you to another place on the screen, which could be good or bad. A later update, called Asteroids Deluxe, replaced the hyperspace with a shield.

In this game, you must navigate through rooms filled with robots that shoot at you. If you take too long, Evil Otto will appear and chase you down. This was one of the first games to use digitized speech.

Blasteroids is a sequel to Asteroids. It has much-improved graphics and sound. The gameplay is also improved. You have to clear out several sectors of asteroids in order to fight a boss, and then move on to the next group of sectors. There are various enhancements that you can pick up along the way, such as multiple shots and faster speed.

Blockout is sort of like Tetris, but in 3D. 3D blocks of various sizes fall into a 3D pit that you are looking into. You have to manipulate the pieces to form solid layers, which then disappear.

Bubble Bobble is an awesome single-screen platformer with over 100 levels. You must blow bubble to capture enemies, and then pop the bubbles to eliminate the enemies. If you don't pop them quickly enough, the enemies will escape your bubble, and will be "mad", so they move twice as fast. There are various power-ups you can collect, such as the ability to move faster, the ability to shoot bubbles faster, or the ability to shoot bubbles across the whole screen. Bubble Bobble can be played cooperatively with two players, which makes it even better.

BurgerTime is a single-screen platformer where you must walk your character over the top of various parts of a hamburger to make them fall onto the platform below. Your goal is to make all of the hamburgers on the screen while avoiding the various enemies that are chasing you. You can use pepper to stun enemies momentarily, but you can only do that three times.

This 2D fighting game pits the various characters from SNK and Capcom fighting games against each other, such as Street Fighter and King of Fighters.

Centipede uses a trackball to control your gun which you use to shoot at a centipede that is coming down the screen at you. If you shoot the centipede in the middle, it splits into two separate centipedes. The centipede is destroyed once you shoot all of its segments. Each time you shoot a segment, a mushroom appears to get in your way. Spiders and fleas occasionally show up as well.

Cheyenne is a western-style light gun game. The light gun is shaped like a rifle. It is a sequel of sorts to Crossbow. Your character walks around the map, and you must shoot various obstacles that try to hurt him, such as falling rocks or attacking animals. You ultimately have to shoot all the members of a gang in order to move forward to the next level. It makes use of funny digitized sound effects throughout the game. A few times I was able to play this as a kid at the local Crystal's Pizza in Abilene, Texas.

Congo Bongo is an isometric take on Donkey Kong. It's considerably harder than Donkey Kong because of the isometric perspective.

Crossbow is a medieval-themed light gun game. The light gun is shaped like a crossbow. You must protect your group of characters from various obstacles by shooting them. When all your characters cross the screen, you go to the next level. This was the first game to use digitized sound effects and speech.

Crystal Castles has you moving around isometric mazes to collect all of the dots while avoiding enemies. It was one of the first arcade game to have an actual ending.

DDR is a rhythm game that you play with your feet. You must press arrows with your feet in time to the music according to the patterns on the screen. It is a physically challenging game.

Dig Dug is a side-view single-screen game that has you digging tunnels in order to catch enemies and blow them up (literally) with an air pump until they pop. Once you pop all of the enemies on a level, you move on to the next level. It has a fun tune that plays whenever you move.

Dig Dug 2 is an above-view single-screen game where you must kill enemies by breaking off the piece of the island they are standing on with your jack hammer. It isn't as fun as the first game.

Do! Run Run is an 3/4 perspective above-view game where you must collect all of the dots or eliminate all of the enemies in order to proceed to the next level. If you draw a box around the dots, they will turn into higher-scoring items.

This is the game where Mario got his start. You have to scale a building under construction to save your girl from a King-Kong-like gorilla (which resulted in a lawsuit that Nintendo eventually won). I like the Japanese version the best, because it lets you play through all four levels in order, where the American version requires you to beat certain levels repeatedly in order to see the later levels.

In this sequel to Donkey Kong, Mario has captured Donkey Kong, and you as his son must rescue him. Again, I like the Japanese version best because it lets you play the levels in order.

In the third and final Donkey Kong arcade game, Mario is now a botanist, and you must protect plants from invading bugs while spraying Donkey Kong with pesticide. It's kind of strange, but it is fun.

Dragon's Lair was a laser disc game. It played full-motion video, and then at a certain point, you had to move the joystick or press the button. If you made the right move, you would move on to the next room. If not, you would see a death animation, and you would have to try again. It didn't require any real skill, other than memorizing the correct moves. But the animation (by Don Bluth, who at the time looked like he would surpass even Disney, but that never happened), sound and music were top-notch thanks to the laser disc. The machines had a tendency to break down often, though.

Duck Hunt is a simplistic light-gun game where you must shoot the ducks before they escape the screen. If you miss, your dog will laugh at you. Sadly, you can't shoot the dog. I got this game as a pack-in with my NES I bought with my grass-mowing earnings in October 1997. It was on the same cartridge as Super Mario Bros. I enjoyed the NES port more than the arcade game.

In Elevator Action, you must ride elevators up and down tall buildings in a horizontally-scrolling side-view perspective in order to find all the secret documents, while avoiding being shot by enemies.

Final Fight is a side-scrolling beat-em-up. You can play cooperatively with another player. The graphics are very colorful, and the sprites are large and detailed. It's pretty much the best beat-em-up ever. All other beat-em-ups are compared to this one.

Flicky is a horizontally-scrolling platformer where you play a bird that must rescue the smaller birds from cats. You can collect several of the smaller birds at once, and they will follow you around until you take them to the escape door.

This game has you maneuvering your frog, who starts at the bottom of the screen, to get to the lily-pads at the top of the screen. Along the way you must avoid being run over by traffic, and you must jump between logs that are floating along the river while avoiding snakes and crocodiles. It is a fun and challenging game.

Galaxian is like a full-color Space Invaders on steroids. In addition to marching left and right, some enemies will make kamikaze runs at your ship.

This is easily one of my favorite single-screen shooters. There are a few games that add a few gimmicks, but I always come back to this one. I knew a guy that owned this game, so unlike many of the others listed here, I did get to play it occasionally as a kid.

This is the sequel to Galaga. It has better graphics, sound and music, but the additional gimmicks didn't make the game better than Galaga.

This is an above-view, medieval fantasy game where up to four players can work together to make their way through the maze-like levels. You can choose to be a slow but powerful warrior, a valkyrie with strong defence and long-range attacks, an elf with long range attacks and speed, or a wizard with strong magic. The whole time you play, your health counts down. You can insert quarters to add more life. You can also find food in the levels to boost your health, but you must be careful not to shoot it.

Gorf is like 5 games in one. It starts with a colorful Space Invaders-like level. Instead of three bases, you have a dome that is slowly destroyed by bullets. The second level is kind of like fighting the higher-up enemies in Galaga. Two groups of four ships fly in formation, and you must destroy them. The third level is a clone of Galaxian. The forth has enemies coming at you from a distant worm hole. The final level is a boss battle where you must destroy the core of the enemy Flag Ship. Throughout the game, you are mocked by alien speech ("Some galactic defender you are!"). Each time you destroy the Flag Ship, you are promoted a rank.

Gravitar is a vector game. You move to various planets in a solar system while avoiding the star which will suck you in with its gravity. When you enter a planet, the game switches to a side-view perspective, where you must fly your ship around while fighting the gravity of the planet, and shoot all of the bunkers.

This is like Galaga and Tempest combined. Enemies come from the end of a tunnel, and you can fly your ship all the way around the tunnel to shoot them. This game easily has one of the best sound tracks of any arcade game (it is a rock version of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by J.S. Bach). I knew a guy that owned this game, so unlike many of the others listed here, I did get to play it occasionally as a kid.

I, Robot has you changing red squares to blue to remove the shield of Big Brother, and then shooting him. It is unique in that it was the first game to use flat-shaded 3D polygons.

In this side-view single-screen game, you pilot an ostrich with a lance-weilding knight riding it. You use the lance to destroy the other knights on ostriches. You have to make sure your lance hits them somewhere above their lance. A second player can join in at the same time, and can play with you or against you.

This game plays like Pac-Man, but is spread out across multiple screens that scroll around as you move.

This very Tarzan-themed game has you swinging on vines, swimming with crocodiles, running up a hill dodging boulders, and finally rescuing your girl from cannibals. It has an adventurous song playing throughout the game.

Klax is an interesting puzzle game where tiles roll down, and you catch them with a paddle. You then move the paddle to place same-colored tiles in certain configurations. You are given a challenge in order to complete the level, like getting a certain number of points, or doing a certain number of diagonals.

Lunar Lander is an early vector game where you must use thrust to counteract gravity, and successfully and gently land on the moon. There are only a few places where you can land, and the smaller areas give more points.

In this puzzle game, you move a clown at the bottom of the screen and grab and place color gems that are at the top in a Tetris-style box. Your goal is to place at least 3 of the same colored gem in a row to make them disappear. It is very fast-paced.

Mappy is a side-view multi-scrolling platformer where you play a mouse policeman that is trying to recover stolen goods, while being chased by criminal cats. You move between levels by jumping on trampolines that slowly break each time you use them.

In Marble Madness, you use a trackball to move a marble around a scrolling, isometric-perspective maze to get to the exit while avoiding various obstacles, such as acid puddles and vacuums.

Mario Bros. is a single-screen platformer in which you must flip over various creatures by hitting them from the floor below, and then once they are upside-down, you can destroy them. Two players can play simultaneously, and can work together or against each other.

This is a fun 2D fighter where you can pit characters from the Capcom universe, such as Street Fighter, against comic characters from the Marvel universe, like X-Men or Spider-Man.

Missile Command has you shooting anti-missiles against incoming ICBMs. You have three anti-missile bases to shoot from, and you control your targeting crosshair with a trackball. You have to protect your bases and the cities between them from the incoming missiles. Once all your cities are gone, the game is over.

Money Puzzle Exchanger is my favorite puzzle game. It is insanely fast-paced. You have to exchange various coins to make higher values. For instance, five 1s make a 5 coin, two 5s make a 10, five 10s make a 50, and so on. Once you reach 1000, they disappear. You can pick up multiple coins at once. Sadly, the company that made it, Face, was sued by Data East because they felt it played too much like Magical Drop (it doesn't). Face went bankrupt as a result. Data East went bankrupt themselves a few years later.

Moon Cresta is an early game in the style of Galaga. Your ship is in three sections. If you survive long enough, you dock with the other sections, giving you more firepower.

Moon Patrol has you manning a moon buggy across the surface of the moon. The game is horizontally-scrolling. You have to jump over boulders and craters in the ground, and you have to shoot attacking UFOs from above. This was the first arcade game to feature parallax scrolling.

Mr. Do! has you either collecting all of the fruits, or defeating all of the enemies in order to move to the next level.

Mr. Do's Castle is a single-screen platformer that has you defeating all of the enemies by breaking tiles above them, which then fall and squish them. Once all of the enemies are defeated, you move to the next level.

Mr. Do's Wild Ride is a single-screen platformer that has you avoiding various amusement park rides to get to the top of the level.

Ms. Pac-Man is like Pac-Man, but the gameplay is more randomized, so you can't just memorize patterns to beat the game, and the fruits gallop around the screen instead of staying in the middle.

New Rally-X is an upgraded version of Rally-X. In it, you must drive your car around a scrolling maze to find all of the flags on the level. Enemy cars pursue you. If they ram your car, you lose a life. You can slow enemy cars down by using a smoke screen. New Rally-X includes slightly easier gameplay, a lucky flag that gives extra points, and a new sound track.

Omega Race is a vector game that plays similarly to Asteroids, except the screen doesn't wrap around, and the obstacles don't move.

Pac-Man came out when most games involved shooting (Space Invaders, Asteroids). It is a maze game in which you must eat all of the dots in the maze to proceed to the next level, while avoiding the ghosts that pursue you. If you eat one of the four power pellets, the tables turn, and you can eat the ghosts as well. Every few levels you are rewarded with a humorous animation. The movements of the ghosts follow set patterns that can be memorized to win easily.

Paperboy is an isometric-perspective, vertically-scrolling action game where you play a paperboy on a bike that must deliver papers to the right houses, while avoiding various obstacles such as traffic on the roads, animals, open manholes, and so forth. If you successfully deliver papers to all the subscribers, you get more subscribers in the next level. You lose subscribers for missing their house. The control is shaped like bicycle handlebars.

This above-view game has you squishing "sno bees" with blocks that you push around. You can also push three special blocks together to rack up big points. It it set to the song "Popcorn". I've always enjoyed this game.

Pole Position is the only F1 racing game I like to play. You play in a third-person perspective (you can see your whole car), and the game uses scaling sprites to provide a fairly convincing 3D effect.

Popeye is a single-screen platformer with multiple stages. You have to collect various items that Olive Oyl drops from the top of the screen while avoiding Brutus and various items that come from the sides of the screen like flying bottles. If you eat the spinach, you can knock Brutus off the screen temporarily.

Puzzle Bobble is a puzzle game starring characters from the Bubble Bobble games. There are various colored bubbles at the top of the screen. You have a gun that is loaded with a randomly chosen colored bubble at the bottom of the screen. Your goal is to shoot you colored bubbles to the top such that three of the same colors are together, which cause them to pop. If the bubbles fill up the screen, you lose. You can play against another person. When you knock down bubbles, they get sent to the other player's screen. There are several versions of this game, and they each have slight differences, but the basic gameplay is always there.

This game uses an isometric perspective, which can be challenging at first. Your goal is to jump between the block on a pyramid to change them all to a certain color, while avoiding enemies. One enemy, a snake named Coily, can only be avoided by jumping on to spinning discs at the sides of the pyramid, which take you to the top of the pyramid. Coily will follow you, and fall to his death. Q*Bert uses a voice synthesizer to generate a random "swear word" every time you die.

In this game, you have to try to trap the Qix, which is a spiraling line with a trail, by drawing boxes around it. When you start to draw a box, a fuse will start to follow the line you are drawing. You must stay ahead of the fuse. You also must avoid other enemies that follow the lines, and you must make sure the Qix doesn't touch your line while it is being drawn.

Rainbow Islands is the sequel to Bubble Bobble. In it, you play as Bub and Bob in their human forms. Instead of bubbles, you now shoot rainbows, which can destroy enemies, and can also be used as platform to walk on. Unfortunately, it loses the two-player co-op that made the original so fun.

This space-themed, multi-scrolling shooter that has you shooting asteroids to collect Sinibombs, all while avoiding attacking enemy ships. Meanwhile the Sinistar, a large weapon that looks like a giant head and talks smack ("Run, coward!"), is being built by drones. Eventually, the Sinistar is built (accompanied by the ominous announcement, "Beware, I live!"), and you have to use your collected Sinibombs to destroy it. If you don't have enough Sinibombs, you are toast. You might be toast anyway, because the difficulty level is quite high. Sinistar was the first arcade game to use stereo sound, and the sound was definitely awesome. I knew a guy that owned this game, so unlike many of the others listed here, I did get to play it occasionally as a kid.

Solomon's Key started off as a NES title that was ported to the arcades. It is a single-screen platform puzzle game with multiple levels. You are a wizard that has the ability to make blocks appear and disappear. You goal is to create a path through the levels to the exit.

Space Invaders was the first really successful video game. It caused a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan! It is a monochrome game, but the screen has a colored film placed over it so your ship and bases at the bottom of the screen appear green. In the game, there is a formation of aliens marching across the screen. When they reach an edge, they move close to the bottom of the screen where your base is at. You move your base to fire bullets at the incoming aliens. There are three shields that hover just above your base that you can duck behind, but they slowly get destroyed with each bullet hit. This is a truly classic game.

Spy Hunter had a steering wheel with various buttons for firing weapons, a gas pedal, and a gear shift. It takes place in a top-down perspective, and it is vertically-scrolling. Your goal is to destroy enemy vehicles while protecting civilian vehicles. Occasionally a red truck appears. You pull into the back of the truck to get various weapons, such as oil slicks, smoke screens and missiles. Occasionally you have the opportunity to transform your car into a speed boat.

Star Castle is a vector game where you fly around in a spaceship while trying to destroy the rotating walls around a space cannon. Your goal is to destroy the canon inside the walls. It is a monochrome game that gets its color from a colored film placed over the screen.

Star Wars is a fun, 3D color vector game where you pilot an X-Wing as Luke Skywalker during the Death Star battle. It uses digitized sound from the movie. The game itself used a unique flight yoke with four buttons that control the lasers on the tips of your wings. It has three stages. The first is in space fighting tie-fighters. The second is flying along the surface of the death star shooting at towers. The third is flying through the trench.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is an isometric scrolling shoot-em-up. It has three stages: navigating your speeder through the forest on Endor as Luke, driving an AT-ST through the same forest as Chewbacca, and finally navigating the Millennium Falcon through the Death Star as Lando.

In my opinion, Street Fighter II is the best 2D fighting game ever. The first game was too limited, and later versions became overly complicated. This version is fun to play. I enjoy the Championship Edition and Turbo versions of the game as well.

This is a great puzzle game based on the characters from Street Fighter and Darkstalkers. As you play the game, super-deformed versions of the characters react to what you are doing in the puzzle by fighting each other. The puzzle mechanic is unique and fun. Colored blocks fall from the top. When they line up as squares, they join together into larger blocks. Eventually a colored gem will fall from the top. You need to land the colored gem on to the same-colored blocks to make them disappear. The larger the blocks, the higher the points. The higher the points, the more junk blocks fall onto your opponent's screen. The name is poking fun at the many variations of Street Fighter games. There is only one game in this series.

This unique game has you serving beer (for units that were sold to bars) or root beer (for units that were sold to arcades). It has an isometric perspective. You fill mugs and send them down the bar to awaiting customers. If they are satisfied, they leave, and sometimes leave a tip that you can collect. But they might throw the mug back for a refill. Occasionally a distraction occurs that causes many of the customers to watch (like cheerleaders at the sports venue), so you have to be careful to not send any mugs to the distracted customers. The gameplay is very unique, and has a lot of humor. It uses high-resolution 512x480 graphics.

Tetris is the classic falling-block puzzle game. Various-shaped tetrominoes fall from the top of the screen. You have to move and rotate the tetrominoes to stack them at the bottom of the screen in such a way that you make solid, horizontal lines. When you have a solid line, it disappears, and the blocks above it fall down. If your screen fills up to the top with blocks, you lose.

This is a unique game where you must chop down a certain number of trees in an isometric perspective while avoiding bee hives, bears, and other obstacles. It has high-resolution 512x480 graphics.

This is a multi-scrolling shoot-em-up. You have a certain quota of enemies to shoot down. Once you meet the quota, you move to the next stage, which is further ahead in time.

Uo Poko is a water-themed, Japanese puzzle game where you must clear colored bubbles to progress in stages. It is unique in that it has two-player co-op gameplay.

Waku Waku 7 is one of the only 2D fighting games that I enjoy other than Street Fighter II. I enjoy it primarily because it isn't too complicated, and the characters and story are wacky and fun.