The 50 best games of the '80s

You will disagree with our list. We already know that, because we sent out early draft versions to our closest friends game designers, journalists and publishing execs and they all disagreed with us.

We listened to them and we argued and we negotiated and wheedled until the final list represented the world view of all of us here at Edge, and of some of our friends in the business. But not one of us not one single person involved agrees with every game on this list, or thinks its in exactly the right order, or does not harbour at least one game they really think should be on this list. Not even me, and I've spent three months working on this, not to mention the last 30 years playing games or writing about them.

Some of these games are fun to play, even today, and some of them have been vastly surpassed in the intervening years by smoother, better-looking games that took what was there and improved. Thats what games designers do. Our criteria here is not how do these games stack up against the games we make and play today. Our criteria is which games of the 1980s do we owe the greatest debt to because they innovated so much at the time, and because they represent all that is best about original game design.

Its also, which games do we remember most fondly and, in this regard, we are aware that you will have an entirely different perspective. Nostalgia is a troublesome thing. We cannot possibly represent everyones golden memories of an entire decade, nor should we try. 

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By GamesRadar Staff