#12: Defender (1980, Williams Electronics)

Games began to become more complicated in the 1980s, as we saw with Battle Zone and its 3D environment. But Williams knew they could step it up even further. Gamers were ready for more challenge. They were ready for more buttons. They were ready to be able to fire more than one shot at a time...thank God for that.

And so we got Defender, another one of those games most people have played and loved. Defender holds the distinction of being both one of the first really complex games and for being hard as hell. For once, you're not just blasting enemies - you've got a job to do. Defending the people of your planet successfully earns you more rewards than just going on a murderous rampage. What's more, if you fail to keep the planet safe the game punishes you by making it more difficult to reach high scores and by bombarding you with difficult enemies.

Defender is one of those games that still stands up today. The controls are a little archaic and take some getting used to - the fact that you have to push a button to turn around is really irritating as a modern gamer, for instance - but the game itself is still plenty of fun. Defender spawned a variety of sequels, most notably Stargate (or Defender II) and even a PS2 remake.

The version of Defender I played was emulated in MAME.

#11: Battle Zone (1980, Atari)

Welcome to the 1980s! This is probably the most influential era in video game history. In the 1990s video games became more like cartoons and books; in the 2000s and 2010s they became more like movies but in the 1980s games were kind of doing their own thing. For instance, if you came across Battle Zone back when it was new you'd probably be forgiven if your jaw hit the floor.

Battle Zone is an FPS. One of the first, in fact. You control a tank and use it to battle other tanks in a first-person three-dimensional environment full of debris that you can use as cover. While I might not have felt all that inspired by some of the classic games from the 1970s, I really understood why Battle Zone is on the list once I started playing it. This is a game that was ahead of its time - back when games were largely about the wonder of controlling a little man on a screen, this game gave you an entire virtual world to roam around in.

Incidentally, Battle Zone had a pretty sweet remake for the PC in 1998 that was more of an RTS/FPS hybrid. It was very cool and certainly worth a look if you're into retro PC gaming.

The version of Battle Zone I played was Flash-based and is available for free on Atari's website. I was unable to get this game to work properly in MAME, but insofar as I can tell the two versions are identical in gameplay.