It doesn’t matter whether you got your first taste of gaming on the ZX Spectrum in the ‘80s, or the PlayStation in the ‘90s, or even the Xbox One yesterday, this guide takes you right back to that magical moment when you first picked up the controller – whenever that might have been. Sinclair zx Spectrum (1984) Commodore Amiga (1987) Sega Mega Drive (1988) Sony PlayStation (1994) Nintendo 64 (1996)
WELCOME
SPECTRUM • The rubber-keyed wonder that launched the careers of hundreds of budding game developers
MANIC MINER
R-Type
Chuckie Egg
Green Beret
Ocean • Classic Developer From bedroom to billions – the company that began the licensed game craze
KNIGHT LORE
Jet Set Willy
Horace Goes Skiing
Lords of Midnight
SPOTLIGHT • How gaming’s original budget hero took an expensive toll on the sanity of Speccy owners…
Skool Daze
Head Over Heels
DEATHCHASE
AMIGA • Commodore’s beauty was big, bulky and relentlessly beige, but its games were a riot of colour and fun
THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND
Prince of Persia
Cannon Fodder
Sensible World of Soccer
The Bitmap Brothers • Classic Developer The Wapping-based outfit that made it cool to be a games programmer
LEMMINGS
Shadow of the Beast II
Turrican
Eye of the Beholder
LucasArts SPOTLIGHT • The company that dragged the adventure game genre out of the text parser doldrums
Rainbow Islands
Another World
APIDYA
MEGA DRIVE • Sega’s most successful console, the Mega Drive was a thorn in Nintendo’s side across two generations
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Altered Beast
Desert Strike
Strider
Electronic Arts • Classic Developer EA’s industry-conquering formula of annual updates began life on Sega
STREETS OF RAGE
Toejam & Earl
Earthworm Jim
Golden Axe
FIGHTER SPOTLIGHT • It was east vs west, finesse vs fizzle, Capcom vs Midway in the battle of the Mega Drive brawlers
Castle of Illusion
Ecco The Dolphin
MICRO MACHINES
PLAYSTATION • The system that single-handedly made gaming ‘cool’ and introduced us to a new wave of heroes and genres
FINAL FANTASY VII
Metal Gear Solid
Wipeout
Crash Bandicoot
Tomb Raider SPOTLIGHT • The rise and rise of the Tomb Raider who would go on to become a PlayStation icon
RESIDENT EVIL
Gran Turismo
PaRappa The Rapper
Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding
Namco
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Silent Hilll
X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER
NINTENDO 64 • 20 years on, we can now see this much-maligned console for what it is: one of the most innovative gaming systems ever created
SUPER MARIO 64
GoldenEye 007
F-Zero X
Star Fox 64
Rare • Classic Developer The British studio that, for a short while, out-Nintendo’d Nintendo
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME
Super Smash Bros.
Mario Kart 64
MARIO SPOTLIGHT • One of gaming’s great dilettantes, Nintendo’s mascot has truly done and seen it all
Perfect Dark
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
SIN & PUNISHMENT
