this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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I noticed that pretty much all games I played in my life have been released after 1990. So now I'm asking those with earlier experience here:
Which games can you recommend from before that time?

But: they should still be fun in their own right and not just interesting to play in an historian sense of trying to understand how genres developed.

Games I played that are older than 1990:

  • Tetris (classic for a reason)
  • Pacman (interesting but simple)
  • Prince of Persia (was too young to understand how to correctly play this game, I should maybe try to play it again)
  • The Legend of Zelda (too old school and clunky for my liking)
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[–] trashboat@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago
[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Star Flight. Really a must-play, and get the run speed down low so you have some suffering on the long trips. Then you get really excited to find a wormhole.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

First thought was shadowrun on the genesis but the internet says that is 1994 which is really giving me a mandella effect as I really feel it was before that but I mean the genesis came out in 89 and im sure I did not get it till it had a price reduction. So we are talking original master system and nintendo and what limited stuff was on pc including commodores. Maybe wolfenstein and man there was a game based on an manga or anime that was pretty advanced for the time and another were I just remember uncle smoke. gah. reading through I second castelvania. I think shinobi and double dragon (sorta have to play two player to get the full effect)

Atari Real Sports Tennis, no lie it’s great

[–] Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Pasted thread into my list of gaming suggestion requests from other communities over at !videogamesuggestions@lemmy.zip, trying to be the Fediverse version of r/gamingsuggestions. Great question!

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Controversial take, perhaps, but I don't think there are any games from the 1980s (or earlier) that I think hold up. Wasteland form 1988 is impressive but ugly (and a remaster exists that is better) and other than that, uh...

TLoZ is so utterly hideous that it repulses me. The NES colour palette is just so tremendously ugly.

Tetris is fine, I guess, but I've always found it a bit plain. Much like picking up individual grains of rice with chopsticks it requires skill but as with that it's only your own time you're wasting - unless you enjoy it, which I don't. Or to put it another way - I don't find the core gameplay loop rewarding.

There's plenty of cool stuff from the early '90s but the 1980s are pretty much a case of "it was good when we had nothing better" territory, in my opinion.

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