Tetris currently sits at the top of the Video Game Canon’s most recent update (Version 2.0), so you shouldn’t be surprised to also see it atop a list of the best games released before 1990.
The addictive puzzle game first made its mark on the world stage in 1984 thanks to the inspired design work of Alexey Pajitnov (and a subsequent IBM-compatible version coded by Vadim Gerasimov and Dmitry Pavlovsky), but it was Nintendo’s beloved revision from 1989 (for the NES and Game Boy) that propelled it to unexpected heights. The consolemaker’s output in the 1980s was practically unmatched at the time, and it must have required some kind of magic to add Pajitnov’s inspired puzzler to the middle of their hot streak.
Besides Tetris, four other titles in the top seven were produced by Nintendo (Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!). Only Ms. Pac-Man (at #3) and SimCity (at #5) managed to break the consolemaker’s stranglehold on the decade.
1978’s Space Invaders, from Taito, was the top performer among the games released during the “Me Decade” (at #10). Though 1972’s Pong (at #13) and 1977’s Zork (at #14) weren’t far behind.
Even a pair of pre-commercial gaming pioneers managed to find a place on the Video Game Canon. 1962’s Spacewar!, which was designed by MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club for the school’s then-new PDP-1 mainframe, came in at #57. Meanwhile, a similar academic curiosity led William Higinbotham to take time off from researching advanced scientific concepts during the Cold War to create Tennis For Two (which ranked #113) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958.
Find out how your favorites games from when video games were expressed in eight bits or less ranked after the break.
Zoom in on specific portions of the Video Game Canon and explore alternate sorting options from the Version 2.0 Update with Listology 2.0.
This Listology article is based on an earlier Version of the Video Game Canon. Visit the Top 1000 to see the most recent changes to the full list.
Video Game Canon (Version 2.0):
The Best Games From the 1980s and Earlier (Expand)
C-Score = Average Ranking + (100 – Appearance Frequency)