Arcade Classics

arcade games were very popular back in the 80's and some are still popular now here are some of the most popular arcade games.

Space Invaders - you have to shoot out rows of aliens as they slowly move down towards you and every so often they will shoot at you and you can hidu under little shelters to avoud been hit.

Pacman - the objective of the game is to collects the dots using the arrow keys on your keyboard to send you up down left and right, to complete a level you must collect the dots and avoid the ghost like characters within your 3 lives. This game is very addictive.

Asteroids - your ship is the little triangle in the middle of the screen and you have to destroy asteroids as they move towards you, when you shoot the big ones they will split into two seperate smaller asteroids.

Pong - the objective of the game is to hit the dot and get it past your opponant just like ping pong.

Tetris - you have to rotate shapes to fill the rows, every row you fill will disapear if the shapes hit the top of the screeen then you lose game over.

The battle of the 16 bit machines

The battle of the 16 bit machines was between the SEGA and Nintendo.

When the Sega Megadrive brought out sonic the hedgehog it became very popular selling millions this became a real competitor for Nintendo who soon after brought there own 16-bit console out called the super Nintendo.


the Sega had a better processor and a better custom speed but the Nintendo had better colour, resolution, feature and sprites.

5th Generation Consoles

The 5th generation consoles were Sony's PlayStation 1, Nintendo N64 and the Nintendo game boy colour and the Saga Saturn

Playstation 1 - it was created by Sony Computer Entertainment. This consoles games used a compact disc format, this was the first games console to sell more than 1 million units. the controller for the console was simple with four directional buttons and on the right hand side it had buttons that were easy to remember with shapes square circle triangle and X it also had four buttons at the back of the controller R1 R2 L1 and L2, eventually there was a better controller with analogue which made easier t for you to control your character.

N64 - This was Nintendo's 3rd home games console, it has a 64 bit CPU, its game were on cartridges instead of Compact discs which were used by its competitors. its best game was super Mario 64, its game graphics were 3D.

Game boy colour - This is a handheld console its Best-selling game was Pokémon Gold and Silver it has simple controls just your directional buttons and two action buttons.

Saga Saturn - its a 32 bit games console this was popular in Japan but failed to gain a market in Europe and North America so they were unable to become competion for the Playstation 1 and the N64.