Having already counted down from 20 to 16, it's time for positions 15 to 11.
Thank you for all of the comments to part 1, I didn't expect it to prompt such a reaction and I've enjoyed hearing your thoughts and memories. I hope that this continues through the remainder of the list and you're not too disappointed when I reach my top 5!!
15 - Sensible Soccer / Sensible World of Soccer (Amiga 500)
As a huge football fan, I could have written a list of my top 20 football games and Sensible Soccer is one of the most iconic football games of my generation. The sheer volume of teams and players available in SWOS made it hugely addictive and I remember playing with and managing Skonta Riga in the Latvian league in my quest for European glory. Considering the number of buttons available in football games now, it seems incredible to think that in this game, you could move, and kick. One button to do everything. But that didn't matter - the satisfaction from cutting inside and swerving the ball past a helpless goalkeeper never went away and you didn't feel the need to do a Simple Rainbow, Triple Elastico and Hocus Pocus on the way to goal (source). Just seeing these little pixelated players puts a smile on my face.
14 - Mortal Kombat (Master System)
Back, back, punch... "Get over here"...
If you know what ☝ is referring to then you played this game too much. (It's Scorpion's harpoon thing.) So much to love about this game and when selecting which video to add, I discovered that one of the characters was omitted from the Master System version. Well, they do say you learn something new every day. So I don't know who Kano is.
These were the days where if you didn't add some kind of "cheat" combo as the game was loading, then you weren't doing your gamers justice. The legendary "blood code" which let's face it, should've just been in the game anyway - what's Mortal Kombat without blood?
I loved this game - my favourite characters being Scorpion and Sub Zero (down, forward, punch) and remember how happy I was when I bought a gaming magazine and it told me all of the death moves. You wouldn't get that kind of joy now that Google makes everything too easy.
13 - Speedball II (Amiga 500)
Get ready...
I remember the game being a lot quicker than the video above - maybe I was just a bit slow as a child.
Create a team, power them up and then smash up your opponents. The main thing I remember about how to play this game was to run straight at your opponent, throw the ball to/at them and then smash them to get the ball back. I remember very little else other than how addictive and fun it was. I used to play this a lot against my brother (like most of the video games on this list) and it had a simplicity that modern video games don't seem to appreciate.
12 - Syndicate (Amiga 500)
If I hadn't done a bit of research when creating my shortlist, this is a game that I would have forgotten about and when remembered, kicked myself that it wasn't included (I remembered Road Rash whilst searching for the Mortal Kombat video and am disappointed in myself for forgetting it).
There's enough going on with this game to give it a bit of complexity without overcomplicating things. I like a click and shoot type of game and enjoyed the addition of research so that your cyborgs (or whatever they were) slowly got more bad ass as the missions got more difficult. I'm a little bit surprised that there hasn't been a 21st century reboot (given how much gets rehashed these days) but the original's available for free (on EA's origin) so one to revisit when the kids have grown up and left home.
11 - Lemmings (Amiga 500)
Let's go.
Where would a top 20 be without this classic? I've still got it on the Master System, but it's certainly a game that benefits from having a mouse.
Dig, dig, hole (as my toddler says), block, climb, explode, build, parachute - just 8 different types of Lemming but a huge number of possible solutions to any given problem. I've always enjoyed solving problems and I wonder if it's because I grew up with games like this.
15- 11 Summary
An old skool group of games to join the list and I wonder if they'd be as playable today as they were nearly 20 years ago. I see that Mortal Kombat's still going (Mortal Kombat 11 was released in 2019) and it'd be cool to see if the likes of Syndicate could get a reboot. Or if there's a modern day equivalent which isn't unnecessarily complicated...?
Here's the list at the half way point - what are your thoughts so far? Would you reorder any of them (or bin any of them off)?
11 - Lemmings (Amiga 500)
12 - Syndicate (Amiga 500)
13 - Speedball II (Amiga 500)
14 - Mortal Kombat (Master System)
15 - Sensible Soccer / Sensible World of Soccer (Amiga 500)
16 - Grand Theft Auto (PC)
17 - The Sims (PC)
18 - Double Dragon (Amiga 500)
19 - Space Invaders (Atari 2600)
20 - Treasure Island Dizzy (ZX Spectrum 48k)
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