Can You Name These All-Time Favorite Video Games From an Image?
By: Jody Mabry
4 min
Image: Shutterstock
About This Quiz
Gamers around the world now have the ability to put themselves into the world of video games with the newest virtual reality technology. But, what were the games that first got you excited to play? Many people don't realize that the first video game was invented in the '50s, only a few years after color television. It's true! In October of 1958, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory invented a tennis game very similar to Pong.Â
So, are you a first-person shooter? Do you prefer the pixelated antics of nostalgic gaming heroes such as Pac Man, Qbert, or Donkey Kong? Or, are you an '80s and '90s champion who spends your day trying to save the princess in games such as Super Mario Brothers and Zelda? It takes quick reflexes, experiences and the innate ability to predict what is to come to be a great gamer. And while many gamers nowadays play alongside friends thousands of miles away, there is something to be said for the intimate setting of a gaming room and a bunch of friends gathered around a screen. Saturday night NBA Jam anyone?Â
Are you always the first person to pick up the newest release? See how much of a video game expert you are by taking this quiz!
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What's the name of this all-time favorite video game?
Pac-Man
While you may have gotten a high score in Pac-Man, you probably haven't been able to get the game's true highest possible score of 3,333,360 points. This rare feat was first accomplished by Billy Mitchell in July 1999 - a full 19 years after the game's initial release.
Fun Fact: Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak was so good at Tetris that Nintendo Power Magazine banned him from submitting high scores for publication. Undeterred, Steve submitted Tetris scores with his name spelled backwards ("Evets Kainzow") - and it worked!
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a real system seller for the Nintendo 64. My roommate at the time purchased his N64 the day Ocarina came out just to play the game.
The deluxe arcade version of the original Street Fighter used two mechanical "punch buttons" which allowed the player to deliver light/medium/heavy kicks and punches depending on how hard they smashed the buttons.
Sega needed a weapon to combat Mario in the 90's console wars, so Sonic the Hedgehog was born and was a real hit. Sega also coined the term "Blast Processing" which was slightly less real.
Many people may know the Angelina Jolie movie better than the game, which is a shame because Tomb Raider is a really fun ride. The Lara Croft character first entered the gaming world in 1996. The series was rebooted to great success in 2013 by Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix.
This game took racing to a whole new level, with players able to sabotage each other and split-screen racing. Super Mario Kart was first released in 1992.
Pitfall! is a true classic, released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1982. Who didn't spend hours trying to get the little guy to grab the rope just right to swing over the pit?
Can you do us a favor and match this all-time favorite to its name?
Space Invaders
Were you a "shoot them as fast as I can" player, or did you wait for the bonus saucers to rack up extra points? Different strategies could be used to beat Space Invaders.
Here it is, the original home video game! If you've got one of the old ones around and it still works, you're sitting on a gold mine. Pong was created by Atari engineer Allan Alcorn.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege was released in 2015 as the eleventh game in the Rainbow Six series. The series is part of the Rainbow Six media franchise which began with the 1998 publication of Clancy’s techno-thriller novel of the same name.
Grand Theft Auto made major waves in 1997 for its language and the nature of the violence, but that only made sales go higher. Since then the series has been going strong, with many celebrities lending their voices to the game, including Samuel L. Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Debbie Harry, and Axl Rose.
Mega Man 2 is the best Mega Man game. While this may seem like an opinion, trust me, it is a fact. The only non-fantastic thing about Mega Man 2 us the box art for the USA version of the game. It was, however, an improvement over the so-horrible-it's-almost-funny-actually-no-it's-really-horrible USA box art for Mega Man 1.
This was a groundbreaking game, showing how well a first-person shooter could work as a console game. GoldenEye 007 was based on the 1995 James Bond movie, GoldenEye, in case you were wondering.
Great fighting action and a solid plotline made Metal Gear Solid a great entry in a series that began back in the early days of video games. Konami first released this one in 1998.
Originally named "Jumpman", Nintendo changed the character's name to "Mario" after Mario Segale - the Italian-American landlord who paid the team an angry visit when Nintendo was behind on rent.
Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014) is the seventh game in the Wolfenstein series. Players are tasked with stopping Nazi world domination in an alternate reality where the Nazis won World War II.
The dialog was stilted. The camera was fixed. The controls were more fit for a tank. None of this mattered in the face of Resident Evil's expertly delivered jump-scares.
The Half-Life series, so far, consists of two main games. The second game, Half-Life 2 (2004), was extremely well received by gamers and game critics, going on to win numerous “Game of the Year†awards.
NBA Jam did for video basketball what the Madden series did for video football, although over time Madden has held up better. It was released by Midway in 1993.
For a great conversation starter try this: "Original Doom. Chainsaw or shotgun? Discuss." Doom was one of the seminal first-person shooter games and spawned a movie of its own. Doom the movie was released in 2005.
This 2005 game’s name stands for “First Encounter Assault Recon.†It is followed by two sequels, thus far, with the third one stylized as F.3.A.R. The second game was F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
BioShock Infinite was honored with numerous Game of the Year awards following its release in 2013. Among those it won were ones from Electronic Gaming Monthly, the Associated Press, CNN and Forbes.
Far Cry is a prolific series of games, with the very first installment, Far Cry, having been released in 2004. The franchise has a total of 11 games, so far, with more in the works.
Nintendo released Super Mario World in 1990 as a launch title for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). This wide-ranging game brought in characters from the entire Nintendo universe and ate up players' weekends.
While Konami's Contra is an excellent game, it will forever be associated with it's famous cheat code which when entered at the game's title screen would give players 30 lives. Contra was actually the second game to use the code - Gradius used it first in the NES version in 1986. You know the code right? Say it with me. UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A
Perfect Dark (2000) is often referred to as a spiritual successor to GoldenEye 007. A prequel, Perfect Dark Zero, was released in 2005 and a remastered version of the original in 2010.
Although it bears the title “Battlefield 1,†this game which was released in 2016, is actually the 15th installment in the Battlefield series. The first game, Battlefield 1942, was released in 2002.
The original game in the Halo series, Halo: Combat Evolved, came out in 2001 to rave reviews from gamers and game critics. It spawned an extremely successful franchise of graphic novels, action figures, toy vehicles and at least six other video games.
This space fight game offered the fun of having a larger alien ship "capture" your fighter, which you could then rescue for double power. Galaga was released by Namco in 1981.
The original TimeSplitters game was released in 2000, with TimeSplitters 2 coming out in 2002. It was followed by a third installment, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect in 2005. All three games ranked highly among gamers and game critics.
It seemed maddeningly simple: Mash the accelerator pedal at the right time and win all the races. It wasn't. Pole Position was first released in 1982 by Namco.
You modern-day Pokemon catchers might not know that the game dates back years. Pokemon Red and Blue used the link cable to connect two Game Boys for battles. In Japan, it was released as Pokemon Red and Green.
There are three main games in the Crysis series, to date, with a fourth game, Crysis Warhead (2008) issued as a standalone expansion to the original Crysis game from 2007.
Chrono Trigger is at the top of my "desert island games" list. To make this game Square assembled a "Dream Team" of famous designers, notably Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (creator of Dragon Quest), and Akira Toriyama (character designer for Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest).
If you played Rygar, you were in on the early days of the console games. It was a side-scrolling adventure game with a very intricate Japanese backstory. Tecmo gave the concept another try with Rygar: The Legendary Adventure which was released in the USA in 2002.
Game developers ACE Team put out Zeno Clash as its debut game in 2009. It received above average positive reviews and the ACE Team later developed a sequel titled Zeno Clash II (2013).
The first Serious Sam game is made up of two episodes. They are Serious Sam: The First Encounter (2001) and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (2002). Two sequels followed, as well as several versions of each game.
Bulletstorm (2011) comes from People Can Fly, a Polish video game developer and Epic Games, an American company. Bulletstorm stands out among the first-person shooter genre thanks to the style and off-color humor injected into the gameplay.