Only True Gamers Can Name All 50 Retro Video Games

By: J. Scott Wilson
Image: Test Hero Credit

About This Quiz

Do you need cheat codes or are you skilled enough to beat this quiz?

We've all seen how certain aspects of pop culture; like fashion and music, from earlier decades (like the 60s, 70s, and 80s) can experience a resurgence in popularity in modern years - well, the same can be said for video gaming as well. Retrogaming is a relatively young trend that has quickly become popular due to factors like nostalgia and advances in technology. In this quiz, we'll be taking a look at a wide variety of retro games from different genres, so that we can put your gaming knowledge to the ultimate test.

Retro games are usually classified nowadays as any video game that was created from the 1970s to the late 1990s (and now even recently video games from the early 2000s are sometimes considered as well). Retrogaming has become so popular nowadays, that an entire subculture within the gaming community has sprung up around the concept. This has lead to notable occurrences like exhibitions, tournaments, and even displays in museums.

So c'mon, make sure that you collect all of the power-ups that you need and let's go back in time with this cool retro video game quiz!



Players today have gotten so good at Super Mario Bros. that the game can be completed in an unassisted speedrun in under five minutes. Crazy.

Donkey Kong was the first time we met Mario and Donkey Kong. It wouldn't be the last by a long shot.

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.

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.

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.

Mortal Kombat was released in 1992. Initially a second banana to Street Fighter, this game became insanely popular and spawned movies.

Many of us spent many quarters trying to beat this game. Time management is key. Namco first released Dig Dug in 1982.

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.

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.

Paperboy was a fun game! Just pedal the bike, throw the papers and commit random acts of vandalism as you go along.

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.

Double Dragon, starring brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, made the transition from arcade to console games pretty smoothly. It was first released in 1987.

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.

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.

1979's Asteroids is an oldie but a goodie. Were you one of the players who rocketed around the game field, or did you stay mostly in the center?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Get above the other guy and spear him, then pick up the egg. Joust sounds easy, right? Not so much.

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.

A space shooter game with a 3-D aspect, Galaga '88 was a real quarter eater. Namco released this one to follow Galaxian, Galaga, and Gaplus.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Who remembers the "plunk" noise when you put a quarter in the game? Q*bert was one of the most popular arcade games of the '80s.

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.

The Final Fantasy series has gained a cult-like following over the more than a decade since its introduction. It melds great characters with immersive storylines very well.

I wore out at least three of those plastic pistols sold with the NES playing this game. I used to try to shoot the dog when he laughed at me for missing.

This was a somewhat forgettable installment in the Mario pantheon, with Mario and Luigi basically running around whacking stuff with hammers. Wrecking Crew dates from 1985.

In terms of games that could cost you entire weekends, they didn't come much better than Sim City. It was highly addictive!

The early '80s saw all sorts of these games, where you basically ran back and forth across the screen eluding a variety of enemies in dark suits. Elevator Action had the player collecting secret documents.

If you've ever tried to eat an ice cream cone while your kids try to get a bite, you'd have loved Food Fight. The hero tries to hide his ice cream cone from four chefs while eating it.

Zaxxon could be frustrating. The 3-D playfield added the hazard of trying to avoid hazards on the ground while fighting in the air.

With 8 playable characters and a ferocious set of bosses, Tekken was a fighting game for those with fast reflexes and lots of quarters. Another winner for Namco.

Gauntlet was that game that always had a crowd around it in the arcade. Up to four people could play at once, and the killing of zillions of attacking monsters was great fun and the "Wizard needs food, badly!" meme is alive and well to this day.

Best played with a group, this artillery-blasting turn-based game takes a while to play, but you won't notice the time passing. Worms Armageddon celebrates the team spirit of invertebrates.

Metroid was one of the first games to feature multiple endings the most famous of which has the main character, Samus Aran, revealed as a woman by removing her Power Suit.

Williams Electronics released Defender in 1981. This side-scrolling shooter was maddeningly difficult. It was hard to aim, and it was nearly impossible to save all the little astronauts from going splat on the ground.

This was easily my biggest addiction back in the days of vector graphics games. I wanted to be tank commander for the Army until I learned 6'5" was too tall for that.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have endured through many comics, movies, and video games. The game featured multi-player cooperative play for 1 to 4 people and was really best enjoyed with the full retinue of 4.

The Galactic Orbiting Robot Force was several games in one, and back in '81 its use of synthesized speech was a real groundbreaker. Plus, Gorf is fun to say.

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