Let’s discuss our favorite game from each year. Following on from the 1986 thread, this is the first of a series of alternative threads going back through time from 1986.
So, 1985. Let’s have at it.
Rules:
One game per person
Feel free to change your mind
Be excellent to each other
Have fun
What counts as a “1985” game? Well, that’s up to you, but there must be some argument to be made that the game first released in some capacity in 1985.
For the purposes of the examples below, and the recommended criteria, is the game first release on any region/platform must be in 1985 for it to count. So, no Duck Hunt. But you get to use your own rules, no worries. We’re all friends.
Notable games first released in 1985
(but please go deeper and feel free to pick something not mentioned here)
Wrecking Crew!! This game is great in the exact same way that Pac-Man is – it’s an action packed maze puzzle game that keeps you on your toes. It’s easy enough for anyone to pick up but feels so rewarding to beat some of the tougher challenges. Sometimes you can find an easy solution and solve a tough looking level quickly. There are 99 levels in the NES version so you can just keep going and going.
turns out I haven’t played a lot of games from 1985, but of the ones I have played I’ll nominate the Atari arcade game Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
it’s a pretty simple arcade shooter but it’s fun! I’m also quite fond of early vector graphics, and this game is a particularly impressive example in my opinion
I’ve played this game twice: once in the upright cabinet version (at a barcade in Athens, GA) and once in the cockpit version (at the now-defunct DisneyQuest virtual reality theme park in Orlando, FL)
this was a while ago now so I’ll admit that I’m not 100% certain if I played Empire or the 1983 Star Wars game to which it’s a sequel/conversion (maybe they had both?), but the AT-AT graphics look familiar so I’m going for it >:P
I was going off the list above but it does look like the console release was in 1985 in Japan: Super Mario Bros. - Wikipedia.
I will also admit it can sometimes be a fools errand to pin down release dates for some of these early era games.
I do think super mario would be the game I’d most likely return to today next to Tetris. But I think I want to nominate the Oregon trail since I like what that game is doing more. So @gingerbeardman my official vote for the tally is Oregon trail.
I didn’t play the 1985 release nearly as much as I did the version that would have been on an elementary school computer in the late 90’s early 00’s, but I think that game really activated parts of my brain that weren’t getting activated elsewhere. Pre-planning, risk reward, sense of discovery, the cruel brutality of RNG, early Americana.
Thank you to @gingerbeardman for doing this! Now I have zero guilt without any extra effort!
I’ll cast my (painfully obvious) vote later, but for now I want to remind anyone voting for Tetris that you’re not getting the Atari arcade version (1988) or the NES & Game Boy versions (1989).
This is what Tetris was like in 1985:
No music. Monochrome ASCII graphics. Sounds like a telegraph.
Anyway, 1985 is a huge year for Tracy-coded games. While Tetris is technically the clear winner for me in theory, my favorite version is the NES port, which is a few years from now. This leaves a 12 way tie between a bunch of games that I still revisit frequently and which have had a formative influence in how I view games: Gradius, TwinBee, Hang On, Ghosts n Goblins, Paperboy, Gauntlet, Excitebike, Super Mario Bros, Bard’s Tale, Yie Ar Kung Fu, City Connection, and
Space Harrier
which I think has to get the nod because it still looks and sounds like the future
