It doesn’t matter whether you got your first taste of gaming on the ZX Spectrum in the ‘80s, or the PlayStation in the ‘90s, or even the Xbox One yesterday, this guide takes you right back to that magical moment when you first picked up the controller – whenever that might have been. Sinclair zx Spectrum (1984) Commodore Amiga (1987) Sega Mega Drive (1988) Sony PlayStation (1994) Nintendo 64 (1996)

WELCOME

SPECTRUM • The rubber-keyed wonder that launched the careers of hundreds of budding game developers

MANIC MINER

R-Type

Chuckie Egg

Green Beret

Ocean • Classic Developer From bedroom to billions – the company that began the licensed game craze

KNIGHT LORE

Jet Set Willy

Horace Goes Skiing

Lords of Midnight

SPOTLIGHT • How gaming’s original budget hero took an expensive toll on the sanity of Speccy owners…

Skool Daze

Head Over Heels

DEATHCHASE

AMIGA • Commodore’s beauty was big, bulky and relentlessly beige, but its games were a riot of colour and fun

THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND

Prince of Persia

Cannon Fodder

Sensible World of Soccer

The Bitmap Brothers • Classic Developer The Wapping-based outfit that made it cool to be a games programmer

LEMMINGS

Shadow of the Beast II

Turrican

Eye of the Beholder

LucasArts SPOTLIGHT • The company that dragged the adventure game genre out of the text parser doldrums

Rainbow Islands

Another World

APIDYA

MEGA DRIVE • Sega’s most successful console, the Mega Drive was a thorn in Nintendo’s side across two generations

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

Altered Beast

Desert Strike

Strider

Electronic Arts • Classic Developer EA’s industry-conquering formula of annual updates began life on Sega

STREETS OF RAGE

Toejam & Earl

Earthworm Jim

Golden Axe

FIGHTER SPOTLIGHT • It was east vs west, finesse vs fizzle, Capcom vs Midway in the battle of the Mega Drive brawlers

Castle of Illusion

Ecco The Dolphin

MICRO MACHINES

PLAYSTATION • The system that single-handedly made gaming ‘cool’ and introduced us to a new wave of heroes and genres

FINAL FANTASY VII

Metal Gear Solid

Wipeout

Crash Bandicoot

Tomb Raider SPOTLIGHT • The rise and rise of the Tomb Raider who would go on to become a PlayStation icon

RESIDENT EVIL

Gran Turismo

PaRappa The Rapper

Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding

Namco

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Silent Hilll

X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER

NINTENDO 64 • 20 years on, we can now see this much-maligned console for what it is: one of the most innovative gaming systems ever created

SUPER MARIO 64

GoldenEye 007

F-Zero X

Star Fox 64

Rare • Classic Developer The British studio that, for a short while, out-Nintendo’d Nintendo

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME

Super Smash Bros.

Mario Kart 64

MARIO SPOTLIGHT • One of gaming’s great dilettantes, Nintendo’s mascot has truly done and seen it all

Perfect Dark

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

SIN & PUNISHMENT