11 Things Only 1980s Gamers Will Understand

Recently in one of our features, we took a trip down memory lane and reminisced about gaming in the decade of 1990s, and we quite enjoyed it. So we figured, why not go further back? And back is where we’ll go in this feature, as we talk about some things that defined much of the industry in the 80s. Obviously, there’s a lot that the 80s and the 90s had in common, some of which we’ve already spoken about in our previous aforementioned feature, so you won’t see us repeating those things here. With all that out of the way, let’s get started.

SIDESCROLLERS

There was a time when video games were synonymous with a very particular kind of look and design- whether it was action adventure titles, shooters, platformers, or pure action games, sidescrollers dominated the scene. That was largely due to the limitations that the hardware of the time placed on game developers back then, but it surely didn’t stop developers from expressing their creativity. From Contra to Metroid to Ninja Gaiden to Super Mario Bros., these were all vastly different experiences in spite of being side-scrollers.