10 Video Games Google Should Offer After Pac-Man

by Clint Boulton

Google made this playable doodle a permanent resident. Use your keyboard to eat the ghosts.

Galaga is a classic fixed shooter game from Namco released in 1981. Alien invaders swoop down for the attack. You must blast them and rack up points. Pick up extra shooters along the way. This game is much better than Space Invaders, which blazed the trail in 1978.

Another shoot-em-up, Defender from Williams Electronics lets players move left or right, blasting aliens and save falling citizens from certain death.

Primitive and crude, Asteroids featured a spaceship moving slowly around in circles blasting chunks of rock before getting smashed to smithereens. The game proved tedious to some, but was a first-comer from Atari in 1979.

Not every successful game was a shoot-em up. Donkey Kong from Nintendo proved a smash hit from 1981 on.

Atari’s Centipede was a fixed-shooter game from 1980 that let the player shoot an angry centipede trying to gobble everything in its path. Atari would follow this game up with the more challenging Millipede in 1982.

This game was definitely no shoot-em up. Frogger from Konami in 1981 featured players trying to get frogs across streets and rivers before they got squished.

Dig Dug from Namco is another favorite from back in the day. Players run through a maze killing monsters.

Adapted from a movie, Tron from Bally Midway lets users destroy Grid Bugs with Tron’s disc and clear a path to the flashing circle. Think of it as programmers squashing software bugs.

Pole Position is a 1982 race-car game from Namco launched before NASCAR enjoyed a resurgence. Race this Formula One car on the track to victory, but watch out for other drivers.