Top 10 Games of 1980 | Number 6: Bezerk #shorts
Berzerk is a multidirectional shooter maze game, released for arcades in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago. Berzerk places the player in a series of top-down, maze-like rooms containing armed robots.
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Top 10 Games of 1980 | Number 9: Battlezone #shorts
Battlezone is a first-person shooter tank combat game released for arcades in November 1980 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a tank which is attacked by other tanks and missiles, using a small radar scanner to locate enemies around them in the barren landscape. Its innovative use of 3D graphics made it a huge hit, with approximately 15,000 units sold.
With its use of three-dimensional vector graphics, the game is considered to be the first true 3D arcade game with a first-person perspective, the "first big 3D success" in the video game industry, and the first successful first-person shooter video game in particular, making it a milestone for first-person shooter games.
The game was primarily designed by Ed Rotberg, who was mainly inspired by Atari's top-down shooter game Tank (1974). Battlezone was distributed in Japan by Sega and Taito in 1981. The system was based on vector hardware designed by Howard Delman which was introduced in Lunar Lander and saw success with Asteroids. The 3D hardware that drove the program saw use in following games, including Red Baron, released in 1981.
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Top 10 Games of 1980 | Number 7: Centipede #shorts
Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
Centipede was ported to Atari's own Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, and Atari 8-bit family. Under the Atarisoft label, the game was sold for the Apple II, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, VIC-20, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk), Intellivision, and TI-99/4A. Superior Software published the port for the BBC Micro. Versions for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color were also produced, as well as a version for the short-lived Game.com developed by Handheld Games and published by Tiger Electronics.
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Top 10 Games of 1980 | Number 10: Space Panic #shorts
Space Panic is a 1980 arcade game designed by Universal. Predating Nintendo's Donkey Kong, and lacking a jump mechanic, Space Panic was the first game involving climbing ladders between walkable platforms. The genre was initially labeled as "climbing games," but later became known as platform games. A ColecoVision port by CBS Electronics was released in the winter holiday season of 1982.
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