Happy 25th anniversary to a true legend! Grand Theft Auto III was published by Rockstar Games on 22 October 2001. It was the first of the series to switch to a 3D third-person perspective; the previous two used a bird’s-eye top-down view. It still blows my mind how great it looks even now, a quarter of a century later. In 2001, this was one of most badass games of the year. The open world and the massive depth were truly incredible.

Another one bites the dust. Electronic Arts feels like the plague. Once they get you, it's only a matter of time before you're dead. RIP, BioWare (1995 - 2026)

Infogrames isn't mentioned enough among the greats from the past... so, here's a reminder of one of their most brilliant games: Alone in the Dark If you played adventure games back then, you know that this one truly reshaped the genre in 1992.

What's the oldest gaming system you still own today? I went through my shelves today and found the winner rather quickly: it's an Atari 2600 from 1982. Plugged it in for a quick run at River Raid… and yep, I’m still crap at it.

Did you face Lord Chaos? The one and only Godfather of real-time dungeon crawlers: Dungeon Master Developed by FTL Games and released in 1987, it was a groundbreaking real-time RPG that revolutionized the genre. It featured pseudo-3D graphics and innovative mechanics like skill improvement through use and repetition (rather than traditional level progression). I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played this. It simply doesn’t get old. You assemble a party of four heroes to descend into a multi-level dungeon, solving puzzles, fighting monsters in real time, and retrieving the Firestaff to defeat Lord Chaos. Dungeon Master has a truly immersive vibe and quite a nerve-wrecking and tense real-time gameplay. I think it's fair to say that it paved the way and heavily influenced later titles such as Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, and Black Crypt. It's a timeless classic, often (and rightfully) hailed as one of the best RPGs ever.

For an entire decade, between 1985 and 1995, Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts) created gaming history with virtually everything they touched. Look at that list and name me a single one that sucked. Best of all: ⛔️ No annual subscriptions. ⛔️ No in-game transactions. ⛔️ No patches. Anyone who ever held one of those beautifully designed boxes in their hands knows exactly what I’m talking about. Games were so much more than just their data. By the way, the heaviest of the bunch was Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe - its manual ran over 300 pages. When physical games were truly physical!

Werewolf. Werewolf? WEREWOLF! Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within (1995) is a full-motion video point-and-click adventure and sequel to Sins of the Fathers. It blends German folklore and occult mystery - quite a curveball, considering Sierra was still mostly known for lighter and funnier themes (Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry). Gabriel Knight has relocated to Rittersberg, Germany, embracing his role as a "Schattenjäger" (shadow hunter) of supernatural evil. When villagers report brutal killings they attribute to a werewolf (despite police blaming escaped zoo wolves), the story unfolds. I assume they hired German actors, since the accents are spot-on for many of them.

40 years ago, this classic vertical shooter hit the arcades: Slap Fight (known as Alcon in North America). I always upgraded speed first and wings second - what about you? Developed by Toaplan and published by Taito in 1986, it was a well-crafted, influential early Toaplan game that stood out for its selectable power-up system. Destroyed enemies drop stars that advance a bar at the bottom of the screen. You then choose which upgrade to activate: ⭐️ Speed ⭐️ Shot ⭐️ Side shot ⭐️ Wing ⭐️ Bomb ⭐️ Laser ⭐️ Homing missiles ⭐️ Shield This weapon upgrade style gave players strategic choices instead of automatic upgrades and became a signature Toaplan mechanic. I always found that speed was the utmost important upgrade, simply to have a better chance of dodging enemy fire.

There were first person shooters before and after Doom (1993), but I think we can all agree that it's THE most influential and iconic one ever made. LAN co-op and competitive “deathmatch” (a term popularized by the game) turned offices and computer labs into battlegrounds. Doom wasn’t the absolute first FPS or 3D game, but it was the one that packaged superior technology, excellent gameplay, a kickass soundtrack, free distribution, and multiplayer/modding, which helped to firmly establish the PC as the ultimate gaming machine. id Software's impact can't be overstated. They were true pioneers and made themselves immortal.

Ptttawwww Pttttaaawwww Ppppptaaaawww!! Strider (1989, Amiga) was the first game I bought in its original box, shortly after I was busted at age 13 for swapping Amiga games via classified ads. A humbling experience at an early age. Strider served as a good example of why a nicely designed box and neat-looking screenshots don’t always make for a great game. I found it rather mediocre and soon regretted spending 89.95 DM (roughly US$45 at the time) on it. What’s a game you bought and soon after thought, “Meh, that was a mistake,” and wished you could get your money back?

Games that make you wonder what the devs were thinking (or smoking)... Super Tempo (1998).

Sensible Software didn't shy away from a controversial tagline for their game Cannon Fodder from 1993: "War has never been so much fun!" The dark humour is present throughout the game, but not everyone got it - some criticised its "brutality" and supposed glorification of war and killing. I never understood that notion, since most action games involve blasting through hordes of enemies and killing the bad guys, don't they? Regardless, it became one of the Amiga's most successful games ever, with a crapload of awards. Great graphics, an epic soundtrack, and excellent gameplay. A near perfect game. Did you know it was actually built on a modified Sensible Soccer engine?

While Pac-Man (1980) was the undisputed #1 in terms of coin-revenue in the 80s with around $10 billion, Space Invaders (1978) had a firm grip on the #2 spot with roughly $4 billion. In terms of innovative gameplay its influence and impact on arcade gaming can't be overstated. High score tracking: It was the first major arcade game to save and display a high score, encouraging competition and replayability. Gameplay: It was the first true "fixed shooter," with the player controlling a laser cannon that moves only horizontally at the bottom of the screen while shooting upward. Enemies: Unlike earlier games where enemies were passive targets, the aliens fire back at you, which was novel at the time. Sound effects: Tomohiro Nishikado, the game’s designer and programmer, came up with the idea of the heartbeat-like sound. Michiyuki Kamei (Taito’s sound engineer) aimed for something more profound and resonant (drawing inspiration from the Jaws theme) rather than the initially comical versions. I think we can all agree that the sound effects of Space Invaders are some of the most iconic in the history of video games.

Game menus were perfected in the late 90s and early 2000s. I have no idea why studios moved away from that. Age of Empires, Heroes of Might and Magic, Command & Conquer, StarCraft, Diablo, and Warcraft were the reasons why you couldn't wait to turn on your PC back in the day, and once that menu loaded you were locked in!

20 KB of RAM could make all the difference in the world… once. MemMaker was a memory-optimization utility included with MS-DOS 6.0 and later (especially common in 6.22). Its job was to free up as much conventional memory as possible for DOS programs and games. It did this by analyzing your system and automatically moving device drivers into the upper memory area (the region between 640 KB and 1 MB). MemMaker was once a life-saver. After Windows took over, it became obsolete.

Games on the Atari 2600 always had the most creative names. The designers probably thought long and hard about this one, and then decided on "Basketball." Magazine reviews noted that "the game definitely captures the flavor of basketball." The game as a whole was found to "offer the most exciting four minutes of one-on-one hoop action seen so far." All a matter of perspective... and all kidding aside, in 1978 this was pretty neat!

Dune II (Westwood Studios) was released in 1992, and it cannot be overstated how much this game impacted, changed, and popularized RTS games. It felt like the floodgates opened after it paved the way for an entire genre. Yes, there were others before it, but in terms of depth, playability, graphics, cutscenes, and digitized speech, it was unbelievably awesome. I can only think of a handfull of games that captured me the way Dune II did. Controlling units individually feels tedious from today’s perspective, but it never bothered me back then. I guess you can’t miss what you don’t expect. For a 1992 game, the graphics were impressive (for an RTS game), the cutscenes had that Cinemaware quality, and the music and digitized speech were the icing on the cake. Of course, I started with Atreides, but over time I - and probably you too - switched to the "dark side" and played Harkonnen and Ordos. The Harkonnen Devastator (still one of the best unit names ever!) was pretty badass. I know that Dune 2000 was released many years later but I never felt it was a worthy sequel. A real Dune III would be a dream come true. Maybe one day?

Almost half a century ago, tank shots were ricocheting off walls, biplanes were racing through the clouds, and many younger brothers (and sisters) were rage-quitting after yet another lost battle. Combat from 1977 was a launch title for the iconic Atari 2600, and is one of the few games that only works in multiplayer mode. If you're Gen X, this is probably a core memory from your childhood years. A good one if you were the older sibling, and maybe a slightly traumatic one if you were the younger one getting your ass kicked way too often. Good times!