Sport and Leisure/Video Games

Arcade games

Pong was invented by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, in 1972. It is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics

Space Invaders is an arcade video game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Taito Corporation and released in 1978. The player controls a laser cannon by moving it horizontally across the bottom of the screen and firing at descending aliens. The aim is to defeat five rows of eleven aliens. By mid-1981, more than four billion quarters, or $1 billion, had been grossed from Space Invaders machines

Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers

Pac-Man was developed by Namco and first released in Japan in 1980. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man

Defender is a 1981 game set on either an unnamed planet or city (depending on platform) where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts

Frogger is a 1981 arcade game. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one by crossing a busy road and navigating a river full of hazards

Donkey Kong was released by Nintendo in 1981. It was the first platform game to feature jumping. Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girlfriend, known as Pauline. The player must take the role of Mario and rescue her

Video games

Age of Empires is a series of historical games developed by Ensemble Studios

Age of Empires requires the player to develop a nation, from a handful of Stone Age villagers. Released in 1997

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is set in the Middle Ages

Age of Empires III portrays the European colonization of the Americas

Animal Crossing is a community simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo, in which the player lives in a village inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, carrying out various activities

Animal Crossing was originally released in 2001

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Animal Crossing: City Folk

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Released in 2020

Ape Escape is a series of video games made by Sony for the PlayStation. The game tells the story of an ape named Specter who gains enhanced intelligence through the use of an experimental helmet

Apex Legends is a a free-to-play battle royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. Released in 2019. By April 2021, it had approximately 100 million players

Assassin’s Creed was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide in 2007 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The objective in the game is to assassinate nine historical figures propagating the Crusades in 1191

Assassin's Creed primarily revolves around the rivalry between two ancient secret societies: the Assassins and the Knights Templar. It features Desmond Miles, a bartender who is a descendant of several lines of prominent Assassins. He is initially kidnapped by the megacorporation Abstergo Industries, the modern-day face of the Knights Templar

Assassin’s Creed II

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed II, with Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Desmond Miles returning as the main protagonists

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Assassin’s Creed III

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Assassin's Creed Rogue

Assassin's Creed Unity

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Assassin's Creed Origins

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Assassin's Creed Valhalla was released in 2020

Banjo-Kazooie is a 1998 platform game that follows the story of a honey bear named Banjo and his friend, a large red bird – of the fictional Breegull species – named Kazooie, who are both controlled by the player, and a witch named Gruntilda as the primary antagonist

Battlefield is a series of video games that started out with Battlefield 1942. The twelfth game in the series, Battlefield 2042, is due for release in October 2021

BioShock is a series of three video games. The first two games are set in 1960, in which the player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture

Bioshock

Bioshock 2

Bioshock Infinite

Brain Age, also known as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, is a series of video games developed and published by Nintendo

Call of Duty is a series of first-person shooter video game, first released in 2003. The games are developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The first game simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II

World War II series

Call of Duty

Call of Duty 2

Call of Duty 3

Call of Duty: WWII

Modern Warfare series

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Black Ops series

Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Other games

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Civilization is a series of games designed by Sid Meier. The game's objective is to ‘Build an empire to stand the test of time’: it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires through the ages from the ancient era until modern and near-future times

Nuclear Gandhi is an Internet meme and an urban legend. According to the legend, there was a bug in Civilization that forced Mahatma Gandhi to be extremely aggressive and to use nuclear weapons

Counter-Strike is a video game developed as a Half-Life modification. Two opposing teams – the Terrorists and the Counter Terrorists – compete in game modes to complete objectives

Crash Bandicoot is a series of platform video games. The protagonist of the series is an anthropomorphic bandicoot named Crash, whose quiet life on the Wumpa Islands is often interrupted by the games' main antagonist, Doctor Neo Cortex

Crash Team Racing is the fourth installment in the Crash Bandicoot series

Defense of the Ancients is a MOBA mod for the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002). The objective of the game is for each team to destroy their opponents' Ancient, a heavily guarded structure

Dota 2 is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients

Destiny marked Bungie's first new franchise since the Halo series. Previously published by Activision. Set in a "mythic science fiction" setting. Players take on the role of a Guardian, protectors of Earth's last safe city

Diablo is an action role-playing hack and slash video game series developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is set in the dark fantasy world of Sanctuary

Diablo III – players choose one of five character classes; the Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk or Demon Hunter and are tasked with defeating the titular Diablo. Diablo III set a new record for fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release, and was the highest selling PC game of 2012, selling more than 12 million copies during the year

Dishonored was developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.  Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored follows Corvo Attano, the Empress's legendary bodyguard

Disney Infinity is a sandbox video game series, set in a customizable universe of imagination, known as the Toy Box, populated with toy versions of Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars characters

Doom is a 1993 computer game by John Romero of id Software. The player takes the role of a nameless space marine who has been deported to Mars

Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published in 1983. The protagonist Dirk the Daring is a knight attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe

The Elder Scrolls is a role-playing video game series developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The first product – The Elder Scrolls: Arena – was released in 1994 for DOS PC systems. The Elder Scrolls games primarily take place on the continent of Tamriel, located on the world of Nirn

The Elder Scrolls: Arena

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Elite is a space trading video game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers

Fallout was developed by Interplay Entertainment in 1997. The game has a post-apocalyptic setting, in the aftermath of a global nuclear war in an alternate history timeline mid-22nd century. The protagonist of Fallout is an inhabitant of one of the long-term shelters known as Vaults who is tasked to find the Water Chip to save other dwellers from water shortage. There are four games in the series. Fallout 4 was released in 2015

Far Cry is a series of six games, published by Ubisoft. The games place the player in a wilderness environment where they try to survive

FIFA is a series of association football video games or football simulator, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. The FIFA series has sold over 325 million copies as of 2021. the series began with FIFA International Soccer on the Sega Mega Drive in 1993. Wayne Rooney has appeared in the most covers being on the cover of every game from FIFA 06 to FIFA 12. Kylian Mbappe is on the front cover of FIFA 21

Final Fantasy is a fantasy role-playing video game, developed by created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and developed and owned by Square Enix and first published in Japan in 1987. The story follows four youths called the Light Warriors, who each carry one of their world's four elemental orbs which have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends. 15 installments. Nobuo Uematsu wrote the score for Final Fantasy

Football Manager was developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game began in 1992 as Championship Manager

Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games in 2017. There are three game mode versions –

Battle Royale – up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing. 125 million players in its first year

Save the World – a cooperative survival game. Sandbox game

Creative – players create structures on a private island and share them with other players

Forza is a series of simulation racing games. Divided into Forza Motorsport (7 titles) and Forza Horizon (5 titles)

Gears of War is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games using Unreal Engine 3.0 technology and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game centres around the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. The player assumes the role of Marcus Fenix. There are six games in the Gears of War series

Ghost of Tsushima is a 2020 video game for PlayStation. The player controls Jin Sakai, a samurai on a quest to protect Tsushima Island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan

God of War is a franchise of eight games. Debuting in 2005, the series has become a flagship title for the PlayStation brand

God of War is a video game series loosely based on Greek mythology. The series' story centres around its only playable character, Kratos, a Spartan warrior tricked into killing his wife and child by his former master, the God of War Ares

God of War: A Call from the Wilds was released in 2018. The game follows Atreus on his first adventure in the Norse wilds

Grim Fandango was developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is set in the Land of the Dead

Gran Turismo is a series of racing simulation video games developed for the PlayStation. It is the highest selling video game franchise under the PlayStation brand

Grand Theft Auto is primarily developed by British development house Rockstar North, and published by its parent company, Rockstar Games

Grand Theft Auto was released in 1997. The game was originally titled Race'n'Chase

Grand Theft Auto 2 was released to mixed reviews and had limited commercial success

Grand Theft Auto III is set in Liberty City (based on New York). The story follows Claude, who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – set in Vice City (based on Miami). The story follows mobster Tommy Vercetti's rise to power after his release from prison

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – set in the fictional state of San Andreas. The story follows former gangster Carl "CJ" Johnson

Grand Theft Auto IV is set in a re-imagined Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a Serbian veteran of the Bosnian War who comes to the United States in search of the American Dream. GTA IV sold about 3.6 million units on its first day of release and grossed more than $500 million in its first week, breaking the first-week sales record of $300 million set by Halo 3

Grand Theft Auto V is set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the game's single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to execute a number of heists while under pressure from a government agency. The game's use of open world design allows the player to freely roam the state's countryside and the city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles

Only the expansion packs for the original Grand Theft Auto, London 1969 and London 1961, have featured a location outside of the United States

Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console

Guitar Hero World Tour is the first game in the Guitar Hero series to feature drum and microphone controllers for percussion and vocal parts

Rock Band was developed by Harmonix Music Systems and MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. The series, inspired by Harmonix's previous efforts on the Guitar Hero series, allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can play the lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums parts to songs, as well as sing through a USB microphone

Half-Life, often abbreviated HL or HL1, is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and published by Sierra Studios. In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist, who must fight his way out of a research facility overrun by aliens and soldiers

Half-Life 2 was released in 2004

Half-Life: Alyx is a 2020 virtual reality game

Halo is a series of science fiction first-person shooter video games developed by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft, developed exclusively for the Xbox 360. The games are set in the ‘Halo universe’. The Halo trilogy centres around the SPARTAN 117 ‘John’, also known as Master Chief, a human super-soldier equipped with technologically advanced battle armour, and his AI companion, Cortana

Halo 3 follows the character Master Chief and his struggle against the Covenant and the Flood

Halo 4, Halo 5: Guardians, and Halo Infinite are the three games in the Reclaimer saga

Hitman game series revolves around Agent 47, a cloned assassin-for-hire. Action-adventure stealth games developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. There are eight games in the series

Hitman: Codename 47 is the first game in the series

Hitman 3 is the latest game. Released in January 2021

Kinect Adventures! is a 2010 sports video game for the Xbox 360, which utilizes the Kinect motion camera, and is included as a pack-in game with the device. The game is a collection of five adventure and sports minigames, including River Rush

Kingdom Hearts is a crossover of various Disney settings based in a universe made specifically for the series. The series centres on the main character Sora and his search for his friends and encounters with Disney, Final Fantasy, and The World Ends with You characters on their worlds. Developed by Square Enix

Kirby series is a fantasy video game series developed by HAL Laboratory and Nintendo. All of the games in the Kirby series feature a pink spherical creature named Kirby as the main playable character and protagonist. Kirby frequently saves the world he resides in from various powerful antagonists, the most recurring one being King Dedede, the self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land (a region of Pop Star)

Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion is a history-based Real-time strategy game. The game was developed by Joymania Entertainment (since changed to Joymania Development) and published by TopWare Interactive. The scenery is based on the Anglo-Saxon period, c. 1000 AD

L.A. Noire is a video game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by Team Bondi in conjunction with Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire is set in Los Angeles in 1947, with players being challenged to solve a range of crimes

The Last of Us was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The player takes control of Joel, who is trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States in 2033, in order to escort the young Ellie to a resistance group, the Fireflies, who believe Ellie may be the key to curing an infection that has ravaged the world

The Last of Us Part II was released in 2020. The game focuses on Ellie, who sets out for revenge after suffering a tragedy, and Abby, a soldier

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game. Summoner's Rift is the flagship game mode. It is one of the largest esports games

Legend of Zelda (1986) is one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises. The series centres on Link, the playable character and chief protagonist. Link is often given the task of rescuing Princess Zelda and the kingdom of Hyrule from Ganon (or Ganondorf), who is the principal antagonist of the series. Zelda is the guardian of the Triforce of Wisdom. Since the original The Legend of Zelda was released in 1986, the series has expanded to include 19 entries on all of Nintendo's major game consoles

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time

Lego entered into a partnership with Traveller's Tales, and went on to make games including Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Lemmings was developed for the Commodore Amiga in 1991. The objective is to guide a group of anthropomorphised lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit

Life is Strange focuses on Max Caulfield, an 18-year-old photography student who discovers that she has the ability to rewind time at any moment

Madden NFL is an American football video game series developed by Electronic Arts Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden

Mario was the official mascot of Nintendo and was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. He first appeared in Donkey Kong, though his original name was Jumpman. Because of the common reference to him and his brother Luigi as the ‘Mario Brothers,’ it has been speculated his full name is Mario Mario. Mario is depicted as a short, pudgy Italian plumber who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom, where he is regarded as a hero by many; he is best known for thwarting the plans of the evil King Bowser to kidnap Princess Peach and subjugate the Mushroom Kingdom. The overall Mario franchise is the bestselling video game franchise of all time

Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985

Super Mario Kart was released in 1992

Super Mario Odyssey was released in 2017

Luigi’s Mansion was the first Mario game to be released for Nintendo GameCube, in 2001

Wario is the protagonist and antihero of the Wario Land and WarioWare series

Mass Effect is a science fiction media franchise that depicts an alternate universe where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the Milky Way galaxy

Mass Effect takes place in the year 2183, with the player assuming direct control of an elite human soldier named Commander Shepard and setting out to explore the Galaxy on a starship, the SSV Normandy. The eponymous ‘mass effect’ is a form of inertia-suppressing technology, allowing faster-than-light travel

Mass Effect: Andromeda is a 2017 follow-up to the original Mass Effect trilogy

Medal of Honor was developed for the PlayStationin 1999. The first twelve installments take place during World War II. The story of the first three games was created by Steven Spielberg

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was released in December 2020. It is the first release in the series since 2012's Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Mega Man is a franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man"

Metal Gear is a series of games created by Hideo Kojima in which the player takes control of special forces operative (Solid Snake or Big Boss) who is assigned to find Metal Gear, a walking tank with the ability to launch nuclear weapons

Metroid is a Nintendo franchise. Players control bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from the Space Pirates and their attempts to harness the power of the parasitic Metroid creature

Minecraft is a sandbox indie game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and published by Mojang. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. In 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property for US$2.5 billion. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, with 200 million copies sold

Mortal Kombat was developed and published by Midway Games in 1992. Known for its gory finishing moves. The game focuses on the journey of the monk Liu Kang to save Earth from the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung. Mortal Kombat features at least 60 player characters