Meet the greatest and most iconic characters in gaming that helped shape the beloved hobby into the multi-million-selling industry it is today.
GAMING ICONS
Greatest Gaming Icons
50 GAMING ICONS • Your brief guide to the bold designs and brilliant personalities that have grown videogames from a niche hobby into an industry worth over £100 billion
SPACE INVADER • Gaming’s first memorable villains may just be the medium’s greatest icon as well. We reveal the sheer brilliance of 1978’s Space Invader
THE INVADERS • THERE HAVE BEEN COUNTLESS SPACE INVADERS SEQUELS OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS AND MOST HAVE EVOLVED OR RE-DESIGNED THE ORIGINAL INVADER SPRITE DESIGN IN SOME WAY. HERE WE SHOW YOU SOME OF THE WILDEST VARIATIONS OF THE LITTLE SQUID FACE AND ALSO SHOW SOME OF THE BEST BASES THAT HAVE APPEARED ALONG THE WAY
PAC-MAN • Namco’s yellow mascot is one of the most recognisible videogame creations of all time. Amazingly, it all started with a pizza…
MR GAME & WATCH • Before mad apes, Italian plumbers, female bounty hunters and elfin warriors, there was Nintendo’s battery-powered hero
GAME & WATCH’S UNSUNG HEROS • Though he was designed to adapt to any role, Mr Game & Watch didn’t actually appear in all sixty of Nintendo’s handhelds. New characters would start to muscle in on his territory. Like these fellows…
Donkey Kong • THE ORIGINAL VIDEOGAME FRENEMIES
MARIO • Is there any videogame character more recognised that Nintendo’s Italian plumber? Discover what made Mario so successful
MARIO’S SUPeR POWER-UPS
Pitfall! • SWING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING
MINER WILLY • Forget portly plumbers, Britain’s answer to a platform hero was a boozy prospector whose sole purpose in life was to simply sleep it off
MINER WILLY RORSCHACH TEST • We couldn’t talk about Miner Willy without mentioning some of the bizarre and peculiar enemies the poor prospector has had to avoid in his lifetime. Join us and take the Miner Willy Rorschach test
PENTA • Everybody needs a mascot and in the early days of gaming, Konami plumped for a cute penguin who would go on to have an equally memorable son. Meet Penta the penguin
PENTA AND FRIENDS • Penta was one of the few stars of the original Parodius on MSX and went on to feature in nearly all of the sequels. But he wasn’t the only Konami mascot to feature in the popular Gradius parody…
Bomberman • I NEED BOMBS, LOTS OF BOMBS
SABREMAN • The most intrepid adventurer of the Eighties and a great storyteller, Sabreman remains one of gaming’s all-time favourite characters
THE MAZE • “Down and down I plunged, through rocky glades, steep ravines, and shady hollows… No grip, no footholds, slipping, tumbling, spinning, darker and darker, deeper and deeper,” says Sabreman as he falls upon the deep and venomous jungle in Sabre Wulf, the original maze game in the Sabreman series
MONTY MOLE • Politics and small woodland rodents are a curious combination. Try telling Monty Mole that. You’ll need to catch him first…
UNUSUAL SUSPECTS • If you think a fugitive mole is a bizarre subject choice for a computer game hero then check out these weird and wonderful creations. From vulcanised rubber to hyperactive toddlers, in the halcyon days of gaming almost anything could take the centre stage in a computer game…
PAPERBOY • Satchels and Spokey Dokeys at the ready, for this icon we’re back peddling to 1984 to meet the hardest working hero in videogames
JOB SECTION
BOWSER • King Bowser: Cruel tyrant, loving father, genius dictator, or just a hopeless romantic? We decide to take a much closer look at one of Nintendo’s most notorious and memorable villains
MEET THE KOOPAS
SIR ARTHUR • Ghosts ’N’ Goblins is...