These Were the Best Video Games of 1986
The year is 1986. Halley’s Comet swooped by for the first time since 1910. Chernobyl happened, setting the stage for all sorts of shows and movies, and probably some other stuff, too, but let’s not focus on that. Oprah Winfrey debuted her talk show. Crocodile Dundee taught us what was, and was not, a knife, and Tom Cruise made it cool to do a fly-by whether the pattern was full or not.
It was a busy year for the video game industry as well, so let’s look at the best gaming had to offer in 1986.
5) Kid Icarus
In Greek mythology, Icarus flies too close to the sun, melts his wings and plunges into the sea to drown. In Kid Icarus, you fight an Eggplant Wizard who throws eggplants at you, and if you get hit by one, you become an eggplant. Six of one, a half dozen of the other, I suppose.
4) Ikari Warriors
Adhering to the tried-and-true philosophy, “if some is good, more is better,” Ikari Warriors took Commando’s formula of killing people in an exotic locale and added a co-op partner. Twice the killing, double the war crimes.
3) Castlevania
Long before teachers started using Assassin’s Creed to teach history, parents had Castlevania, an unflinching look at life in 17th-century Transylvania where residents had to battle vampires with whips and cross-shaped boomerangs whilst feeding on hidden wall chickens to survive.
2) Metroid
The big end-game reveal was that Samus Aran was actually female, officially ending the debate once and for all as to whether a woman can do anything a man can. Pretty sure this also was the birth of feminism, but don’t quote me on that.
1) The Legend of Zelda
“It's The Legend of Zelda and it's really rad! Those creatures from Ganon are pretty bad! Octoroks, tektites and leevers, too, but with your help, our hero pulls through! Wicky wicky wick!” If you know, you know.