Five To One: Old Skool Games

With The Best Game Ever (copyright: everybody), Grand Theft Auto IV just released, we thought it was time to tip our hats to the thumb-botherers of yesteryear. Get the Sodastream on the go, dig out your Global Hypercolour attire and enjoy...

5. Streets of Rage
An ultra-violent side-scroller for the Sega Megadrive, Steets of Rage combines all the best that computer games can offer; the ability to 'accidentally' grab your team-mates, slam them into the ground, and then S&M bitch attackers with a big lead pipe. Remember the ever-present fear you'll accidentally jab the C button and have to wait five minutes while the animated police arrive and nuke the empty screen with their rocket launchers? Precious days when a 64 bit console was the stuff of a madman's dream.

4. Super Mario World
Mario had it all. The unassuming Italian American plumber with the wee hat and rather gay moustache really came into his own on the SNES. By adding a flying cape and the Deepthroat-inspired gobbling dinosaur Yoshi, those Japanese compu-fiends made the most playable game ever. With something like a hundred levels, it seemed massive when it came out in the early 90s - causing God knows how many fits and cases of extreme short sightedness when it did.

3. Bubble Bobble
Could it all have been so simple? Nowadays kids are only satisfied by world-spanning bloodbaths where 'points' and end-of-level baddies give way to tearing enemies' faces off and online nerd-offs. Back in the day, two dayglo dinosaurs boking up bubbles were all that we needed. The music is still the anthem of a lost generation, bringing tears to eyes and choked "do-do-do-do-do"s to their lips. It had so many screens to complete that Nintendo had a phoneline to ring if you completed it - a monster.

2. Street Fighter
As Survivor sang, "It's the thrill of the fight." And Street Fighter 2 is chock full o' bust-ups. What made it a classic were the wee things: the people who stand behind the fighters ding that "fist-goes-up, fist-goes-down" thing (man, they're into it) or Chun-Li's happy-as-Larry victory dance. Aside from the blistering ruckus on hand, the character voices alone were a symphony of coolness: close your eyes and listen to "Tiiiger uppercut!" and "Hadouken!" (not the band) - it's like being in the womb.

1. Paperboy
The concept sounds ridiculous: let's make a computer game for kids, about child labour in suburbia - but the result was explosive. it made paper routes seem like an assault on Dieppe with barking dogs, men with hoses and bits of brick lying in the path of the valiant deliverer of good tidings. Other ideas from the same stable, like 'Altarboy' and 'Chimneysweep' never made it...