1980, Game of the Year

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Official voting has now ended (but people can still vote unofficially if they like).

The 1980 game of the year is Pac-Man.
The runner up is Rogue.
The master thread for all of these contests can be found here.

What do you believe to be the "Game of the Year" for 1980 and why?  Also, vote on what you believe to be the "Game of the Year" for 1980.  

 

Berzerk (Arcade)
Shoot robots in a maze in this game from pinball manufacturer Stern Electronics.  This is the first popular game to use speech synthesis.

 

Centipede (Arcade)
Centipede is the biggest hit arcade game this year from Atari, and it uses a trackball.  It was developed by Dona Baily and Ed Logg.  It was also one of the most popular games for female players, and this may be because one of the developers was female. 

 

Missile Command (Arcade)
This Cold War themed arcade game is another hit from Atari.

 

Pac-Man (Arcade)
Namco releases the most successful arcade game of all time, and a very popular game with female gamers.  In 1982 it was ported to the Atari 2600, and it became the top selling game on that platform (even though it was considered a disappointing port).  Pac-Man also started a shift away from shooting type games toward character themed games.  Both the game and the character became a huge cultural phenomenon resulting in (among other things) TV shows and a top 40 Billboard hit.

Pac-Man Fever (Billboard Hit):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY_ESTnBlS0
Pac-Man TV show intro:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Ex3Ce1KNU

 

Rally X (Arcade)
This maze/racing game from Namco was very popular in Japan, and before its release they expected it to be the better performing game between it and Pac-Man.

 

Zork 1 (TRS-80/Apple II)
A Zork game that was made for home computers.

 

Rogue (Mini and Microcomputers)
The ASCII game that all roguelikes are based upon.

Adventure (Atari 2600)
While most hits for the Atari 2600 were arcade ports, Adventure was made specifically for play at home.  Developer Warren Robinett took inspiration from Colossal Cave Adventure to make a console game that was intuitive and accessible to anyone.  It includes a randomizer mode which potentially gives the game unlimited replay value.  It is also the first game to include developer credits, but since this was not allowed by Atari, Robinett put the credits in a hard to access secret room as an Easter Egg.

 

Other (please specify)
If you think another games deserves to be "Game of the Year" other than one of the 8 I listed above, then please vote “Other” and say your game in the comments.  If the "Other" category takes at least 2nd place and no other game gets at least 50% of the vote, then I will do a runoff vote including the most mentioned game(s) from the comments.

The winner of this vote will be decided Wednesday, Sept 6 at 11:59 EST.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 08 September 2023