7. Spyro The Dragon
Now available for download from the Playstation store, Spyro the Dragon was released onto the PSX in 1998 and made an immediate splash with its cute hero, colourful, free roaming 3D graphics and environment and its utterly compulsive game play. It's not just a game for kids, it is one of the best and most enjoyable platformers ever made and it was followed on the PSX by two amazing sequels. Spyro flits from realm to realm, gathering jewels, releasing frozen grown up dragons (Spyro is a tyke) and capturing eggs. Much is made of Spyro's dragon breath in vanquishing foes as well as his ability to glide around his environment. Every realm, in the good platform tradition, gets more difficult for Spyro to achieve his objectives. Ideally you want to finish each realm to 100% capacity and assisting you along the way is Sparx the Dragonfly who is your health monitor. He changes different colours according to the state of your health and he is replenished by eating butterflies. One of the best things about Spyro is the mellow soundtrack by Stewart Copeland, the drummer for the Police. Spyro was met with high critical appreciation across the board, with critics impressed by the level at which the game utilised the capacity of PSX hardware. It is a delightful and feel good game to play which gets pretty difficult in the later stages and never fails to amuse and entertain. A classic game that will never grow old or fail to charm.