3. Contra
Two guys, a couple of great locations, enemies abound in various shapes and sizes, guns that tickled the fancy every gamer alive Contra had it all. In the era that gamers were throwing their lives into playing Contra, video games were not known for the intellectual stimulation they resulted in. We're talking strange Italian plumber jumping on mushrooms and five pixels worth of a man killing spiders with a gun. It was a time where if you wanted a neural frenzy in your cranium you could either solve the Rubik's cube or try inventing alternatives to writing with a bird's feather. Engagement of the grey cells in video games then was minimal. Rationality in story was superfluous. And Contra changed this all. It added a story. It contained a moral about friendship something that it hard-burned in the head of every gamer by not allowing one character to change the screen till the other joined him. It enforced the importance of being on the good side regardless of how strong evil seemed. The game brought together everything a gamer wished to see in a game. The harder things became the harder you fought, and Contra made you one with the game. It didn't make you fight for Scorpion and Mad Dog; it made you fight for yourself. It was you versus them. And when a game draws you in to such a personal level, you know that the creators have accomplished something phenomenal.