From Atari 2600 to 3DO, and from my Apple//e to modern Pentiums, I've enjoyed hundreds of multimedia entertainment concepts. An elite few exceeds even most other "entertainment" concepts. Yes, kids, there is such a thing as a game whose story and performance and entertainment value exceeds even most modern movies and TV shows. These pages salute such titles.

Every "Best of..." List needs rules, though. First of all, to avoid repetition, only one game from any series could be mentioned (i.e., Zork 1, only). Second, to enhance the term "classic," nominees had to be at least 5 years old as of 2000 (i.e., copyright 1995 or earlier). Lastly, to salute as many games as possible, each game environment has its own list: the 50 best of Multimedia (computers) will be first, then video games & arcades. "coming soon" (video games/arcades is a combined list; they've always seemed to be hand in hand in the past). Fair enough?

This is belittling the true purpose of these lists, however. Each of these games were above and beyond merely being fun to play. Upon playing (or completing) each game, a special feeling was felt; a feeling of how great it is to be a multimedia entertainment fan. In many cases, these were the games that helped sell their corresponding entertainment systems, and more than a few computers. If you have played these games, as they stand proudly on your old software shelf, just hearing about them again may make you want to re-install them. You'll likely be playing the text adventure Zork all over again, even on your high-power PC.

Each game summary includes its design/distributor company, its copyright year (or approximate release), and the system I played it on. Since these lists are debatable enough without trying to rank each title, both lists are in alphabetical order instead.

Here we go :