The best side-scroller games

In Street Sports Basketball (1987, DOS), forget polished courts and referees—this is basketball played between garages, with trash cans as sidelines and pride on the line. Th...

Dangerous Dave: Dave Goes Nutz! is what happens when a platformer drinks too much coffee. The pace is frantic, the enemies relentless, and the levels filled with hazards that seem ...

Heavy Barrel is an action game that embraces chaos with enthusiasm, throwing enemies at you in a way that feels both overwhelming and oddly satisfying. The gameplay is straightforw...

Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper is a tough little action game that drops you into a ruined city with one very straightforward job: survive. You play as a lone soldier wandering thro...

Action Supercross is a fast, stunt-heavy motocross game that puts you on a bike and then seems to ask one very important question: how much airborne stupidity can you survive? Trac...

Released in 1992, Barbie for DOS is what happens when someone asks, “What if pink could be a video game?” You play as Barbie on a quest to collect accessories and win K...

Champions is a sports management and strategy title that puts the player in the role of a team manager, where success depends on more than simply hoping your best players have a go...

Corsarios is a maritime adventure that sends players into a world of ships, exploration, trade, and piracy. The player takes control of a vessel and must navigate waters while deal...

Creatures 2 takes the strange virtual-pet experiment of its predecessor and makes it considerably more ambitious. The Norns return, complete with their ability to learn, reproduce,...

Crown is a strategy game from an era when computers were perfectly happy to make you read the manual before allowing you anywhere near the throne. Its central appeal lies in planni...

Sports games from the late 1980s often relied on imagination as much as graphics, and Magic Johnson's Basketball is no exception. Featuring the NBA legend himself, it delivers fast...

The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants puts Bart Simpson in the middle of an extraterrestrial invasion and gives him a surprisingly unpleasant afternoon. The aliens are preparing...

From the dusty archives of 1995 DOS gaming comes Zorro, a side-scrolling platformer that asks the question: what if the legendary masked hero had the reflexes of a hungover sloth? ...

Sirwood throws you into a fantasy kingdom where the trees are friendlier than some of the locals. Half strategy, half adventure, it's the kind of game that expects you to think, pl...

Take Eddie Murphy’s swagger, remove the charm, add some DOS chiptunes, and you get Beverly Hills Cop—a game adaptation that asks: “What if being a wisecracking de...

Cosmic Spacehead is a cheerful point-and-click adventure wrapped in platformer segments, starring a purple alien who’s equal parts explorer and goofball. You’ll travel ...

Five-a-side Indoor Soccer is what happens when football trades muddy boots for squeaky sneakers and decides walls are friends, not boundaries. Released in the mid-80s, it captures ...

Xerix II: The Caverns of Mars is a vertical shooter that embraces chaos with enthusiasm, filling the screen with enemies, obstacles, and just enough space for you to survive. The p...

Surf Ninjas is exactly the sort of licensed game that sounds like somebody combined two unrelated ideas and decided not to ask questions. Released in 1994, it is based on the film ...

Artura is a hack-and-slash side-scroller that looks like someone tried to draw Gauntlet from memory after a power outage. You’re some kind of Celtic warrior on a mystical mis...

If you’ve ever wanted to manage your own pyramid scheme—literally—Day of the Pharaoh (1989) is your ticket. This strategy game sets you in ancient Egypt, juggling...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its tim...

Based on the blockbuster film, Last Action Hero arrived on DOS in 1993 with all the over-the-top action one would expect from a movie starring an unstoppable cinematic hero. Player...

Pocahontas is a 1995 adventure game based on the Disney animated film, bringing the famous character and her world to the computer screen. Players explore environments, interact wi...

Gateworld is one of those games that seems determined to test your patience as much as your reflexes. On paper, it’s a straightforward platformer, but in practice it’s ...

Thomas the Tank Engine 2 continues the computer adventures of the famous blue locomotive with another collection of simple activities designed around the world of the television se...

Despite the name, Aquaphobia (1992) doesn’t help you overcome your fear of water. In fact, it might just make it worse. This is an action-platformer where you try not to drow...

Boot Camp (1989, DOS) is the game that turns military training into a button-mashing festival of pain. Ever dreamed of surviving basic training without breaking a sweat? This is it...

Saddle up for an awkward mix of minigames that vaguely resemble rodeo events. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show tries to recreate the excitement of a 19th-century traveling circus but ...

Released in 1983, Sea Dragon turns underwater navigation into an exercise in patience and joystick control. You pilot a submarine through caves filled with mines, enemies, and clau...