Top-down perspective sorted by year, newest first

Top down games were very popular in the 80s and the 90s, when graphic cards were not capable of supporting 3D, and even when 3D started to become popular, 2D games continued to be easier to develop, at least in the infancy of 3D gaming. 2D game offered the player a viewpoint that helped keeping things easily under control (think about top down party-based RPGs or hex-based strategy games).

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Frogger

DOS19834.1/5 Konami

IBM 9-Hole Miniature Golf

DOS19833/5 SoftSide Magazine

Knights of the Desert

DOS1983protected3.8/5 Tactical Design Group

Mine Shaft

DOS19834.1/5 Sierra On-Line

Ms. Pac-Man

DOS19833.9/5 Midway Manufacturing Company

Oubliette

DOS19833.3/5

Pack-Man

DOS1983remake3.4/5 Magicom Multimedia

Pango

DOS1983remake4/5

Rescue at Rigel

DOS19833.3/5 Epyx

Robotron 2084

DOS19833.9/5 Williams Entertainment

Rollo and the Brush Brothers

DOS19833.6/5 Windmill Software

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware4.2/5 Norland Software

Ultima 2: Revenge of the Enchantress

DOS19834/5 Origin Systems

The second chapter of the Ultima saga is much similar to the first one (same top down visual, same dungeon 3d visual, same gameplay), although there are many small improvements. The series begins to take the shape of the detailed, deep, rpg saga that gamers will always remember.

Astro Dodge

DOS19823.6/5 Digital Marketing Corporation

Boxer Rebellion

DOS19823.1/5

Cosmic Crusader

DOS19823.7/5 Funatics Software

Crossfire

DOS19823.7/5 Sierra On-Line

Night Mission Pinball

DOS19823.5/5 subLOGIC

Pac Gal

DOS19823/5

Pac-girl

DOS19823.7/5 Magicom Multimedia

PC-Man

DOS1982remake4.2/5 Orion Software

PC-Man is an abandoned top-down Pac-Man clone in every regard: from the shape of the protagonist, to the cute ghosts. PC-Man was designed by Greg Kuperberg, developed by Orion Software and released in 1982 for DOS. As PC-Man, you have to move through a one screen maze to collect dots (pills? wafers?) and avoid being touched by one of the usual Pac-...