The best top down games

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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Rescue at Rigel

DOS1983 Epyx

The Civil War

DOS1987 Avalon Hill

Arcade Pool

DOS1994 Team 17

Arcade Pool (1994) is like playing a game of billiards in your best friend’s basement—if your best friend happened to be a DOS machine with a serious competitive streak. It’s shockingly addictive, with physics that almost make sense and enough charm to make you forget you’re alone, playing pool against a smug AI who always s...

Cyrus

DOS1985

Liverpool: the Computer Game

DOS1992 Arc Developments

Redhook's Revenge

DOS1993 ImagiSoft

Super Bomber Blast Beta

DOS1997remake

Tracon 2

DOS1990 Wesson International

Sensible Golf

DOS1994 Sensible Software

Sensible Golf is a golf video game developed by Sensible Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment. It was released in 1994 for Amiga and MS-DOS.Unlike traditional golf simulations of its time, "Sensible Golf" featured a more arcade-style gameplay with simple controls and colorful graphics. Players could choose from a variety of fi...

Pinball Dreams 2

DOS1994protected 21st Century Entertainment

Autobots

DOS1989

Before Michael Bay got his hands on the franchise, Autobots (1989, DOS) offered a more... subtle approach to transforming robot mayhem. Well, not subtle exactly — more like confusing. You drive around a blocky city, fight vaguely car-shaped enemies, and wonder if you're the hero or just traffic. There’s a story in here somewhere, probab...

Dragonfly

DOS1986

Knight Exchange

DOS1988 Softdisk Publishing

Fleet Sweep

DOS1983 Mirror Images Software

Highway Hunter

DOS1994 Safari Software

Kingdom of Kroz 2

DOS1990 Apogee Software

Snack Attack 2

DOS1982 Funtastic

Backgammon

DOS1984 IBM

Daffy Duck PI: The Case of the Missing Letters

DOS1991 Riedel Software Productions

Future Classics Collection

DOS1990

Day of the Pharaoh

DOS1989 Chip

The computer edition of Scrabble

DOS1989 Leisure Genius

Amazing Maze

DOS1983

Don’t be fooled by the name—Amazing Maze is more of a slightly-better-than-average maze. But hey, in 1983, navigating a screen full of walls and hoping you guessed right was enough to set hearts racing. It’s just you, a CPU opponent, and a timer judging your every move. The graphics are simpler than a kindergarten drawing, but the...

Pac Gal

DOS1982

Arnhem: The Market Garden Operation

DOS1988 Cases Computer Simulations

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII battle where everything went spectacularly sideways. The graphics are what you’d call “functional,” the sound is silent, and your troops have the survi...