Games released in 1988 sorted by popularity

Arkanoid is a classic arcade video game that was first released in 1986 by Taito. It is a breakout-style game, which means that the primary objective is to break a wall of bricks or blocks by bouncing a ball off a paddle at the bo...

Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World is a classic role-playing video game developed and published by New World Computing. It was originally released in 1988 for various home computer platforms, including the Apple II, MS-DOS...

GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included as the default programming environment in early ve...

Deluxe Paint, often abbreviated as DPaint, was a popular bitmap graphics editor and animation software package. It was developed by Electronic Arts (EA) and released in the mid-1980s. Deluxe Paint was initially designed for the Co...

Rambo III is an action video game based on the 1988 action film of the same name, featuring the iconic character John Rambo, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. The game was developed and published by various companies for different ...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demonstration, ELIZA used pattern matching and substitut...

Paperboy was one of (if not THE) arcade hit of 1985. It was developed by Atari for the arcades and later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988. More conversion were made for quite a few other platforms. Paperboy gameplay is pecul...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... let’s say, confident women. It’s surpr...

Radical! Gnarly! And other 80s slang words! California Games is what happens when sports simulations meet neon-colored vibes and a love of spandex. You’ll hacky sack, BMX race, and throw frisbees in pixelated glory. Half the...

Ultima 5 takes a darker turn. Lord British is missing, and his regent, Lord Blackthorn, has turned Britannia into a police state where virtues are enforced at sword-point. You know things are bad when honesty is compulsory and pun...

Life & Death is a medical simulation game developed by Software Toolworks and released in 1988 for MS-DOS computers. It aimed to provide players with a realistic simulation of the life of a surgeon. The game puts players in th...

You’ve never really lived until you’ve watched a rook pick up a pawn and slam dunk it into the floor. Battle Chess (1988) turns the world’s most intellectual board game into a medieval cage match. The pieces don&...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The game was initially released for various home comput...

Skate or Die is an abandoned sports game, developed and released by Electronic Arts in 1988 for DOS and a number of other platforms. Skate or Die is a multi-sport kind of game, including every kind of unconventional "sport" done o...

Star Goose is a classic video game developed by Logotron and released in 1988 for various home computer systems of that era, including the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC. It is a top-down, vertically scrolling shoo...

Police Quest 2: The Vengeance is a graphical point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1988 as the second installment in the Police Quest series, which was created by former ...

Solomon’s Key is an arcade puzzle-platformer developed by Tecmo and released in 1986. It gained popularity for its challenging gameplay and was later ported to various home systems, including the NES, Commodore 64, and other...