Click here to see the complete list of YouTube videos
Welcome to one of the web’s oldest and most-respected repositories of information and critiques on classic video games: Phosphor Dot Fossils. You’ll find hundreds of reviews here, covering vintage arcade games, classic console games and long-forgotten early home computer software. The reviews here judge these games not by what technology has made possible since then, but by what was possible at the time of the game’s release. The articles here attempt to put each game into the context of its time; even more context can be gleaned by viewing the entire timeline, placing everything in a wider pop-cultural and historical context; the timeline can also be browsed by any day of the year, or by any year.
Browse Games By Year
1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987
1990 2000
Phosphor Dot Fossils covers all hardware platforms, but special emphasis is placed on arcade games, which set the standards to which home consoles and computers had to at least attempt to rise, often with far more limited resources for memory and graphics. More than a few still-thriving franchises were born in massive plywood cabinets that took our quarters and our time in the 1970s and 1980s.
We frequently follow these arcade hits home, where they appeared on numerous consoles and computers that were underpowered compared to their coin-op counterparts. But despite memory and hardware limitations, consoles – and their brilliant game designers and programmers – found ways to excel at games that simply weren’t suited to the arcade environment, where a never-ending stream of quarters was more important than a “deep” gaming experience that might last for more than a few minutes. There was room for both kinds of games back then – and there still is.
Browse Games By System / Hardware Platform
Phosphor Dot Fossils covers arcade, console and computer games – as well as, to a slightly lesser extent, non-programmable dedicated game consoles and handheld and portable games. In some cases, where classic game franchises have continued to emerge through the 1990s and the 21st century, we follow those games too, whether they’re “greatest hits” collections of classic games, or complete remakes with modern graphics and sound. We also cover imported games never released in North 
America, newly-programmed “homebrew games” for classic systems, and even games that never saw the light of day.
Along the way, there is a single narrative being told by this multimedia study of classic games: it’s the creation and rise of an industry that now dominates the entertainment landscape, and the advancement of multiple technologies whose effects can be felt far beyond our living rooms. Controversies have come and gone, but the medium of the video game is here to stay.
This is how it all started, and how it evolved from there.
Welcome to Phosphor Dot Fossils.
Stay and play.