Write a thing about the best videogames of all time, the Guardian commands me. And I obey. But space is short, so I've done it in instalments (part two next week). Bear in mind that these aren't the best videogames of all time, just a personal and possibly perverse selection, listed in order of release, not merit. Anyway: insert coin. Hit start button.

Asteroids (1979, Atari) Of all the early monochrome classics, Asteroids was my favourite, because it's truly bleak. Rather than aliens or robots, your enemies are unthinking lumps of rock that are hurtling through space. Twirling somewhere in the middle of this cluttered void is your tiny, heartbreakingly fragile spaceship, armed only with a feeble electric peashooter. If Asteroids has a message, it's this: you are insignificant, the universe doesn't care about you, and you are definitely going to die. Brilliant.

Pac-Man (1980, Namco) Pac-Man himself may be an ultimately unknowable yellow disc, but his spectral pursuers had proper googly eyes and everything. And nicknames. And blood types. OK, not blood types. But this was one of the first games with identifiable characters, which goes a long way to explaining its success.

3D Deathchase (1983, Micromega) A Spectrum game in which all you had to do was avoid trees and shoot fellow motorcyclists. Simple, speedy pseudo-3D graphics meant suddenly you were starring in the bike section from Return Of The Jedi. Yes. You really bloody were.

Stop The Express (1983, Hudson Soft) A rare Japanese Spectrum game, this was an insanely breakneck combat/platformer in which you had to scamper along the top of a runaway train, fighting assassins and dodging obstacles. Best of all, when you beat it, your sole reward was a caption reading "Congraturation! You sucsess!"

Elite (1984, Acornsoft) Most home computer games were simplistic, flick-screen affairs in which you played a fat mayor jumping over a nettle or something like that. Then Elite came along and took the piss. A groundbreaking 3D space combat-and-trading simulator that managed to convince me my computer could, when programmed correctly, house an entire alternative universe.

Jet Set Willy (1984, Software Projects) Back in the day, you needed only a single programmer to create a game - and since said programmers were often geeked-out stoners, said games were often weird. Jet Set Willy's blend of flying pigs, in-jokes, Python and Freak Brothers references encapsulates the homebrew quirkiness of the cottage industry software scene of the early 80s. We shall not see their like again.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (1984, Infocom) Still one of the only games to contain proper, structured jokes, H2G2 was a text adventure co-written by Douglas Adams himself. It was also the first postmodern game, since it knew it was a game, and also knew you knew, so sometimes it would refer to you as Arthur Dent (star of the game) and other times simply as you (the player controlling him) - whichever seemed funniest at the time.

The Sentinel (1986, Firebird) You played a nomadic consciousness that had to absorb parts of the 3D landscape, then transfer itself inside a series of motionless avatars in order to travel - your goal being to ascend the highest peak before the ominous Sentinel stared you to death with his huge, cycloptic eye. In other words, it makes sense only when you play it.

Kato Chan And Ken Chan (1988, Hudson Soft) An import-only title for the PC Engine (a tiny Japanese console), Chan And Chan was a below-average platform game - but one that revolved, startlingly, around shitting, farting and pissing. The point at which I first grasped the illicit joy of off-kilter Japanese imports. (Also for the PC Engine: Toilet Kids, a shoot-em-up in which you fired turds at flying penises.)

Tetris (1989) There can't be a human being on Earth who doesn't love Tetris. Perpetual order from perpetual chaos. The most inherently satisfying video game ever created.

To be continued next week ...

Stephen Fry is away