#72 The very first Japanese title to be licensed in America was Taito's Gunman. After some major tweaking and improving, the game was released in the US by Bally/Midway in 1975 as the groundbreaking Gun Fight.
#73 In 1982, Activision's River Raid was the first video game to be indexed by Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons. Here's why the German feds thought River Raid was bad for the kids: "Minors should think as an uncompromising fighter and destroyer (...). A paramilitaristic education takes place in the childhood (...). With older minors, playing leads (...) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (...) and headaches."
#74 In the primordial days of versus gaming, players were - pretty much - represented by sticks. Things changed for the better in 1975 when Gun Fight became the first game to feature two human characters (cowboys) battling each other on-screen at the same time.
#75 Are you old enough to remember Nintendo's Game & Watch handhelds? If you're really old you may also remember that the first one released - which was over 27 years ago - was simply called 'Ball'.
#76 Console gaming's first killer app was Space Invaders, which Atari shrewdly licensed from Taito and released for the Atari VCS in 1980 while the game was still causing a seismic stir in American arcades. Following the game's release for Atari's VCS, sales of the system went absolutely bonkers.
#77 Final Fantasy V for the SNES is thought to be the first RPG to be translated in its entirety by fans. An unofficial translation patch for the game appeared on the internet in 1997.
#78 The first 'perfect' game of Namco's Pac-Man was recorded on July 3, 1999. Super gamer Billy Mitchell from Hollywood, Florida, snagged the maximum score of 3,333,360, eating every fruit, every power pill, every blue ghost and every dot on the game's 256 levels without losing a single life. This impressive feat took six hours. Very wakka-wakka.
#79 Arcade-goers in 1980 were treated to their first introduction to synthesised speech in a game. Taito's shoot-'em-up, Stratovox, would warble such low-quality utterances as "Help me!", "We'll be back" and "Lucky" at players.
