Crazy Climber

Crazy Climber is the 1980 Nichibutsu original that started the vertical-climbing arcade genre: scale a skyscraper from street to rooftop while open windows shove you off, dropped flowerpots brain you, a giant condor buzzes past, and - in the game's most infamous touch - Mr. Egghead swings a punching fist from a window when you climb past his building.

The control scheme is the reason it is remembered: two 4-way joysticks, one per side of the body, each controlling an arm-and-leg pair. Climbing means alternating left-right inputs like a tiny upper-body workout, and the arcade cabinet mounted the sticks accordingly - your hands were literally the climber's limbs. Reaching the top rewards you with a screaming damsel moment and a helicopter ride to the next, taller, more hostile building. It spawned the climbing genre (Crazy Kong-adjacent imitators, Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's and the 1982 arcade scene's vertical fad) and its dual-stick scheme is a direct ancestor of the twin-stick control ideas later perfected by Robotron: 2084.

• ▸Dual-joystick limb control - each hand is half the climber
• ▸Window shoves, flowerpots, the condor and Mr. Egghead's fist
• ▸Four progressively taller and meaner buildings
• ▸The founding game of the vertical climbing genre