Video Game Blues Trivia Quiz

'Angry Birds 2' (iOS and Android) is a physics-based game that can essentially be summed up as flinging birds into some unstable structures in order to defeat green pigs. Yet somehow I found myself addicted to this game for the best part of half of year until I decided to delete it for good!

Despite the simple premise there is a degree of tactical decision making involved in 'Angry Birds 2' which tends to involve bird selection. Each of the titular birds has its own set of capabilities that can make them more suited to certain levels and completely useless in others.

'Angry Birds 2' also features a side game called the Tower of Fortune in which players are invited - by way of a purple ticket - to randomly select one of a few face-down cards with a view to reaching the top of the tower. When a player reaches the upper levels - by successfully avoiding the selection of cards featuring the dreaded green pig - the prizes on offer become more desirable.

Ahh 'Tomb Raider', the notoriously fiddly game with challenging maps that made Lara Croft a household name. In one of the many confusing levels of 'Tomb Raider' - Natla's Mines - Lara Croft has her weapons stolen from her by three "bad guys"; the objective is to regain the weapons and to ultimately reach the Atlantean Pyramid and the next level - Atlantis.

In order to gain access to the Atlantean Pyramid, Lara Croft must locate the rather neat looking Pyramid Key (as pictured but in gold).

1998 saw the release of the first 'Spyro' game for PlayStation which was simply titled, 'Spyro the Dragon'; in this game players get to experience the joy of controlling a purple dragon through the Dragon Kingdom, ultimately looking to defeat the villainous Gnasty Gnorc.

Following on from the original game in 1999 was 'Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage'. Part of the gameplay in this second instalment involves Spyro obtaining Orbs by undertaking side quests or simply finding them in certain locations. Collect sufficient orbs and portals to other realms become activated.

'Pong' - simple yet iconic. With graphics improving massively since the inception of video gaming, it would be easy to forget that creating images with limited computational power was a challenge!

Atari's conceptualisation of virtual table tennis needs no explanation but it is perhaps worth noting that the game of 'Pong' was released in North America in November 1972, hot on the heels of 'Table Tennis' for the Magnavox Odyssey, another early video game involving a ball and two paddles released in September 1972. Naturally a lawsuit for copyright infringement flowed from the release of 'Pong' which led to a compromise agreement whereby Atari obtained a licence from Magnavox to continue selling the machine-based ball-and-paddle game that has since cemented its place in video game history.

The first instalment in the 'Crash Bandicoot' franchise was released in 1996 for the Sony PlayStation. From the very first level, the protagonist was presented with a series of crates that had to be dealt with en-route to the end of each map. Some of the crates contained items such as Wumpa Fruit and extra lives but others posed a hazard to Crash. One such hazard was the Nitro Crate, a green and yellow box that, if touched, would lead to a loss of life unless Crash had protection from the feathered mask of Aku Aku.

Place a round figure with a pizza-shaped mouth into a maze with ghosts (nod to Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde), dots and some tasty fruit and you get a video game classic. There have been many variations of the Pac-Man concept released across innumerable platforms as the decades have come and gone; one such example is 'Pac-Man 256' which was originally released for iOS (Apple's mobile operating system) and Android in August 2015.

The number in the title hints at one of the aims of the game which is to consume 256 dots without error (death, hesitation or diversion); upon achieving this feat all menacing ghosts on the screen are obliterated and Pac-Man's path is cleared - for a short while at least!

'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' (PS2) has a superb main storyline but the side missions contain some of the most engaging ways to explore the map. Alongside my personal favourite - acquisition of territory through turf wars - is the pursuit of a good luck boost by way of collecting horseshoes that are hidden in locations across the Las Venturas region of San Andreas.

Each horseshoe takes the usual form of an upside-down omega and acquisition can be aided by strapping the main character, Carl Johnson, into a jetpack (item spawns at Verdant Meadows Airstrip).

'Doom II' (PSX and PC) gameplay takes the same essential form as the first instalment in the franchise. Our hero, Doom Guy, must navigate a world overrun with monsters - such as the Imp, Hell Knight and Cyberdemon - with the aim of putting a stop to their invasion.

Succeeding in 'Doom II' largely comes down to managing three statistics: health, armour and ammunition. At full health (200%), Doom Guy can survive encounters with most monsters without difficulty but as the health stat tends to zero (game over), our hero becomes vulnerable. If you are short on health - not to worry! There are a number of items strewn across the maps of 'Doom II' including the Medikit (as pictured but in red, white and black) which provides an injection of health worth up to 25 percentage points.

For some reason I have never managed to catch the 'Zelda' bug (heretic, I know). That said, it is undeniable that 'The Legend of Zelda' games constitute one of the best known series that the video gaming world has to offer and the individual titles - with their ocarinas and wind wakers and phantom hourglasses - lend themselves very well to thematic quizzes at FunTrivia!

In common with many games, 'Ocarina of Time' makes use of a life-based system that is represented by hearts. Littered across the land of Hyrule are thirty-six Heart Pieces (or, more poetically, Pieces of Heart); by combining four such pieces, the protagonist, Link, will benefit to the tune of an additional Heart Container.

At the turn of the millennium, 'Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2' or 'THPS2' was released for the Sony PlayStation and the game successfully kept up the momentum that was built by the first game of the skateboarding franchise. Naturally, the Tony Hawk brand brought instant appeal but the game's success was also helped through the appearance of other pro skateboarders such as Bob Burnquist, Rodney Mullen, Kareem Campbell and Steve Caballero.

Gameplay involves performing tricks across a number of themed skateparks - including Hangar, School II and Philadelphia - alongside the pursuit of other objectives such as obtaining Secret Tapes that tend to be hidden in obscure and difficult to access areas of each map.

'Pokémon Pearl' (Nintendo DS) was released alongside 'Pokémon Diamond' in 2006 to kickstart the fourth generation of the hugely successful series of games. Whilst 'Pearl' brought with it new Pokédex entries - such as Chimchar, Arceus and Mesprit - and new items, the game retained fundamentals such as the basic Poké Ball.

Poké Balls are abundant but Professor Rowan's assistant - Dawn or Lucas depending upon the selected gender of the protagonist - will gift a player five of these red and white spheres in the early stages of the journey across Sinnoh.

'Super Mario Bros.' was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 and the instalment modernised the franchise by introducing a scrolling-platform element to the gameplay whilst retaining many of the features - such as points and a timer - from its arcade past.

In 'Super Mario Bros.' there are a number of items that help Mario throughout his mission to rescue Princess Toadstool, including two mushrooms. The first of these is the Magic Mushroom (red-spotted cap) which transforms Mario into Super Mario, a status upgrade that affords the protagonist a degree of invincibility. The second fungus of note is the 1-Up Mushroom (green-spotted cap) that gifts the game's hero a much needed additional life.