This goes some way to describing collective playground orgasm that shuddered across land by end of seventies when magnets were replaced by batteries and LCD displays, allowing collective prepubescence to stop an alien invasion.

It was Christmas 1981 when I got one of these games. Grandstand, a foreign company that distributed a lot of games from other companies was at centre of this revolution. They brought out a couple of their own games. One was Invader from Space. Repeatedly firing missile button caused display to jam - it wasn’t meant to be salvo-operated obviously. By end of Boxing Day, level three, hardest, had been completed. But I loved it. Muting sound and playing this game under sheets was a Technicolor onslaught.

It broke a few months later from repeated usage and that would appear to have been last of my association with these games. But when I was in a charity shop a couple of years ago and saw Astro Wars, a hobby began. Admittedly, seeing one doesn’t cause me to rub my knees like Vic Reeves, but I’ve collected a few since.

I remember a mate of mine coming round once. He took one look at my Astro Wars – and due to a shocking mixture of Stella Artois and Pink Champagne (yeah, that sort) - offered me £50 there and then. But I kept it. Yes, I’d bought it for £2.50 but I wasn’t giving in to someone’s nostalgia rush, just because his girlfriend had a Chopper in her hallway. He left a broken man.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) did not dominate hardware sales charts (selling over 49 million units) like Nintendo was able to accomplish with original NES console (over 60 million units sold) due to increased competition from Sega Genesis, but sheer number of quality games for SNES was outstanding for a system that contained over 700 games in its game library.

Now these cool, killer games that I am talking about do not include such titles as Madden Football or Mortal Kombat games that every game system possessed. I am talking about games that were exclusive to SNES.

While Sega was raving about "blast processing," SNES introduced a new term to gamers - Mode 7. Mode 7 are effects used by game developers such as sprite scaling and rotating of objects never before seen on a console before its time. Game publisher Konami was big on including Mode 7 effects in many of their key titles like Super Castlevania IV, Axelay and Contra III. Mode 7 effects are common on today's generation of game systems, but they were revolutionary on Super Nintendo.

The following is a list of those rare games that are true SNES classics today (some have even been remade for Game Boy Advance, or in case for Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy games, have been re-released on Playstation One console): Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts Super Castlevania IV F-Zero Super Mario Kart Super Mario World Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Super Mario Bros. All-Stars Edition Final Fantasy II Final Fantasy III Contra III: The Alien Wars Super Metroid Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past Chrono Trigger Super Mario RPG Star Fox Space MegaForce ActRaiser ActRaiser 2 Axelay Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

Many key franchises for Nintendo started on SNES like F-Zero and Mario Kart. Yet there are a few franchises such as ActRaiser, Axelay and Space MegaForce that have exclusively been released for SNES. Sure Sega Genesis had some versions of aforementioned games, but they were not of quality of SNES games. For example, Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts featured better graphics and Mode 7 effects like scaling.

In Electronic Gaming Monthly's Top 100 Video Games Of All Time list in its January 2002 issue, there are nine Super Nintendo games in top 25, more than any other game system (not including games available on multiple game systems like Tetris).

If you ever owned a SNES back in day, you understand how you could play for hours with quality games like Chrono Trigger, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Super Mario World and Final Fantasy III.