Namco is one of the few companies that made video games in the 1970's that still exists today. Their games originated with designer Toru Iwatani. His first game was the 1978 arcade ball and paddle game Gee Bee. This was followed in 1979 by similar games: Bomb Bee and Cutie Q. The new cartoon-ish direction video games were taking at the end of the '70's is evident in Cutie Q.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...C/wCutie_Q.png
SOS came out in 1979. It isn't too exciting to play today but it did do the bi-plane shooter years before Capcom's 1942.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/S/wSOS.png
The biggest hit for Namco in 1979 was their shooter Galaxian.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/.../wGalaxian.png
1980 saw the releases of the shooter Navarone, Kaitei Sakara Tagashi(grab treasure and avoid sharks), and the maze game Rally-X.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...R/wRally-X.png
I don't think anyone was prepared for Toru Iwatani's 1980 game Pac-Man which took the world by storm and took video games to an all new level of success.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...P/zPac-Man.png
1981 had some important sequels. There was New Rally-X. Galaxian's sequel Galaga was a big improvement. And there was Ms. Pac-Man.
Ms. Pac-Man was not a Namco creation. A two man crew called General Computer approached Midway(who had the North American rights to Pac-Man) with a Pac-Man upgrade board. This resulted in Ms. Pac-Man. Some other Midway Pac-Man creations are Baby Pac-Man(1982) Pac-Man Plus(1983) and Jr. Pac-Man(1983).
King and Balloon, Warp Warp, Bosconian and Tank Battalion also came out in 1981.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/..._Battalion.png
1982 was a huge year for Namco. Arcade racing games were taken to new heights with Pole Position. Pac-Man got its real Namco-made sequel Super Pac-Man(it's not as good as Ms. Pac-Man and much different), and the shooter Xevious was a big success.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...er_Pac-Man.png
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...X/yXevious.png
My favorite 1982 Namco game was Dig Dug. As a kid I was all excited at thinking I beat the world record in the Guiness Book but then I realized that my home version on Vic 20 probably didn't have the same scoring system as the arcade.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...D/yDig_Dug.png
In 1983, Pac-Man got another sequel, Pac & Pal and Pole Position 2 followed up on its series. Mappy was a great little platform game.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...s/M/xMappy.png
Phozon was a neat game where you had to match the shape shown in the middle of the screen by attaching different chemical particles; I guess I can't really explain it properly but it's quite fun.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/.../P/wPhozon.png
Libble Rabble is the game Toru Iwatani claims to be most proud of making and I can see why. It's addictive. You control two arrows with lines attached. It's vaguely similar to Taito's Qix in that you can use the lines to trap in enemies. It was ported years later to the Super Famicom and X68000(by Dempa).
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...ble_Rabble.png
The influence of Western-made fantasy games can be seen in some 1984 Namco games: the maze/adventure game Tower of Druaga and the side-scrolling Dragon Buster. Druaga had a sequel in 1986 called Return of Ishtar and Dragon Buster had an overhead view sequel for the Famicom in 1989.
Tower of Druaga
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...ruaga,_The.png
Pac-Man left his maze roots to go jumping around in Pac-Land. This game looks incredible by 1984 standards. Side-scrollers have long surpassed this game but when you consider that it pre-dates Super Mario Bros. and that it has parallax scrolling, it was quite the achievement for the genre.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/.../xPac-Land.png
Gaplus was the third game in the Galaxian/Galaga series.
The arcade shooters Grobda and Super Xevious also were released in 1984. Grobda is a great tank action game, quite underrated.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/.../G/xGrobda.png
Namco arcade games in the West had been receiving home ports courtesy of Atari throughout the early '80's. The 2600 versions generally sucked but computer and 5200 versions were mostly very well-made.
Namco themselves entered the home market in 1984 and ported their early arcade games to the Famicom and MSX. I didn't bother mentioning most of the home ports so ask if you have any questions.