Video games have so many iconic sound effects—hearing the simple "ga-ling!" of the Nintendo coin can invoke a nostalgia as powerful as any memory of actually playing a game. From the Mario's three-note warp-pipe descent to Simon Belmont's famous whip, all games feature sounds that players will hear over and over and over again until they're drilled into our subconscious.

But when we talk about these sounds, we can lack the vocabulary to accurately describe the effects in question. I thought it might be fun to attempt to write out phonetic recreations of some of gaming's most famous sound effects to see what they would look like on the page.

A few caveats: This list is just for fun, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you guys would write some of these. In no way do I believe my list to be definitive. Secondly, I'm aware that there are a bunch of other famous sound effects I left off, and hope to assemble at least one more list for a follow-up.

So, let's begin! Click through the gallery to hear the sound effects and see them written out.

Big thanks to Matt Buzzi for the assist tracking down these videos.