25 YEARS OF VIDEO GAMES
Video games are what made us comfortable enough with Digital technology to welcome it into our homes
The first landmark video game was "Pong". It was made in 1972 by Allan Alcorn, who was the first games engineer of Atari. This game was named because of the bleeping sounds that it made. It was a simple game of electronic tennis, consisting of two small white bars that were used as paddles, a small square that served as a ball and a black background. The ball bounced around the screen, off walls and the players paddles. The object of the game was to bounce the ball behind your opponents paddle and win a point.
Pong was first placed in a bar in Sunnyvale, California. Atari managers were trying to interest pinball makers to manufacture the game. The manager of the bar in Sunnyvale telephoned Allan, complaining that the game was broken. When he went to investigate, he found the machine's coin slot jammed with quarters.
Atari decided that it had something big so they made the game themselves.
"Space Invaders" was the second landmark game. It was the first game to reach a mainstream audience. It was not just played in arcades and bars like most games then, but it was also played in restaurants and ice-cream parlours.
It was released in 1978 in Japan. It was so popular that it caused a shortage of 100 yen coins.
The graphics in this game were much more complex than in Pong. There were rows of alien creatures made simply, but well from small blocks. The aliens were also in colour. The object was to shoot the aliens and any U.F.O.'s that flew across the screen. You were a small spaceship that could also hide behind walls so as not to be hit by the aliens' lasers.
In the 1980s "Battle Command " was made by Atari. It was a 3D game. The US Army was so impressed by it, that it commissioned Atari to build modified versions for use in tank training.
"Pacman" was made in 1980 after its designer came up with the idea, by staring at a pizza with a slice out of it. It is the most successful video game of all time. It was created as a non-violent alternative to "shoot 'em up" games that were popular then. It was so popular that there were cartoons, clothing, toys, lunch boxes, books and lots more merchandise made after the game.
In 1981, "Donkey Kong" was made. It was the first game with a story line and the first game that featured Nintendo's mascot of at least 16 years in it. MARIO! The most famous plumber in the world.
The story line was that "Donkey Kong" (Mario's pet ape) fell in love with Mario's girlfriend and Mario had to rescue her. Legend has it that his red and blue overalls came about because it was the easiest way to show movement in his arms when he ran. Apparently, Mario was named after the landlord of the warehouse that Nintendo used as its factory.
Mario's hat was added, because his designer and creator (Shigeru Myamoto) wasn't happy with the hair designs. In the end it was decided that he looked like a plumber. I heard that "Donkey Kong" was meant to be called "Monkey Kong" as the ape was designed after Shigeru's favorite film, "King Kong" but somebody made a spelling mistake. When Shigeru saw it he decided that it sounded better than "Monkey Kong"
The game only had 4 levels in it, but the run and jump idea (called a "platformer") had set a new trend.
The arcade industry crashed in 1984 when Atari fell apart due to bad management, but home gaming boomed when Nintendo's N.E.S. (Nintendo Entertainment System) was released in 1983. This was an eight bit games machine and was pretty amazing back then. By 1989 one in four people owned one.
In 1983 the Mario Brothers was released. It was the first game to enable players to jump on their enemies' heads to incapacitate them. This idea has been used in thousands of games since.
The enemies were turtles and mushroom creatures called "Koopa Troopers" and "Goombaas", which weren't as threatening as enemies from other games, which were monsters and the like.
Nintendo's Super N.E.S. (also known as the S.N.E.S.) was released in 1990/91 with "Super Mario World". This was another extremely popular platformer and the fifth game in the Mario series.
In 1992 "Super Mario Kart" was released on the S.N.E.S. This was one of the first games to use "Mode 7". Mode 7 is a device which helps the games system read the programs faster and produce fast moving 3D pictures. Although, as a result the graphics are not brilliant, but they are satisfactory. Super Mario Kart was the fastest selling video game of all time until the re-make (Mario Kart 64) on the Nintendo 64 took over.
In 1995 Sony released its Sony "Playstation". The Playstation is a 32 bit machine That uses CD's. It was originally meant to be an add on for the S.N.E.S. but Sony and Nintendo had a tiff and went their separate ways.
In 1996 Nintendo released its Nintendo 64. This is the first good 64 bit games machine (The other being the "Atari Jaguar" which isn't know well because it was crap).
The Sony and the Nintendo 64 uses "polygons". Polygons are 3D shapes such as squares and hexagons, that are joined together to make the characters. Some characters use over 7000 polygons! Pixels are lots of little 2D squares that are joined together to make the characters.
With pixels, what you don't see (eg: the persons back or front depending on which way they are facing) isn't there. With polygons what you don't see is still there. This helps to give the characters a more "rounded" look.
These two systems are known as "NEXT GENERATION CONSOLES". Nintendo sold over 500,000 Nintendo 64's in the first week when it was released in Japan in June 1996.
By September 1996 Nintendo had 6% of the world market share in video games.
Some games on the Nintendo 64 are Mario 64 (1996), Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (1997) and Mario Kart 64, (1997).
Some games look so real that they have to be classified in the same way as movies have to be. The game ratings range from "G" (Mario 64) to "MA" (Turok: Dinosaur hunter) to "R" (The legacy of Kain), although some game producers will prefer to keep a "cartoony" look for their games.