Week 1

A history of computer games

Part one: 1950s - 1970s

Who created the first known game??? That would be William Higinbotham, an American physicist. The game created was ‘Tennis for Two’. The game was created to entertain the national laboratory on visitor’s day to prevent people from getting bored. This is interesting as to when the very first game was created it has always served one purpose from the beginning and throughout the upcoming years which was to entertain its audience. Games have always served that purpose so that people like us could have something to do when we are bored, “for myself I normally play games to pass time”. Ever since the first game was created the evolution of games has been progressing to what they are today, games that are on the current generation of console (PS3, XBOX and maybe Wii) well show the full potential of what games can be (I said this as game creators will show different styles making each game their own if you know what I mean).

The first game that I ever played was either ‘Mario’ or ‘Sonic’; pretty sure it was Mario as I remember playing it on the SNES. I wasn’t too concerned about the story as I was so young and probably didn’t care but it was a game that got me addicted and started as I was practically told by my parents so many times to get off the game. From Mario I then started my gaming on the Sega Mega Drive, this time playing ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’. Watching the consoles change and how the graphic’s and game play gradually improved this is where my curiosity on how games were made began.

The most recent game I have played is Batman Arkham Asylum on the PS3 and Halo ODST on the Xbox 360. The batman game was quite a surprise to me as it was one of the first batman games I have ever played, this game was not only good but was one of the best RPG/Action and Adventure I probably played this year making it one of the best games I got. Halo ODST was probably a disappointing game I have played (good thing I played it at my friends) as compared to the other Halo’s this game was really short and wasn’t too interesting in my opinion, what I think was cool about the game was most likely the graphics as you could see the improvement of the detail compared to the others.I like mainly RPG games but usually end playing different genres, some favourite games are Call of Duty World at War, Devil May Cry series, Final Fantasy (like how there graphics improve in each game) and etc.

In between my years of playing games I knew that games was becoming a part of my life as it would be something I play anytime of the day, whilst doing this I knew that taking a break would be good an all, so instead of playing I would normally draw in my spare time mainly at that time copying from picture. What I like about games were how you could get into the story and the characters, better games would help me feel more involved in the plight of the characters (good example would be the characters from Final Fantasy or Zelda Ocarina of Time). Though most of the games I play are Playstation or Xbox titles, the one game that I like by Nintendo is Zelda as it is different in many ways to other games; Zelda is one of the games that I have completed over and over again which is one of the first Nintendo game that got me obsessed with playing games a lot.

I have to say that the main reason I play games is because it was something for me to play in my spare time and over the years it became a hobby (well as art), the way technology and software improved so did the games itself as they became more realistic (graphic) and also the characters in the games moved more fluently which gave games more realism to it. Video games are a popular source of entertainment which offers a wide variety and are easily assessable (it helps wave by those boring days).