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There is much debate over the first actual video game with early games being programmed and played on analogue computers and business mainframes at the time. In 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr filed a patent for an invention called a “cathode ray tube amusement device”. The patent detailed a machine that simulated firing at “airplane” targets using knobs and buttons. An overlay was placed on the screen to show the player the defined playing field.
In 1952 a game called OXO (tic-tac-toe) was created by A.S Douglas and was used to show a thesis on human-computer interaction. This game was the first graphical computer game and was created for the world’s first stored-program computer. Other games such as Tennis for Two (a precursor for the game pong), Mouse in the maze and HAX were also created but the first official influential computer game was released in 1961 by a group of MIT students called Spacewar!
Spacewar
The game was programmed on a DEC PDP-1 which at the time was a new computer and the game saw two players controlling a spacecraft each which fired missiles. The aim of the game was simply to destroy the other person’s spacecraft. A star in the middle of the screen also created problems for the players which they had to dodge. The game was so popular it was eventually distributed with new DEC computers and was also sold on the Internet.
From Pong to Halo and some things inbetween
Spacewar was one of the first video games to become well known and since then thousands upon thousands of video games have been released. Pong (named after the sound of a ball hitting a paddle) is another video game that was made in the 1970s and has become the most influential game in history. The game was a simple form of tennis with the player using a paddle to hit a block of pixels back and forth against the computer AI or another person. The company Atari released Pong and it became the best selling Christmas Present in 1975.
PONG
In 1978 the video game company Midway release Space Invaders, this game was one of the first to record players high scores and became a very popular game. Since then video games took off and with games like Pac-Man being released in the early 80s, video games have become more enhanced with characters and stories being created. For example the game Dragons Lair, released in 1983 was more like an interactive movie where the player controlled the hero (Dirk the Daring) attempted to rescue the princess from an evil dragon. The player executed button presses to quick time events within the game that determined the storyline whether the hero got to the next stage or dies in a humorous death sequence.
In 1985 a Russian programmer named Alex Pajutnov developed the game Tetris. This game is another which is well known. It show different shaped blocks falling down and the player has to rotate the blocks to fit into the line of blocks below and once a complete line is created the blocks disappear and points are awarded. Tetris has become one of the most addictive games ever and is played throughout the world even today. Around that time console developers were starting to release machines able to play games within players own homes and companies like Nintendo and Sega were fighting to get those consoles into home of awe struck players. Each console company had their own character to advertise their own product with Nintendo having a short, lovable plumber called ‘Mario’ while Sega had a lightning fast hedgehog called ‘Sonic’. These are characters that boosted sales figures for each company and games for both are still being developed today. The “Console Wars” of Nintendo and Sega still rages on to this day. Many video games players have either sided with their favourite company or have both systems and so have the best of both worlds.
Sonic Wonderboy
The electronics company Sony released their own console in 1994, it stamped their mark on the video game market and the console they launched with called the Sony Playstation became one of the contenders in the console wars. Games such as Wipeout (a futuristic racer), Tekken 3 (a fighting game), Final fantasy VII(an epic role playing game) and Crash Bandicoot (a 3d platformer), gaming worlds have become more advanced and stories and characters more elaborate. Nintendo and Sony are both still locked in battle with each company trying new and more technologically advanced hardware to support more and more advanced video games.
Microsoft also entered the arena with their Xbox Console and has helped video game developers release their games and visions of interactive worlds and stories. Games such as the ‘Halo’ which sold over five million copies worldwide show that there are many video games players in the world and that video games are as popular as other forms of entertainment media.
Playing in a huge Sandbox
One of my favourite games currently is a game called Minecraft. This game which is still currently in beta stage of development was released in 2009 and is being officially released in November 2011. The game is a sandbox style construction game in which different blocks are destroyed and created by the player to create amazing structures, artworks and creations within the games world. Players can also craft different items such as weapons, tools and other styles of blocks. If I was to chop down some wood from a tree within the world the wood blocks would be placed in my inventory and I can craft things such as wooden axes, swords, panels of wooden block and torches. The player then places the created blocks into different shapes and so is able to create anything from houses, castles, bridges or whatever the player wishes too.
The game really reminds me of playing with Lego blocks when I was younger and my daughter enjoys this game also as she can create anything she likes within the world and can create worlds of her own choice. Even with not much of a story line to the game, we have both created our own world with our own stories which we can share. I really find this game a great educational tool and have been following a teacher on Twitter who uses Minecraft to teach children useful real life experiences such as sharing and building.
You are now entering Another World
Minecraft is a great tool for creating virtual worlds, it allows players to create their own piece of interactive land and place whatever they wish inside it. Virtual worlds are a massive part of interactive entertainment, these user created worlds are a place where people can meet and become friends and are without laws and regulations of the real world. Players can be whatever they want to be whether a huge pink bunny rabbits to gods and heroes, the online version of the player is commonly known as an avatar. This is what I think makes games such as World of Warcraft and Second life so enjoyable. People can live their fantasies with no real repercussions of how they act in the virtual world (within reason of course).
images
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spacewar1.png -spacewar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pong.png- Pong
http://techcenter.davidson.k12.nc.us/spring0211/sonicthehedgehogtitle.gif -Sonic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wonder_boy_platform.gif -wonderboy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Halobox.jpg -halo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMTedT6P0I -Vareide’s Youtube page
