During the 1980s there appeared to be a high influx of home computer systems from various companies, sound cards and of course the genre defining games such as ‘Defender’ etc.
People were finally starting to get personal computer systems in their homes, but I need to be honest here; I know there are some people who get nostalgic or excited when they talk about the Commodore 64 or the ZX Spectrum but I don’t, nope not one bit. To be frank, I didn’t even know what they were until now; well before my time.
Anyway, the arrival of the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga in 1985 marked the progression from the 8-bit to 16-bit era.
Now even I know a little bit about Nintendo’s ‘Game & Watch’, I’ve owned dozens of the copycat LCD games and twas the birth of the handheld.
Even though dedicated soundcards were beginning to address the problems of bad sound quality in the IBM PC compatibles; they were apparently so expensive that they weren’t too popular until the 1990s....when people could actually afford them.
By 1985 we were already on our third generation of video game consoles. With the iconic, (even to me, though I never owned one) NES gracing our living rooms; even I can relate to that.
Something that I consider a significant development was that with the arrival of the NES came the arrival of the gamepad and that much needed (in my opinion) boot of the joystick.
Of course, several of the most popular franchises still going on today (and my favourite) were ‘born’ around the same time: Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear (Solid). The last instalment of the latter was able to make me justify buying a PS3 which is always a good thing isn’t it?
By the 1990s we saw the rise of true 3D graphics with titles like Elite and Starglider 2, around 2 years later the rise of one of my beloved genres appeared...the RTS.
Even though I’m not a fan, Quake was created and took full advantage of the first affordable 3D accelerator cards for PCS. The 90s were also home to 2 more evolutions in the console generation games.
By the fifth generation the Sony PlayStation and the CD-ROM had become a cause of the CD vs. Cartridge war which allowed Sony to enter the market, I remember how expensive cartridges were and that was the main reason why I wasn’t allowed games or consoles so when the cheaper CDs arrived it was a relief.
Games have changed a lot in 2 decades; the hardware has improved a lot allowing for better graphics, crisper sound and faster processors. Genres were defined in this period too, in some cases created. My favourite games were made during this time, games that have rarely been topped in my eyes.
New blood like Sony entered and dominated the market and the older members were forced to drop out of the race like Atari. Because of higher budgets being assigned to game developments the development times were also longer. Some games for example are still in development; Duke Nukem Forever springs to mind.
Tuesday 14 October 2008
Friday 10 October 2008
Decisive
I’ve decided that the NIMROD was the first coputer to be used for fun and so Ferranti were the first people who decided to use a computer for fun, it was designed purposefully to play the game NIM and was the first computer designed to play a game; albeit if it was a bit of a light show.
Ferranti typically created defence electronics and power grid systems; they were around for over 90 years until they went bankrupt.
Alexander S. Douglas also used a computer for fun when he created ‘OXO’ for the EDSAC vacuum tube computer. According to record he wrote his PhD degree at Cambridge Uni on Human-Computer Interaction so I suppose you could argue that it was more of an experiment to him but it could have been fun.
Since ‘Tennis for Two’ was played on an oscilloscope; which is an electronic instrument I’m going to discount it.
Steve Russell or ‘Slug’ created Spacewar! for the PDP-1 and I consider this to be significant because it gained widespread recognition pretty quickly and it also influenced a number of video games, in fact I remember playing a similar style flash game about a year ago.
It was Pirates of the Caribbean themed and the idea was to avoid the Krakken squid-thing and the vortex in the centre while paddling around in your boat shooting at ships and rescuing people.
Russell’s field was in computer science and apparently developed the ‘Lisp’ programming language; exciting stuff!
It’s very difficult for me to remember the first game I ever played because I never showed interest in them until I was 14 years old.
Memories of the arcade motorbike games are still happy ones in my mind; even if my legs were too short to reach the floor.
I think I was around 7 or 8 when I first got a Gameboy Pocket because the Gameboy Colour had just been released. I got Super Mario Land 1 & 2 which held my interest for awhile.
At some point my brother gave me a PlayStation, with games like Spyro, Croc and Metal Gear Solid but all I wanted to play was Disney’s Tarzan (weird I know).
But the one game that finally got me interested and hooked was Final Fantasy VII and then the RPG genre.
My genres have broadened over the years but I still love a good story based game so my most recent play was Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations and yes it’s quirky but its crime stories with the interactive element, my match made in heaven.
Til next time.
Ferranti typically created defence electronics and power grid systems; they were around for over 90 years until they went bankrupt.
Alexander S. Douglas also used a computer for fun when he created ‘OXO’ for the EDSAC vacuum tube computer. According to record he wrote his PhD degree at Cambridge Uni on Human-Computer Interaction so I suppose you could argue that it was more of an experiment to him but it could have been fun.
Since ‘Tennis for Two’ was played on an oscilloscope; which is an electronic instrument I’m going to discount it.
Steve Russell or ‘Slug’ created Spacewar! for the PDP-1 and I consider this to be significant because it gained widespread recognition pretty quickly and it also influenced a number of video games, in fact I remember playing a similar style flash game about a year ago.
It was Pirates of the Caribbean themed and the idea was to avoid the Krakken squid-thing and the vortex in the centre while paddling around in your boat shooting at ships and rescuing people.
Russell’s field was in computer science and apparently developed the ‘Lisp’ programming language; exciting stuff!
It’s very difficult for me to remember the first game I ever played because I never showed interest in them until I was 14 years old.
Memories of the arcade motorbike games are still happy ones in my mind; even if my legs were too short to reach the floor.
I think I was around 7 or 8 when I first got a Gameboy Pocket because the Gameboy Colour had just been released. I got Super Mario Land 1 & 2 which held my interest for awhile.
At some point my brother gave me a PlayStation, with games like Spyro, Croc and Metal Gear Solid but all I wanted to play was Disney’s Tarzan (weird I know).
But the one game that finally got me interested and hooked was Final Fantasy VII and then the RPG genre.
My genres have broadened over the years but I still love a good story based game so my most recent play was Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations and yes it’s quirky but its crime stories with the interactive element, my match made in heaven.
Til next time.
Thursday 9 October 2008
First Name Basis
Carole Brown from Chicago, Illinois is writing and I think that judging from the blogs content it’s more of an objective as opposed to something personal for her, by just reading the blog itself I believe her to be quite a professional woman. Link to blog here http://ctachair.blogspot.com/
The content of the blog itself does not interest me in the slightest, maybe because I have no interest in the CTA Board, maybe it’s because I don’t live in the U.S and this is completely irrelevant to me. I would label the blog as ‘boring and dull’ in my opinion but I can’t deny that this is a unique idea to use a blog to answer the questions of the readers etc. Admittedly, because I consider blogs to be a very casual form of documentation or communication I have found this blog a bit alienating because of the proficient content.
Judging by the post dates, she seems to update roughly once a month; but the time of the month varies from the beginning to the end. I expect another post soon however.
I’m thinking that because of the nature of this blog and it being much more factual in its objective she tends to suppress her opinions on matters which I agree is acceptable because of her job but to me it makes it even more of a dull read. Opinions are what get my attention and so maybe it’s just me but even if I was interested the Chicago Transit Board I think this information would be better and more effective if delivered in a newsletter/e-mail form, as that way I would not have to go and find it manually and may be more likely to take notice and read it.
Carole (we’re on a first name basis now) focuses primarily on what I can only deduce to be information about the funding situation of the CTA, to me however it seems to be a lot of jargon which I care little about.
In terms of me writing this, I have held some form of online journal before and still do even though my updates are sporadic and I’m fairly comfortable writing to an ‘invisible audience’ even though I will see most of you on a 3 out 7 daily basis at least. I prefer to right about things that I feel passionate about, as you will come to see later on; otherwise my input seems very forced and factual.
Til next time.
The content of the blog itself does not interest me in the slightest, maybe because I have no interest in the CTA Board, maybe it’s because I don’t live in the U.S and this is completely irrelevant to me. I would label the blog as ‘boring and dull’ in my opinion but I can’t deny that this is a unique idea to use a blog to answer the questions of the readers etc. Admittedly, because I consider blogs to be a very casual form of documentation or communication I have found this blog a bit alienating because of the proficient content.
Judging by the post dates, she seems to update roughly once a month; but the time of the month varies from the beginning to the end. I expect another post soon however.
I’m thinking that because of the nature of this blog and it being much more factual in its objective she tends to suppress her opinions on matters which I agree is acceptable because of her job but to me it makes it even more of a dull read. Opinions are what get my attention and so maybe it’s just me but even if I was interested the Chicago Transit Board I think this information would be better and more effective if delivered in a newsletter/e-mail form, as that way I would not have to go and find it manually and may be more likely to take notice and read it.
Carole (we’re on a first name basis now) focuses primarily on what I can only deduce to be information about the funding situation of the CTA, to me however it seems to be a lot of jargon which I care little about.
In terms of me writing this, I have held some form of online journal before and still do even though my updates are sporadic and I’m fairly comfortable writing to an ‘invisible audience’ even though I will see most of you on a 3 out 7 daily basis at least. I prefer to right about things that I feel passionate about, as you will come to see later on; otherwise my input seems very forced and factual.
Til next time.
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