History of Computer games: Part II 1980 – 1990

The 1980s – 1990s was really the golden age for gaming due to its popularity and earnings. During these years computer games were a mainstream appearance in the consumer market, and many of the companies which emerged are still producing games today. These years experienced the rise of consoles in home gaming. But still no Modern Warfare 2, pah!

Nineteen Eighty
Pac man, an arcade game created in Japan by Namco, became immensely popular from the day of its release.  Part of Its success was due to the limitations of other games at the time. Apart from space invaders, other games were essentially variations of Pong.  However Pac man was an entirely new concept to gaming, creating a new genre which appealed to both genders. The gameplay consists of the player eating pac-dots around a maze whilst being chased by 4 ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) If all the pac-dots are eaten then the player is taken to the next stage, however if the player is caught by a ghost then a life is lost, once all lives are depleted then its game over!

 Pac-Man was actually inspired by a pizza with a slice missing

Nineteen Eighty Three
This year experienced the North American video game crash leading to the end of the second generation of consoles. This crash almost destroyed the industry and lead to the bankruptcy of many companies. There were many reasons for this, the main factor however was a saturated market full of low quality games, companies weren’t producing any new material

Nineteen Eight Five
The industry would eventually be brought back to life with the release of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) released in 1985, becoming extremely popular in 1987. It was sold across the globe in America, Europe, Australia and most of Asia. Over the second generation consoles, the NES was a huge leap for home console gaming with innovative games on a reliable system, with many of the consoles still working today! Before this the only games available were variations of Pong, the NES had great titles such as Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. The NES dominated the Japanese and North American market, until the release of the fourth generation consoles.

Nineteen Nighty
In this decade gaming would be taken even further, the transition from 2d rasta graphics to fully 3d playable games meant that new genres would emerge such as first person shooters, real time strategy and MMOs. Home consoles also started to become more common and developers invested more into their products producing higher budget, better quality games.

Nineteen Nighty Four
Ken Kutaragi, also known as ‘the Father of PlayStation’ created the console where I was retailed in Japan in 1994 and in Europe and North America in 1995.The console was originally in development back in 1986 with Nintendo and Sony working together to produce a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom/SNES console. However Nintendo later announced that they would end this partnership and work solo but using the same technology. The PS1 was a fifth generation machine competing against the likes of the sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64. It did exceedingly well and was the first to sell over the 1 million mark. The demise of game cartridges is thought to have come from the success of the PS1, while it was not the first system to use disk format, it was however the first successful system to do so. The PlayStations control pad is iconic and has changed little over time

The original game pad for the system is on the left, this would later be replaced with the Dual analogue and then the dual shock with feedback in the form of a rumble motor in the handles. This was similar to that of the Nintendo 64s rumble pack which required batteries, however Sony’s version used power from the console to provide in game feedback.   The PlayStation had a huge game selection with over 2400 titles, and was the creator to some huge franchises such as Medal of Honor, Final Fantasy, Tekken and Grand Turismo.

Nineteen Nighty Six
In this year Nintedo would release their sequel to the NES, the Nintendo 64. This console still used game cartridges over CD-ROM. despite the added cost to manufacture, limited memory space and difficulty developing on this format, Nintendo still thought that the cartridges advantages (Fast load times, durability and difficulty in duplicating) outweighed the benefits of the CD.

Most third party game developers had switched to the PlayStation, which meant while games were released constantly on the PS1, game releases on the N64 were infrequent. While some third parties did continue developing for the N64, they put most of their time into the PS. An an example of this is Kaonmi, with over 50 releases on the PS and just 13 for the N64. The biggest titles for the console were either released by Nintendo themselves or second parties for Nintendo. The system did have some big titles exclusively for the console, such as Mario, the legend of Zelda and Golden eye. The games also appealed to a more mature audience.

 

History of Computer games: Part I 1950 – 1970s

Nineteen fifty one
As early as 1951, Ralph Baer (AKA the father of video games) a young television technician came up with the concept of playing games through your television set, however his boss at Loral failed to understand this idea and these concepts were never developed.  Bears however would go on to develop his ideas further in 1966

Nineteen fifty two
Before this however, A.S Douglas, a university student at Cambridge who completed his thesis on human and computer interaction was required to produce an example to prove his theories, this resulted in the first game of tic tac toe in 1952. An EDSAC vacuum-tube computer comprised of 35x16 dots was used to display a game of noughts and crosses. This was the first game known to exist and was played against the computer which used algorithms wherever possible to win against the player.

Nineteen fifty eight
After this the next significant playable game was ‘Tennis For Two’ the first game, developed by Willy Higginbotham, where two players could play against each other.

As you can see from this video the game was played using handheld controllers. This game was very simple to play, on the controller was a knob and a button. The knob is used to control the angle of the swing and the button to determine when the ball would be hit. The game was played on a oscilloscope screen, the ball which is brightly lit and uses realistic ballistic physics is hit over a 2d playing field hit by invisible rackets.

Nineteen sixty one
SPACEWAR! This game, on the PDP-1, was created by Steve Russel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The gameplay consisted of 2 spaceships trying to destroy each other whilst under the suns gravitational pull sucking them into the middle of the screen. When developing this game the debugger program generated unwanted random pixels throughout the screen, which the developers liked because they looked like stars.  Spacewar became a massive hit around the MIT campus, however would not be able to make any money from this as it couldn’t be marketed. The only computers that could run such games could only be found in universities.

Nineteen Sixty Six
 in 1966 Ralph Baer continued his work from 1951 to produce a series of seven games which could be played on a console through a television set. These games included  a ‘chase’ game, Ball & Paddle games, Target Shooting games, and more. After starting his work in 1966, Baer had a working prototype known as the”brown box” which was completed two years in 1968, the first ever games console. This consisted of the console, two controllers, a light gun, and switches on the system to choose which game you wanted to play.

 The brown box would later be put into commercialisation by Magnavox in 1972 under the name ‘Odyssey’

Nineteen Seventy One
Based on Steve Russels ‘Spacewar!’ The coin operated ‘Galaxy Game’ was installed at the student union of Stafford University. This is one of the earliest recorded coin operated machines, created two months before the release of Computer Space, another coin operated rig based on spacewar! (everyone loves spacewar!)

Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Computer space, saw great opportunity within video gaming, and his team at Nutting Association would be the first to take this to market. However it was considered a fail at its time. This was due to controls which were too complicated to grasp quickly, although it received a good reception at college campuses, at bars and other venues it didn’t do as well

 - "Sure, I loved it, and all my friends loved it, but all my friends were engineers. It was a little too complicated for the guy with the beer in the bar." - Nolan Bushnell

Nineteen Seventy Two
This year began the first generation of home consoles. In 1972 Magnavox released the Oddessy, developed from Baers Brown Box prototype. Few things were changed from the original prototype, the circuitry system remained virtually the same between the two consoles, however  the sixteen game selection switches were replaced with separate plug-in programming cards and a few more added games than the original.

Although from this commercial, all the games look the same. Demonstrated on May 24^th, and released August later that year, Magnavox were selling the first ever home gaming console. However due to much confusion

Nineteen Seventy Eight
This is the year where video gaming reached widespread success with the release of space invaders.  Created in Japan by Tomohiro Nishikado, the arcade game is held in the Guinness book of world records as the highest ranked arcade game.’ Space invaders’ was one of the very first shooting games, where the play had to destroy waves on alien ships earning as many points as possible.  If you’ve ever wondered, here’s what space invaders REALLY look like

Earlier versions of space invaders used enemies such as tanks and planes, however Nishikado was not satisfied with the enemies movements from side to side as this did not simulate flying. He drew inspiration after watching Star Wars and decided to use the space theme. The enemies are based on the aliens from H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.     

A Brief Introduction

Blogging aye, well here goes… my names Adam Jarvis, I’m 19 and come from a small, sunny, bubble town formally known as Harpenden. However my current location is now De montfort University, Leicester. Compared to a very relaxed year out of education, earning a bit of money, passing the stupid amount of tests required to earn my full motorcycle license and general dossing about, I now spend the majority of my time working hard for my course Game Art & Design, or alternatively on the usual nights out drinking lots or late night sessions smoking whatever.  ANYWAY… so why did I choose this course, well after many wasted enjoyable years of playing games with friends, family and complete strangers online, it seems game art design would be the perfect course to prepare me for a career in the games industry doing something I would actually enjoy, level design being my ideal specialist area. Level design is something that appeals to me more than say character modelling or creating endless amount of inanimate objects. I guess this interest began after playing on some real iconic maps which really can make a game brilliant! whenever I remember the days playing Counter Strike, cs_office or de_dust 2 (my two favourite maps) immediately spring to my mind, the same with Battlefield 2 or even the old Mario games on the Gameboy, picking up the game after years of not playing it I was surprised to as how much of the game world I could actually remember. 

I think that level design is very important in immersing the player into a game. Creating realistic architecture, landscapes and environments.  HOWEVER, that was before my first experience using Autodesk 3dsmax.  To be honest, I found the first few game production lectures very difficult and seriously doubted my position on the course, trying to get used to using the software was a nightmare. But after downloading a free and completely legal version, (thanks to the awesome team at Autodesk giving students FREE software) lots of practise, trial and error, I finally started to get familiar with the program and actually enjoyed using it, rather than feeling the need to punch my laptop really, REALLY hard every 5 seconds. A job with id software would amazing, particularly working on titles such as Rage, games with a very unique appearance and style really appeal to me. I guess coming from a fine art background, I love to play games which have a strong art direction. Some of my favourites over the years include Limbo shadow of colossus and ICO. For a PlayStation 2 title, SOTC looks absolutely stunning, however this beutyoften came at a sacrifice of frame rates. I was very excited when Kenji Kaido announced that a re-mastered version of both games will be released, just need to get my hands on a PlayStation 3!