Personal Gaming History

My first memories of computer games were those of watching the son of some friends of the family playing Duck Hunt, Street Fighter and a game like (if it wasn’t) Cannon Fodder.

The first games I actually played were school ones that I played on the school computers in years one and two. I can’t really remember the names of any of the games (aside from Pod in which you told what looked like a tomato with a face what to do and if it was a valid command it would perform a relevant action) but I remember in my favorite game you went round a platformed dungeon as a wizard and could turn into a rabbit or a monkey.

When my parents got divorced and my Dad moved away (I was six at the time) he bought a Sega Mega Drive with Sonic 2 and Lemmings. As time went on he bought a number of other games including Cool Spot, James Pond 3 (my favorite Mega Drive game), James Pond: Aquatic Games, Corporation (horrible game), Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood and Mega Bomberman.

I moved house when I turned seven (two days after my birthday so that I could have a party when I actually had friends to invite) and made friends with my next door neighbor who had the largest collection of games I’ve ever seen (or at least he did last I saw him) and I would regularly go over and play computer games with him.

I was eight when my Mum remarried and I was presented with my first console, a Nintendo Gameboy with Kirby’s Dreamland. In 1995 we got a brand new PC on which my first game was Oddballz (brought to you by the makers of the Catz and Dogz series) in which you played with a pet……..critter. Not long after (can’t remember exactly but I don’t think I was any older than nine) I bought a Sega Master System with a number of games from my next-door neighbor.

When I was eleven I managed to get my hands on copies of Pokemon Red and Blue (bought a year before they were due for release over here from Game which had a single copy of each) which definitely rank quite highly in my favorite games of all time.

After about a year of playing other peoples I bought a N64 off my Dad’s friend and fell in love with Mario 64, Mario Kart and Golden Eye, later on I would also fall in love with Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros.. Not long after getting my N64 my step brother gave me and my sister his SNES with Rock And Roll Racing, Super Mario All-stars and some football game that I never played, I also managed to buy Kirby’s Fun Pack.

After going to a friend’s leaving party (he was moving back to Hungary) and trying out Soul Caliber on his Dreamcast I decided to buy myself one (I really don’t understand why they did so badly) and my favorite games for it were Phantasy Star Online, Soul Caliber and Head Hunter.

I got a Gameboy Advance for my fourteenth birthday on which my favorite game was Zone Of The Enders: Fist Of Mars, a fairly easy game with an excellent storyline and some nice mech (Orbital Frame) ideas (picture below is of Testament which was the Orbital frame that belonged to the main character).

I bought a Gamecube shortly after it was released and I adored Super Smash Bros. which was one of the first games I got for it (as well as Burnout and Rogue Leader).

Two or three years later I bought an Xbox (I wanted a DVD player and I thought I may as well pay and extra £30-40 and get a DVD player that can play games) which I use primarily for DVD purposes but I have developed a small collection of Xbox games including the always popular Halo and Halo 2.

These days the game I play the most is Final Fantasy XI in which I play as Dragoon and dislike play most other jobs now due to me missing my little pet dragon (also shown below).

I have way too many computer games, 5 SNES games, 12 or so for the Master System, around 16 for the Mega Drive, 20ish for the Dreamcast, 30 odd for the N64, about 40 spread across various levels of Gameboy, at least 26 for the Xbox and over 60 for the Gamecube (I have no idea how many PC games I have) and also at one point I had a Playstation and about 9 games. I think that just about covers my gaming history, feel free to correct me if I got a year wrong or something.

Week 4 Task

I apologize for the length of this post but I found this a lot easier to write about than previous topics and intended to do as much as I could (1,324 words). I also apologize for the severe case of Wall’o’text syndrome it seems to have contracted. I’m really bad with paragraphing. Oh and I apologize for the positioning of the images, I couldn’t get them in the right place for some reason.

At the start of the new millennium a new round in the consol wars began with the launches of the Playstation 2 (PS2), Xbox and Gamecube (GC). Each console brought something new to the table. PS2 and Xbox could play DVDs in addition to CDs (there was a 3^rd party version of the GC that could play DVDs and CDs but it was only on sale in Japan and cost two or three times the normal version), Xbox had a built in hard drive (PS2 can also have a hard drive but must be bought separately) and GC had the ability to link with the Game Boy Advance (GBA) which allowed for some interesting game play ideas in some games. The GC was also the first console (as far as I'm aware) to have the option of a wireless controller and the PS2 with the exception of the various Game Boy incarnations was the first console to be backwards compatible with previous consoles in its series. An interesting idea used on the GC was the format on which it released its games. It used CDs although not as big as the CDs that are used by most entertainment devices (any one whose never seen a GC disc open a PC disc drive and look at the smaller indentation in the tray and you’ll have a good idea how big they are) but in addition to this the GC spun its discs the opposite way to every other device with a CD drive up until that point. These two alterations to the traditional CD, DVD format severely hindered any attempts at piracy and to this day I’m yet to hear of any pirate GC games or emulators (although that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist). Although not really used in the case of the GC all three consoles in this generation have had the ability to connect to the internet and play games with people from all over the world.

Various other innovations have also popped up including the Eye-Toy for the PS2 that uses the players movements (namely the position of the arms and head) to play games specifically designed for use with the Eye-Toy. Microphones, headsets and other more specialized peripherals are also among these innovations.

An event worthy of note is Sony’s choice to enter the handheld market with the PSP (Playstation Portable), a market that has previously been dominated bye Nintendo with its series of Game Boys. At near enough the same time Nintendo released their new handheld the Nintendo DS (Duel Screen) which has two screens one of which is touch sensitive. The DS introduced a new way to play handheld games and has stood up well to its competition which has better graphics and the ability to play films.

Sony has won this round of the console war but neither Nintendo nor Microsoft show signs of giving up. Microsoft is the first of the three companies to get its next generation console (Xbox 360) on sale with Nintendo aiming to be next getting their console (Wii) on sale everywhere in time for Christmas and then Sony is releasing the PS3 this November in Japan and the U.S. but it wont be released till March 2007 for Europe and Australasia.

As with the virtually last generation consoles we will see (and are seeing in the case of the Xbox 360) an increase in the cost of games due to the increasing cost of producing them. This is most likely going to hinder the advancement of computer games if not in the generation after this new one then probably the one after that unless something is done to significantly reduce the cost of making computer games. Thus far if noticed one possible solution to this issue that being what Nintendo are doing with the Wii. The Wii is going to have a Wi-Fi connection (that will stay on as long as the Wii is turned on to allow for game updates, messages, presents and anything else u can think of) that allows for free access to the Nintendo network and allow the owner to download selected games and updates. The games available for download will mostly be retro games from Nintendo’s, Sega’s and some other companies old consoles and will cost a fraction of the price of games sold in the shops. In addition to retro games there will also be new games produced by companies that can’t afford to make games worthy of the £40-50 price tag that will most likely be attached to most games produced for the next generation consoles. This method could be used to sell more major games in the future but the bigger the game the more impractical this method would become and even so this will only cut the cost of producing the discs and packaging and not the game itself which is the bigger issue and the biggest pressure the gaming industry is under.

The next generation consoles are going to be significantly more advanced than the last each console being more advanced in different ways. All the consoles will boast improved graphics with the PS3 and 360 focusing on this aspect, the Nintendo however have aimed more at improving the game play. Many people have put off of playing modern computer games due to the steadily increasing number of buttons and complexity of game play, this is something Nintendo have tried to remedy. The new controller for the Wii resembles a TV remote and has only four buttons (I believe they only perform two different functions and the reason for there being four of them is because for different games you need to hold the controller in different ways) and a D-pad to use when playing games. The other buttons are a power button, controller volume controls (I think they’re volume buttons but I can’t make out what it says on the controller in the pictures I’ve seen. At any rate I’ll get back to that) and a home button. The controller itself is motion sensitive and depending on how you move it depends on what happens in the game, it is also a kind of light gun and can be used as such or as a pointer depending on the game. The controller has a built in speaker (that’s what the volume buttons are for if they are volume buttons) to help make the gaming experience that little bit more immersive. For example in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess if you firing you bow the “Twang” of the bow would be heard through the controller while the sound of the arrow would be heard on the TV. The controller also has ports built into it that allow you to connect different attachments like the “nunchuck” attachment which adds two more buttons and an analogue stick and is also movement sensitive. The Wii itself has slots for four Gamecube controllers (or the alternative Wii controller that’s designed for use with non Wii games) and two memory cards, is backwards compatible with GC games and has a constant Wi-Fi connection as long as the Wii has power (as I mentioned earlier). The Wii does not turn off but rather gets placed on standby (designed to use minimal power and make no noise or produce light) so that if a new update or something is issued the Wii will be able to receive it. All in all I’d say the Wii fits its codename (Revolution) as it is fairly revolutionary.

Week 3 Task

I really hadn’t intended for this to get so delayed (started it Wednesday last week) but things just kept popping up and I kept getting distracted (damn ninja and pirate party) but in the end its entirely my fault its this late. Anyway heres my attempt at the task.

The 1980’s saw the “Golden Age” of arcade machines, the birth of the home console and the introduction of new game genres.

The golden age of arcade machines started just before the 80’s and had two games that played a major role in the era becoming known as the golden age, those games wer Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Space Invaders had been released in 1978 and caused a coin shortage in Japan due to people spending every available coin on the game. In 1980 the exact same thing occurred when Pac-Man was released (originally Puckman but the name was changed to prevent vandles replacing the “P” with an “F”) and the success of the game combined with the sales of Pac-Man merchandise resulted in Pac-Man being the most successful arcade game ever made.

In 1981 a game called “Space Panic” was made and is the first platform game to be made. The adventure genre was renamed as interactive fiction in the early 80s to better suit the way adventure games of the time played (a lot like a book except the actions are dictated by the player rather than being fixed). “Defender” was the progenitor of the scrolling shooter genre in 1980 and various other innovations wer also developed such as the “rear-veiw racer format” (Pole Position), the first true 3D game world (Battlezone) and the first laserdisc game (Dragon’s Lair).

Previously it had been possible to play computer games at home but only on computers. In the 80s the first games consoles appeared allowing people to play games on their TV with controllers designed for playing the games rather than a keyboard.

In conclusion the 80s saw computer games move forward in leaps and bounds setting the floor for further innovation and development that continues to this day and will continue for as long as people keep playing computer and video games.

AHOY THERE MATY!!

I finally found my camera's USB cable and wanted to post something I saw last week when I was out drawing the canal for the self directed study. Personally I'd opt for a slightly sturdier boat with all those swans around (28 or so).

Week 2 Task

Despite some argument it seems to me that Willy Higinbotham was the first person to think of using a computer for playing games. There was a guy who made a computer version of noughts and crosses in 1952 before Higinbotham made his game but there doesn’t seem to be much information on him anyway. There was also missile game made in 1947 but it didn’t involve a computer and so was not classed as a computer game.

In 1958 Higinbotham was head of the Brookhaven Nation Laboratory's Instrumentation Division which was a nuclear research facility in New York that was sponsored by the government. In an attempt to demonstrate how safe the facility was (nuclear radiation being very scary at the time) Higinbotham decided to go on tours but he didn’t want to bore people to death with diagrams and talks and so decided to do something slightly different. After three or so weeks with some help from Rovert Dvorak “Tennis for Two” was invented (not quite the same as pong but nearly).

I think this would have been a significant event in gaming history had Higinbotham patented it and tried to sell it but he didn’t and so it wasn’t even widely known about until much later. David Ahl who had played the game as a child brought the game to the attention of the general public in 1983 in order to give Higinbotham the recognition he deserved.

Week 1 Task

For this task I chose http://ohdearmybrainisleaking.blogspot.com/ after reading a bit of each of the suggested blogs.

Who's writing, and how do you perceive them to be?

The writer is John. A (doesn’t say his full surname). He seems to be a student in the 2^nd or 3^rd year of study (I think probably 2^nd due to a comment he makes about 3^rd years) at De’Montfort University on the Game Art course.

Does blogging strike you as objective or more personal?

From what I've read it seems to be able to be both and which it is depends on the writer and what they’re writing about.

How often do they write, what do they write about?

He writes relatively often (up until the summer holidays where he stopped writing as much due to a lack of weekly blogging task) primarily because he needs to do the weekly blogging task however he does make a number of un-course related posts.

Most of what he writes about is the weekly blogging task for the Game Art course. When he’s not writing for the course he’s writing about his personal experiences and opinions.

How do you see yourself using a blog?

I see myself trying to write more than is needed for each weekly Game Art blogging task but falling short of that aim. I will most likely try to include as many jokes and witticisms (I think that’s what they’re called) as I can without doing to many but chances are I'l be the only person who finds them funny.

Do you feel comfortable writing for an invisible audience for example?

Depends entirely on what the subject is but I don’t see me being uncomfortable writing about things related to this course.

Hello World!!!!

The following announcment was braught to you by a very tired person.

After a very long time spent trying to get my internet to work and filling in forms and trying to think of a half way decent name this thing........IT WORKS!!!!

Thats all I can think to say at the moment. Give me time and I'l try and make this thing worthy of its name but for now I need to go pass out.