Week 3! The 80's and 90's, when video games ruled the earth!

So following on from my previous entry we have witnessed the birth and early development of the computer game industry and now move into the middle ages and a period in which I first ventured forth into the world of games.

However the first significant event, other than me starting to play games, was on the 17Th of June, 1980. Atari's "asteroids" and "lunar Lander" became the first video games to ever be registered at the copyright office and ushered in a new era in the computer game industry.

In the 80's it was all about the personal computers such as the spectrum, commodore and the Atari which was also my first system and my introduction to games.

The Atari ST to be specific, was my first ever computer if memory serves me correctly. Although I can't remember what the first game I ever played was I do have memories of playing such titles as outrun, golden axe, and lotus esprit turbo challenge on my trusty Atari amongst others.

I also seem to remember spending a lot of time playing on a very basic flight Sim pretending to be maverick after watching a little film you may of heard of, TOP GUN!!! anyone??

So, around the same time I was initiated into Top gun with all the other top pilots the gaming industry of the 80's was producing the building blocks of the future. Games such as final fantasy, the legend of Zelda and metal gear all made their debut during this time.

It seems the 80's were a time of new beginnings. Franchises were created, new and, though it wasn't known at the time, legendary characters were introduced, link and Mario to name just a couple, and the market seemed to be gathering momentum all the time.

Which leads us onto the 90's. A decade which See's me move into the console world after father Christmas saw fit to bestow upon me the gift of SNES (or super Nintendo). A Christmas were I proceeded to vanish to the solitude of my room and attempt to complete starwing, calling upon all my previous Top gun training, only venturing downstairs for turkey and those little sausages wrapped in bacon.

By the 90's the gaming industry was well and truly established and it was all about growth and the developing rivalries of the big name companies. Sega and Nintendo dominated the market and had a massive ongoing war of the consoles. Sega's master system followed by the megadrive versus Nintendo's NES and then SNES.

This rivalry continued and with the ever increasing market more companies became involved in this competition for computer game supremacy, namely Sony and in December of 1994 the PlayStation was released.

This again resulted in another Christmas day spent in solitude. One of the stand out games for me on the PlayStation was tomb raider. The new system, along with the then groundbreaking graphics added up to all night stints trying desperately hard raid some tombs.

It appears then that this time was of great importance to the industry, it was established and had grown into an industry to rival that of the film industry and several new and important names entered the foray both in terms of new game franchises, popular characters still in existence today and big name companies becoming interested and in fact staking claim to their share of the market.

this then brings us to the 00's but also in turn then end of this chapter.

Week 2! let there be game! (1950-1970)

In the beginning there was man, then not much happened until one day a slightly more intelligent man created game!



Though the origins of games appear to be contradicting, inconsistent and generally impossible to determine what we do know is this.....



The surface was first scratched, so to speak, in 1952 when a gentleman going by the name of A.S. Douglas created, on the worlds first computer (EDSAC), a game of naughts and crosses. The game was created for Douglas's thesis on human-computer interaction. However this was unique and was not commercially available mainly for the simple reason it was only on the EDSAC, which incidentally was the size of a small country and thus not practical for the living room of most homes.



Following on from this in 1958 there came what is in some cases considered the first ever video game. Tennis for two (left) was created by William Higinbotham to prevent boredom of guests visiting the lab where Higinbotham worked, a clear example that computer games where being recognised as a form of fun and entertainment. Though it transpires this invention and realisation later became a regret of Higinbotham who wanted to be known for his work as a physicist rather than this, I suppose you could call, small side project.




Then came the big hitter, A space fighting game!!!!! in 1962 the future was now with the creation of spacewar! (right). Steve Russell a computer programmer gave us the true computer game experience enabling players to compete against one another assuming the roles of duelling spaceships, imaginatively known as the wedge and the pencil, the object of the game was to annihilate your opponent before they succeeded in annihilating you. with the inclusion of various options such as hyper space and a reasonable representation of physics it is quit a step from the earlier naughts and crosses giant computer considering as well spacewar was on the comparatively tiny PDP-1 computer.




This said it wasn't until 1972 when games where brought to the home. I give you the console ladies and gentlemen. Up to this point games were primarily created and available on military, scientific or academic systems including the aforementioned PDP-1 which was not a domestic computer. the worlds first console was brought to us by a pioneering man named Ralph Baer who way back 1951 had conceived the idea of incorporating games into a TV set he been requested to design by his boss. unfortunately his somewhat less pioneering boss did not approve the idea and it was subsequently scrapped. However our fearless hero, undeterred, 1966, OK, maybe a little deterred, resumes work on the now titled "brown box" which later (1971) became the odyssey (pictured right) the first commercially available home video games console. Given his fairly humble beginning's as a factory worker it is not clear what drove Baer to concentrate so much on the goal of bringing games to the masses over than the fact it appears Baer was very into progresion having attained an at the time unique degree in television engineering and never looked back goin on to sart his own company. I guess Baer saw the potential were others did not and now it is widely accepted that Baer is the man responsible creating and shaping the game industry we know today.



this brings us upto 1973 where the world famous "pong" was introduced, a game im sure most people had their first experience of games.



this however concludes this entry as we have now entered the 70's.

Week 1!

OK so here we go, first blog, first task. I'm gonna try and hit the ground running and just type whatever pours fourth from my brain...........

........OK, that's not gonna work. A new approach, so, for this week's task we have been set the unenviable job of reviewing a fellow blogger. obviously a man of my blogging experience is ideally placed to do this with my 2 paragraphs of blogging history well behind me.

The blog i stumbled across is by none other than the legend that is 90's hip hop star, MC hammer.
being a fan when i was younger it didn't take much to capture my interest and it was good to see hammer is still out there somewhere.

In terms of the blog itself it is frequently written, almost daily, and from what i have seen it covers a wide variety of subjects, mainly hammers take on topics ranging from music and news to things of a more personal nature. the post's themselves range from large areas of text to perhaps a video or picture with a comment to support.

I enjoyed reading the blog although i am biased being a fan. I think it provides me with an insight into the writer and my initial opinion is of someone who is very family orientated with strong religious beliefs.

The above said my take on blogging is that a blog can provide the image you want it to provide. You can be as personal, objective or controversial etc. as you like. This is not said to detract from blogging. From my early experience I think this is the appeal.

From trudging through numerous blogs in the archive, some good, some bad, I think my approach to blogging will try to include hopefully some aspect of personality and be fairly simple to read as these, whether it reflects good or bad on me, are the blogs I was more inclined to read.

Let the blogging begin!!!!