Week 3 1980s +1990s

A big thing to note is that during this period EA was set up and continued producing games during these two decades and are still successful even today. Successful is a loose term as I wouldnt touch many of EAs games with a large pointy stick.
Well it seems that some legendary games were released before the first wave of PCs and consoles. MAny people have heard of Defender being the first game as a side scrolling shooter and rather pretty good as I remember. I played it ages ago and I found it pretty hard because my reflexes suck. However, I haven;t been back to replay it since I'm sure my reflexes still suck. Afantastic game that I just looked at that came out in 1981
was 3d Monster Maze. You essentially run through a maze (made to look 3D through angled lines) to get to the exit, however there is a T-Rex that wants to eat you. You get points by running away from it and by completing the room.
Also in 1981 was a game titled Space Panic which featured a space man fleeing up ladders and across platforms to avoid aliens that wish to kill him. This game looked very similar to the original Donkey Kong with its platforms, ladders and dodging of items that will end your life.
Another game I played was Pole Position.  Released in 1982 i had sprites which switched to show your car turning. This same method was used in Mario Kart 64 where it seems those karters had less sprites than Pole Position. The game [PP not MK64] was pretty hard to beat beyond the training level as your car came with the acceleration of cotton wool on velcro.

In 1982, the Commodore 64 and the ZX spectrum were released. The UK preferred the ZX Spectrum for its games whereas the Americas enjoyed the Commodore more. The Speccy was one of the first colour consoles and the spectrum was to signify the colour it had. Even if it was still 8 bit, it was a big revolution and gained alot of software and hardware during its 18 year life time.

With the invention of the mouse it was now possible to create many more games. LucasArts being the first to change the previous text based adventures into new point and click adventure games using their patented SCUMM engine. For the rest of the 80s, it was all about developers beginning to work with mice and experiment with new games.

Good old Nintendo brought out their 8bit NES in 1985 which became the biggest home console (non-pc) of the time. Many games were promoted on this console that we still have today such as Mario, Legend of Zelda and Megaman.
The NES ruled the console markets until newer consoles came out such as the Game Boy and a bit later; the Playstation and the N64 with their 3D graphics. One of the first games in full 3D was Super Mario 64 which introduced many things
such as camera work and actual exploration. It is thought of as one of the greatest games ever
 along with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. 
It was also during the 90s that many genres were created such as Survival Horrors and MMORPGs. Even more game franchises were added in the form of Metal Gear Solid, Sonic the 
Hedgehog and Pokemon (whilst it was '99 it really has become one of the biggest game franchises
ever).

So that is a quick history of gaming while I was alive. Technically I only alive for half of it but that
 was when everything happened. 

This is also a 5 minute video showing many of the games and their progressions starting from Pong
and ending in the present 

A History of Videogaming

Week 2 1950-1970

When asked what the earliest game that people can remember is, most will say Pong or for newfags it would be the first Mario game. However there will be those that remember the good ole days of Tennis for Two.  Personally I would have said pong until a lil bit of research was conducted.

Only those who were there back in 1952 would be able to say about the Tic-Tac-Toe game that A.S.Douglas created. It was merely a single player game but it spurred the beginning of human interaction with computers.

6  years later, in 1958, William Higinbotham created Tennis for Two. One would assume he'd just finished the Tic-Tac-Toe game by this point and wanted a bigger challenge. This game was created for the Brookhaven National Laboratory to draw in a larger amount of visitors. It definitely worked and is now regarded as the first fun video game. From what I've seen and read this game is played using an analog joystick and a single button however I cannot understand the control as there is no player or bats on screen. Unfortunately, this game wasn't shown much (2 years) but did become a great inspiration for the brilliant pong.

Before that though, the Tech Model Railroad Club created the game known as Spacewars! in 1962 This group consisted of wayne witanen and j. martin graetz along with 25 year-old steve russell. The main objective of  the game was to kill or be killed as two spaceships fought to gather supplies for their dieing homeworlds (story get). Much like Tennis for Two, spacewars! did not seek a copyright or patent as their computers were too big and would cost far too much.

Four years after Spacewars! Ralph Baer worked on seven prototypes that worked with a TV called the Brown Box. (Not to be confused as a rubbish version of the new Orange Box). His first game was liscenced by Magnavox titled Chase. It was literally two dots chasing eachother. He was also the first person to create a Light Gun.

Even though it is a little beyond the realms of what was asked, I feel I should mention that pong was created in 1972.

Week 1

The blog I looked at was titled bannable-offenses. @ http://bannable-offenses.blogspot.com
I'm sure when I remember html, I'll be able to put these as links instead of just text.

The guy writing calls himself GM Dave and is a GM for Final Fantasy XI. The reason for this is because he does not want to get fired by his boss for leaking company secrets and the like. Dave himself
is the stereotypical PR guy who hates people. It isn't really his fault, the players
are just really stupid. Dave does seem like a good guy, maybe with a little superiority complex but he does blog some funny stories. Maybe he is a hero of sorts, eliminating the criminals of intelligence and protecting the general public.
Perhaps not but he makes it sound like so much fun to be a GM.

Essentially this blog is so interesting is because he has a conversation with a player in each entry and generally insults them. After he has used alot of the unbanned curse words, he will ban them. This will also happen in an intriguing way, rather than just logging them out and banning them, he will warp the player(s) to a dungeon with no exit and let Jourgamund eat them. Ok, maybe not every player got banned but at least Jourgamund got fed every entry. These are just of his adventures in-game, he also talks about what it is like in his office. Normally about how the employees get stupidly drunk during server checks and patches and this being the reason they always take over 5 hours. Dave personally likes to annoy his boss at certain points as well in order to look like he is working or to avoid having to do something. More recently, he has slowed down his writing to talk about his wife/girlfriend and the tales of his ignoring her in order to play FFXI. Also he throws in rants about pregnancy and his new, albeit messy, baby. Although he does love his wife/girlfriend and child he seems to find something new to rant about. Unfortunately these are few and far between as some of the GM Dave and Susan skits are some of the best.

Hopefully in the future I will be able to develop a style of blogging similar to his as making people smile grabs their attention and brings them back. I kept going back to GMDave's blog because of the tales of idiocy he told and of course the dragon eating. It is a shame that nowadays his blogging has been sent to the bottom of the pile.