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A History of Video Games.By Harry Turner.My Dad says that I play too many video games so he has set me a project of researching the history of gaming since he was my age!Pong was one of the first ever video games and was made by Atari in 1972. It is pretty much a 2D Table Tennis game that is played using a dial to move an in-game paddle up and down in order to hit a ball. Pong is regarded as the first proper Video Game. When my Dad was young he played games on a computer called an Acorn Electron in the 1980’s. The computers in those days were made for writing programmes and not really for playing games. The games came on cassette tapes which had to be loaded to the computer which would take about half an hour and they made a screeching noise that would give you a headache! To play the games on the Acorn you had to press buttons on the keyboard to control the characters on the screen.Dads favourite games were Grebit and Repton. Grebit is pretty much CrossyRoads from the 1980’s where you have to hop logs and dodge traffic. Repton is an exploring game where you play as a Gecko, cool! The graphics are reallyblocky compared to games today and the gameplay looks very basic. Dad also says that the games would crash a lot and you would have to start all over again! As Dad got older, video games evolved and consoles that were just for playing games began to be made. There were two main companies that made games consoles, they were Sega and Nintendo. Segas first games console was called the Master System which came out in 1985. The consoles had control pads that you could hold in your hand that made playing the games much easier. The games also came on ‘cartridges’ which would load almost as soon as you plugged them in. Dad had a Master system when he was 12 years old in 1990.Popular games on the Master System were World Cup Italia 90, California Games and Golden Axe, Dad reckons he was a Champion at all of them, hmm??? The games on the Master System had better graphics and were much more colourful, there were more things to do and they games didn’t crash like the old computers used to. There was also a much bigger choice of games to buy. Segas most famous game was called Sonic the Hedgehog, which was a roleplay adventure game where you had to collect gold rings and eventually have to defeat a Boss called Dr Robotnik.At around the same time, Nintendo released their first console called the Nintendo NES. It was a console like the Master System with control pads and Games Cartridges. Nintendos most popular game was Super Mario Bros. In this game you had to play as Mario who was a plumber who was trying to rescue Princess Peach from a giant turtle/lizard called Bowser.Video games became really popular with children and a battle began between Sega and Nintendo to see what was more popular. This was called the video game wars. Each company tried to make the best games hoping that people would choose one over the other. In those days it was rare for people to have a Sega and a Nintendo. Each company tried to make their brand more popular than the other as they knew that if a person bought their console they would also buy lots of their games. They would try to have the best TV Adverts to inspire people to buy and play their games and they would sell their machines in bundles with a selection of different games at the lowest possible price.As the battle between Sega and Nintendo continued both companies looked for ways to be better than eachother. Improvements in technology meant that bigger games and more powerful consoles could be made. In the early 1990’s Sega and Nintendo both released new consoles, the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo. Both consoles were the best selling machines that the companies had made. The Mega Drive was released first and out sold the Super Nintendo to begin with. The Mega Drive was ‘Backwards Compatible’ which meant that you could play your old Master System games on it. The Super Nintendo did not have this function but had better graphics and a bigger choice of games. Sega continued to promote their favourite character Sonic the Hedgehog, and made 3 Sonic games for the Mega Drive. Nintendos favourite character Mario was so popular that 10 Super Mario games were made for the Super Nintendo.Dad and his brother had a Super Nintendo and their favourite game was Super Mario Kart. This was a Racing game for up to 2 players it also has powerups such as mushrooms that speed you up and the Iconic and annoying blue shell that is like a heatseeking missile that hits the first placer. The fun bit of the game is that you can play as any of the main/well known characters from the Mario Universe. By the late 1990’s the Super Nintendo had become way more popular and Sega began to fall behind. The battle between Sega and Nintendo continued and each company kept designing and releasing new consoles to try and pinch customers off eachother. Sega released the Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast, and Nintendo released the N64 and GameCube. Nintendos consoles were brightly coloured and more appealing to customers and they were able to design consoles with 4 game controllers meaning that twice as many players could play as before.SEGA NintendoSega tried everything to win the games war and even had the names of their machines printed on the shirts of a famous football team called Arsenal.Both companies also tried to come up with new and clever ideas, one of these was to make games machines that you could carry around with you. Nintendo Invented the Gameboy and Sega brought out the Game Gear. The Gameboy was far more popular even though it had a black and white screen, this was partly because it came with an amazing game called Tetris built in. Tetris was a simple block building game that appealed to adults and children, beginners and experts.In 1995 there was a new kid on the block that joined the games war who would eventually wipe out Sega and almost destroy Nintendo. This new kid was called the Playstation and it was made by a company named Sony who also made T.Vs and Stereos. The Playstation was instantly popular with gamers of all ages with a range of brand new games never seen before. Before the Playstation came out, gaming was aimed at children and consoles were almost like toys but now grownups began to see gaming as a Hobby, my Dad had one when he was 18 years old.New games like Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet and Clank were popular with children while older players liked games such as Gran Turismo and Resident Evil. Dad had Gran Turismo and says what he liked most was being able to drive real cars like ones that you would see everyday. He says he could even pretend he was racing around in Grandad Johns Green Ford Focus.Playstation was so popular that Sega was completely wiped out and never made a console again. Nintendo survived but did not make another new Console for over 10 years and this was the end of the first Games War. Sony owned the games world and in 2000 they brought out the Playstation 2 which was an upgraded version of the Playstation. In 2001 the famous Computer company, Microsoft decided to take on the Playstations and created its first console called the Xbox. This would see the beginning of a new war between new enemies, with an old warrior later returning. The Xbox was competition for the Playstation 2, it played many of the same games but its controllers were different and it claimed to be more powerful and have better graphics.The new war heated up in the mid 2000’s when in 2005 Microsoft released the Xbox 360 and in 2006 Sony introduced the Playstation 3. By this time the power of the machines was making the games even better than the games in the Amusement Arcades. The consoles came with Wireless control pads, the devices could play music and Apps such as Youtube on them. The biggest change was that you could now play online against your friends who were in their homes on their machines. Online gaming changed how people played games and it became more of an activity to do by yourself on your own and play against people virtually, instead of all sat around one machine together. The consoles also began to only come with one controller each. In 2006 Nintendo returned with a new console called the Wii. The Wii was completely different to the Playstation and Xbox because it was for games where players would get together. The way games were played was also different, players had to be more active and move around to control characters and move objects. For example in a game called Wii Sport, you have to pretend to swing a bat to hit a ball. The Wii also had Mariokart but to move the carts you have to turn an actual steering wheel. The Wii was a completely new idea and was very popular however its graphics were poor and the choice of game was small.In 2012 Nintendo brought out the Wii-U which is a kind of mixture between the Wii and the Gameboy. The Wii-U comes with a large controller that has a touch screen in the middle which means it can be portable. It had a new Mario game called Super Mario maker that lets you create your own levels to play.In 2013 the latest generation of Playstation and Xbox were released. Sony brought out the Playstation 4 and Microsoft brought out the Xbox One. These machines have the very best graphics, the biggest choice of games and full online gaming networks. The machines also have Apps that mean you can watch T.V on them and use the internet. Two of my favourite games of all time are now on these machines, Minecraft and Fortnite. Minecraft first came out on the Xbox but is now out on all machines. Minecraft is a game where everything is made from blocks and you are free to build your whole world however you like. Me and Dad built a world called The Enderworld, it is our first world and I was extremely happy to share it with Dad. There are modes such as Creative: Build what you want, Survival: Create a world and try to complete the game, Hardcore: Same as Survival but dying means your world is deleted, Adventure: Usually used in maps. There are also Difficulty Levels such as Peaceful: No enemies, Easy: Few mobs, Normal: Average amount of mobs and Hard: A lot of mob spawns. Fortnite is a Battle Royale game where you have to outlast 100 players to be last man standing for the EPIC Victory Royale! The 3 main modes are Solo, Duos and Squads. Every month a new season will arrive and a day or so before the season begins a live event will take place and do something to the map. The next season this year has a theme of ‘underwater’, personally I think it will be good since Aquaman is the secret character. In order to unlock the secret character you have to do challenges. Fortnite is the only game where players on all different machines can play eachother so I can use my Playstation to play people on their Xbox.The most recent games console to be released is the Nintendo Switch which came out in 2017. The Switch is a lot like the Wii-U except it has joy-cons. Joy-cons are the controllers for the games. They can be put together to make a single controller, they can be split to make 2 separate controllers or they can be added to the console to make it handheld and portable. There is no other console like it, and because it is a Nintendo it is the only console to play the latest Super Mario Games on. As well as playing games, the Switch has Apps such as Youtube meaning it can be like a mini T.V.The below screen shots show the difference between the graphics of Super Mario on the NES and Super Mario on the Switch. The biggest difference is the graphics, on the old Mario there were only a few colours and it was very blocky but on the new version there are millions of colours and the picture is so clear it is like watching a movie. The gameplay is very different too, on the old Mario you could only move forwards and backwards across the screen, on the new version the gameplay is in 3D so you can literally explore anywhere you want to. Below is a shot from Mario Kart on the SNES and Mario Kart on the Switch. The graphics are very different, the background on the SNES is very basic and dull but the Switch background is very exciting and gets you pumped up to race. The karts that the characters drive on the SNES are all the same and look very simple, on the Switch, the karts are all unique to the different characters.At the moment the most powerful Consoles available are the Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Sony are making a Playstation 5, and Microsoft is creating a new Xbox. The details of each console are kept secret though as the Games War goes on.The future of gaming is hard to predict. Sony have brought out a Virtual Reality Headset for the Playstation 4 but this is brand new technology. The headset makes you feel like you are actually inside the game as you play.I predict that as VR gets better you will be able to smell and touch objects inside the games. I recently watched a movie called Ready Player One, which is set in the future. People live 2 lives, one real life and one VR life. In the VR world the people wear bodysuits and feel like they are in a completely real world, they create characters for themselves called Avatars. The VR world is a computer generated world where people from all over the globe can meet. I think video games in the future will be like this so I’m excited and desperate to skip to the future to find out.When I think about the Computer games that my Dad used to play compared to the games I play now, there are big differences. Before I started this project I thought Dads games were Sonic and Mario but now I know its not just them. I have found out about Repton and want to play it myself. I had no clue how many different game consoles there have been or how extremely competitive the companies were against eachother. I wish Sega could make a new console one day and create a new Sonic the Hedgehog game but until that day…..…The War goes on! ................
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