Week 2! 1980's - 1990's

Looking back at some of the games available between 1980’s and 1990’s stirred a mixture of feelings for me. At first I wanted to point and laugh at the ones where you stick a translucent sheet or plastic to your screen and play variations of the same game, but then I suddenly thought that this must of been a really big deal to them! It occurred to me that at the time that people must have been really excited about games as they were all new and shiny and different.
Many gaming consoles were released around the 80’s. It was a time when the lesser equipped companies could create a console that sort of rivalled that of the advanced companies. Most of them failed and left a few of the major consoles to thrive on the attention of people everywhere - like the Sega Mega Drive, the Atari and the NES/Famicom.
I never really got a chance to play on any of the consoles from around that time. I think my parents had an Atari (not sure which version) at some point – but I’m pretty sure they threw it away. My friend showed me a few NES games once on an emulator (I think one of them was the original Zelda) and they seemed pretty fun! ... If only he let other people have a go at playing his games once in a while.
The most interesting thing about the 1980’s, game-wise, is that arcade games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man started to become pretty popular. And some people must have had a ton of change on them to actually beat Donkey Kong! That pogo level is a real pain. I discovered that in the mini game on Donkey Kong 64. I can’t remember how many times I tried to beat it...

Week One

The history of computer gaming is quite hazy - I have always thought that the first game ever created ‘Pong’, but I have read up on other sites and come to find that the first actual computer game for entertainment purposes was developed within a laboratory and was called ‘Tennis for Two’. It was first introduced in 1958 and since then, games have only evolved. I find it hard to conceive that the games we can play today started out from the ideas of game designers so many years ago and it’s quite intriguing to look at games from the 90’s compared to games of the 70’s.

When I was growing up I remember playing on two consoles; one being a delicious N64 and a... not so delicious CDi. Some of the games were very fun on CDi, and I recall playing an Alice in Wonderland game on there for hours at a time – until I reached a stupid glitch near the end where Alice was stuck behind a retarded bird creature that sounded like it was in pain. Couldn’t get passed it in the end and had to start the game all over again.

Also, I loved the CDi Zelda. I loved it like a cat likes having its tail trampled on. Thankfully, the N64 Legend of Zelda was really epic and saved my thoughts on the in-playable CDi version. I remember trying really desperately to get past a monster in N64 Zelda which was a hand dropping on the character you played as from the ceiling – I was too scared and threw my controller down in disgust most of the time when I was younger. But now I worship scary games!

I dabble in Xbox 360, but I mostly play on my PS2 now. My brother clung onto our Xbox 360 tightly with no intention of ever letting it go before I left, so I brought my old consoles along with me. I was really lucky that some of my friends gave me some of their old PS2 games saying that they would rather play Halo 3, or Fallout then play them again. I could understand, because they have played through them before – probably finding every item and secret in the game – but some of the games they gave me are still really fun. Take for example the Project Zero Series. It’s a great concept for a game and its hella scary.