Well it all started in 1951 with a young engineer called Ralph Baer who was asked to build the best television set in the world. This was a simple task for the young engineer but he wanted to add a new idea into it which was to play games on the TV. This idea was not implemented since the boss refused the idea (stupid man) but the video/computer game idea was born (you can all cheer now). However Ralph came back to his idea of playing games on televisions in 1966 and started building prototypes.
In 1958 a William Higginbotham a physics graduate who had a love for pinball machines wanted to create an exhibit for an open house that would entertain and also engage people. The game was called ‘Tennis for Two’; the game was played by two people using hand controls with an analogue computer to display the moving ball.
We then go to 1961 with ‘Spacewar’ the game started with two spaceships shooting each other. It was then developed to have the real constellation with moving stars and varying luminance. Then a gravity star was added also known as the sun which attracted the spaceships.
We go back to Ralph now in 1966 designed a series of seven prototypes that played several different games. The first playable video game was a chase game basically two squares chasing each other. The last prototypes built in 1968 also known as the Brown Box played ball and paddle games, target shooting games, and more. After several demonstrations to TV manufacturers an agreement was signed and the first video game system was released in 1972.
Personal Gaming History
The first game I played I honestly can’t remember (NO!) how can I love games so much and not remember what the first game I played was. Well I don’t remember the name of it but I can remember it was something about chickens and a fox that keeps trying to steal the eggs (if anyone knows what I’m on about please leave a comment).
I remember playing the first Spyro game and my parents thought it was brilliant because the dragons spoke to you I think that game really sparked my love for video games, and also playing one of the early resident evil games which I wasn’t supposed to have played as it was too ‘violent’ but I played it anyway. Games you cannot beat (well in my eyes anyway) are the classics like Pac Man, Breakout, and of course SpaceInvaders these are the games I probably will never stop playing.
Most recent game I’ve played is Bioshock which I started and finished this week I did quite enjoy it well I must have I finished it in the same week well more like a few days. One thing really did annoy me about it though was the storyline of it you’ve got this guy asking you to save his family then the same guy tells you to kill these Little Sister’s which are basically children, so he’s asking to be good and at the same time be bad. Other than that I thought it was quite a good game. Also another game I’ve been playing recently in between games is Grid but I’ve got a bit bored of it now as I’ve done all the drift events, I'm not saying that I don't like racing I just like drifting a lot more.
