Assignment 2 - coincidence? I think not!

Now while my housemate is insulting me through 1337 over MSN across the room I read over the several articles concerning the history of computer games.
My thoughts so far?

1) THANK GOD I am not old enough to have witnessed such atrocity in video gaming (although I do remember owning a Commordore 64).
While it may have been a breakthrough in technology and paved the way for the future I would have hated to see a million different copies of Pong peddled by every Joe Bloggs tyring to get his slice of the game pie. While peddling of the same 'ol still happens nowadays with those gruelingly appauling plug-and-play arcade-game systems there is a very large spectrum of consoles and software. I guess I am spoiled and have an insatiable appetite for a new game every few weeks (seriously I have bought 3 in the past week! Ouch).

2) I had no idea how old Electronic Arts were and yet they are still successful to this day (my hat's off to you EA)

Let's no longer beat around the bush. Created in 1961 by a group of students at MIT Spacewar! is widely considered the first computer game created, after Tennis-for-two which dabbled with gravity physics and A.S. Douglas' Tic-Tac-Toe which experimented with human-to-computer interaction. I say Spacewar! was the first computer game as it truly demonstrated the fundamentals of a computer game; interaction, competition (between two human players), goals and objectives.

What's significant about the creation of Spacewar!? It was created by University students and I myself am a student at a university (while it might not be MIT it still has a three letter abbreviation *clever, huh?*) and I feel it is the perfect time for the creation and development of computer games as it allows likeminded individuals to bring their ideas and abilities to the table. University is a time where learning is no longer solely the responsibility of the institution but rather the individual...but let's not dwindle on the purpose of University. I am looking forward to meeting some audio students and game art students as I am doing Game Tech so we can form that unstoppable triangular team of game creators.

Enough of the history of gaming itself. Time to shed some light on my personal history and experiences with games.
I remember getting a Nintendo Entertainment System at the tender age of three. I vividly remember Super Mario Bros, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Legend of Zelda (with that sexy gold cartridge).
I cannot remember if I was actually any good at playing them or if I used that wonderful device Game Genie but I did manage to complete them and have experienced nostalgia and anger when playing the same games recently finding them exceedingly difficult which leads me to believe video games are becoming increasingly easy and more graphics-driven rather than gameplay-driven.

I also had a Commodore 64 but that was my dad's play-thing and I had too short an attention span to bother waiting for the cassette deck to load the game.

I have not always followed games avidly - when I was younger it was more or less my parents buying me what they thought I would like - and until the internet truly kicked off commercially I did not particularly search for "good" games but I have always been a fan of and played video games from a young age.
One could say I'm a nintendo fanboy at heart as I own all the Nintendo systems but I was also raised on Sega's Mastersystem and Mega Drive. I tend to forget about the dreadful Sega Saturn and I wish the Dreamcast was wiped from the face of the Earth with it's ridiculously positioned shoulder buttons.

Nowadays I play Sony's PSX and PS2 as well as Nintendo's underrated Gamecube (I say underrated because most people believe it to be a childish console whereas it is home to some excellent games; Killer 7, Metroid Prime & Prime 2 Echoes, LoZ Wind Waker *cel shaded does not mean childish, the plot is dark and the gameplay follows on from the widely hailed classic Ocarina of Time*, and Resident Evil).

Most recently I have been playing Metal Gear Online and I am establishing my name in the online world of gaming. I usually don't play competitive titles as I feel there is too much bitterness and hate that evolves from such games but I have been a fan of Metal Gear since the PSX title and have watched it evolve and have researched into it's past incarnations in which the stealth-driven gameplay first appeared on the MSX/NES.

I enjoy most genres of games including action, adventure, RPG, survival horror, FPS (at the risk of sounding ignorant I feel they are all fundamentally the same and you only need to play one FPS in your life, but the same can be said for RPGs I guess, it depends on if the plot is any good).
I mostly follow series of games such as LoZ, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc. and rarely dip my feet into unknown waters but I follow the development of new and exciting games on IGN.com and Gamespot.com in hopes for something truly astonishing and original such as Okami (Capcom's new title involving a wolf-god in which you use calligraphy to advance through the game) or my recent purchase Shadow of the Colossus where gameplay and graphics walk hand in hand in a brilliantly crafted world where colossal monsters roam and a beautiful maiden lays asleep waiting for you to restore her consciousness (simple premise but the game itself has to be played to fully appreciate).

I am looking forward to the next three years and I am really enjoying it so far. I just hope I am successful and can craft such pieces of work for myself.(is it right to call computer games work? *shrugs* it is alot of hard...fun?...no the word is most definately work)

Until next time sports fans. *clicks*