The "Middle Ages" Of Games

From the first ever games that were released developers have been gradually trying to enhance and advance the idea of computer games. For a fairly long period nothing much happened with games this could have been a "fear" or uncertainty in this new idea with what is and could be possible. As I have mentioned in my previous week about Ralph Baer and his experiments with a gaming system working with a television set, one of the most significant changes would be for these games to be played at home rather than at an arcade center. The technology being better understood allowed the developers to fit computer equipment into smaller spaces which even now is continuing with all these new iPhones, iPods and other gadgets. The first actual “consol” being able to work with a TV set is the “Odyssey” released by Magnavox and in 1976, 2 years later the “the first programmable home game console called the Fairchild Video Entertainment System” which started to use the Microchip. Games during this time could process more data and information and in a smaller system.

Then the new consol which was apparently quite popular the “Atari VCS 2600” which had games such as a ported version of the Arcade Game “Pac-Man” as well as “Adventure” which looks very similar in style to the Legend Of Zelda yet made earlier on and simplified quite considerably. This period was known as the second generation of games consoles and used a Cartridge based system, similar yet earlier on than the NES. Even so things were starting to quicken their pace in producing games and consoles, the 80’s were when things started to kick off. The creation of game systems such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and later on in 1985 the NES was finally released during the “3rd Generation of computer games”. Every 5 years the games consoles kept advancing and a new generation would be formed, the 5th generation consoles occurring between 1995 – 2000.

The first consol that I ever actually got was the Playstation although around other people’s houses I was playing a few games on the SNES. And the next consoles that I got were the Game Boy Colour, a N64 (which someone gave to me) followed on by the Xbox that I purchased several years after it was released.
I cannot specify exactly what has kept me interested in computer-games; during school and other things it seemed to be the thing to “look forward to” when I was back at home. I believe it was an area where you could go into this space that was a retreat from the real world and also where my friends and I could discuss and invite each other to their houses, making this small community with similar interests – Video games.