Gaming Days
This Blog is going to be somewhat of a trip down memory lane for me. I will be looking at the history of games, or more to the point my history of games.
I am a thirty year old male from the midlands area and come from a family of five, my name is Jon King.
My gaming history started when my uncle gave me a console called a ‘Binatone’, an antique by today’s standards but nevertheless a console all the same. My mum struggled to provide for five children back in the eighties, but did her best as my mother and father had split up. The chances of me ever getting a computer were pretty slim as money wasn’t as easy to come by back then.
So I finally had my first console, a delight for any child, and proceeded to take over my mothers TV. The console consisted of two control pads that were situated on either side of the console with built in slots. When you wanted to use the pads they simply pulled out. The games for this console were built in to the system and consisted of Football, Tennis, Ice hockey and Basketball, in either single player or two player modes.
The games on this system were essentially ‘pong’ style games with ‘pong’ being one of the games on there. These games provided me with many hours of fun and irritation, as many of the old games were.
Having had a taster of games I wanted more. My next memories of consoles and games was the ‘Atari 400’, another antique but a more satisfying console to that of the ‘Binatone’ and again a hand-me-down from family. This console played some of the classic games also, such as ‘Pac-man’ ‘Donkey Kong’ and ‘Missile Command’. It was a sturdy, ugly looking machine but again a pleasurable point it time, in terms of game playing, for me.
Being a typical child, I wasn’t satisfied for long and because I had to wait until Christmas for a new console I had to make do with going to friends houses and playing on their computers. I spent a lot of time dreaming about my next computer and its games, the joys of coming from a large family! Maybe it’s this desire that has fuelled my passion for creating. Some of my friend’s computers were the ‘Amstrad’ with its green screen monitor, the ‘ZX Spectrum’ and the ‘Commodore 64’. To be honest most of these were crap, for what of a better word but all played their part in my own little history of gaming. I still remember going to my mates and playing ‘Double Dragon’ on his ‘ZX Spectrum’, it must of taken an hour to load and because of the technology back then, if it crashed, you would have to load it all again. Did I mention that the games came on tapes as well?
For some reason I never wanted to own one of these computers.
The first console that my mother, bless her, could afford to buy me was the ‘Atari 2600’. Now the ‘Atari’ was, for me, the beginning of the real console era. It came packed in a gigantic box and when opened it was this little tiny slim black console. Nevertheless the games that came with it were great, giving me hours of fun. Games like ‘Centipede’ ‘Space Invaders’ ‘Q-Bert’ ‘Marble Madness’ and ‘Paper boy’.
During this time the Arcade games industry was probably at its peak. Arcade galleries were popping up all over the place and one of my favourite places to play on Arcade machines was at the local fair ground. Every year, twice a year, if we were lucky the fair would come into our small town and I and my friends would get to go and play on the varying latest machines which they had brought with them. Even now it seems like those summers went on forever, but at the time I remember it feeling like the fair was only there for five minutes. However these days were sort lived as the emergence of ‘Sega’ and ‘Nintendo’ started the ‘console wars’.
Even though these two companies had been around for some time, it wasn’t until around the time of the release of the ‘Master System’ and the ‘NES’ that the console wars seemed to begin. I myself was lucky enough to have owned a ‘Sega Master System’ and several of its classic games such as ‘Desert strike’, ‘Micro machines’, ‘Mortal combat’, ‘Sonic the hedge hog’, ‘Road rash’ and many more.
At the beginning of the nineties the demise of the arcades began. This was due to the introduction to the home of consoles such as the ‘Mega drive’ and the ‘SNES’. The graphics and games had become as good as the ones in cabinets in the Arcades. I owned a ‘Mega drive’ and a ‘SNES’ and most of the top games that went along with them.
For me in my early teens, these consoles became a way of socialising with my mates, amongst other things, with multiplayer games like ‘Micro machines’ and ‘Street fighter’ we had endless battles against each other. I think that online gaming of today is a good concept but it has taken away the essence of multiplayer gaming with your friends there to enjoy it on a more personal level. Even though you can talk to your mates online and even though you can still ridicule the loser, multiplayer gaming has lost some of its character. Most of today’s games aren’t even two players. The design has forced us into online game playing.
My gaming experience went on to cross paths with all of the consoles to follow these, up to the present day, loving every minute of it playing some great games and some poor games along the way. Some of my favourite game at present is titles such as ‘Far Cry 2’ and ‘Assassins Creed’. I do believe that our next generation of games can be truly beautiful at times I just wish that they had more of the playabilities of some of our classic games.
This Blog is going to be somewhat of a trip down memory lane for me. I will be looking at the history of games, or more to the point my history of games.
I am a thirty year old male from the midlands area and come from a family of five, my name is Jon King.
My gaming history started when my uncle gave me a console called a ‘Binatone’, an antique by today’s standards but nevertheless a console all the same. My mum struggled to provide for five children back in the eighties, but did her best as my mother and father had split up. The chances of me ever getting a computer were pretty slim as money wasn’t as easy to come by back then.
So I finally had my first console, a delight for any child, and proceeded to take over my mothers TV. The console consisted of two control pads that were situated on either side of the console with built in slots. When you wanted to use the pads they simply pulled out. The games for this console were built in to the system and consisted of Football, Tennis, Ice hockey and Basketball, in either single player or two player modes.
The games on this system were essentially ‘pong’ style games with ‘pong’ being one of the games on there. These games provided me with many hours of fun and irritation, as many of the old games were.
Having had a taster of games I wanted more. My next memories of consoles and games was the ‘Atari 400’, another antique but a more satisfying console to that of the ‘Binatone’ and again a hand-me-down from family. This console played some of the classic games also, such as ‘Pac-man’ ‘Donkey Kong’ and ‘Missile Command’. It was a sturdy, ugly looking machine but again a pleasurable point it time, in terms of game playing, for me.
Being a typical child, I wasn’t satisfied for long and because I had to wait until Christmas for a new console I had to make do with going to friends houses and playing on their computers. I spent a lot of time dreaming about my next computer and its games, the joys of coming from a large family! Maybe it’s this desire that has fuelled my passion for creating. Some of my friend’s computers were the ‘Amstrad’ with its green screen monitor, the ‘ZX Spectrum’ and the ‘Commodore 64’. To be honest most of these were crap, for what of a better word but all played their part in my own little history of gaming. I still remember going to my mates and playing ‘Double Dragon’ on his ‘ZX Spectrum’, it must of taken an hour to load and because of the technology back then, if it crashed, you would have to load it all again. Did I mention that the games came on tapes as well?
For some reason I never wanted to own one of these computers.
The first console that my mother, bless her, could afford to buy me was the ‘Atari 2600’. Now the ‘Atari’ was, for me, the beginning of the real console era. It came packed in a gigantic box and when opened it was this little tiny slim black console. Nevertheless the games that came with it were great, giving me hours of fun. Games like ‘Centipede’ ‘Space Invaders’ ‘Q-Bert’ ‘Marble Madness’ and ‘Paper boy’.
During this time the Arcade games industry was probably at its peak. Arcade galleries were popping up all over the place and one of my favourite places to play on Arcade machines was at the local fair ground. Every year, twice a year, if we were lucky the fair would come into our small town and I and my friends would get to go and play on the varying latest machines which they had brought with them. Even now it seems like those summers went on forever, but at the time I remember it feeling like the fair was only there for five minutes. However these days were sort lived as the emergence of ‘Sega’ and ‘Nintendo’ started the ‘console wars’.
Even though these two companies had been around for some time, it wasn’t until around the time of the release of the ‘Master System’ and the ‘NES’ that the console wars seemed to begin. I myself was lucky enough to have owned a ‘Sega Master System’ and several of its classic games such as ‘Desert strike’, ‘Micro machines’, ‘Mortal combat’, ‘Sonic the hedge hog’, ‘Road rash’ and many more.
At the beginning of the nineties the demise of the arcades began. This was due to the introduction to the home of consoles such as the ‘Mega drive’ and the ‘SNES’. The graphics and games had become as good as the ones in cabinets in the Arcades. I owned a ‘Mega drive’ and a ‘SNES’ and most of the top games that went along with them.
For me in my early teens, these consoles became a way of socialising with my mates, amongst other things, with multiplayer games like ‘Micro machines’ and ‘Street fighter’ we had endless battles against each other. I think that online gaming of today is a good concept but it has taken away the essence of multiplayer gaming with your friends there to enjoy it on a more personal level. Even though you can talk to your mates online and even though you can still ridicule the loser, multiplayer gaming has lost some of its character. Most of today’s games aren’t even two players. The design has forced us into online game playing.
My gaming experience went on to cross paths with all of the consoles to follow these, up to the present day, loving every minute of it playing some great games and some poor games along the way. Some of my favourite game at present is titles such as ‘Far Cry 2’ and ‘Assassins Creed’. I do believe that our next generation of games can be truly beautiful at times I just wish that they had more of the playabilities of some of our classic games.
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