Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Brief video game history 1980's-1990's


The golden age of arcade video games reached its zenith in the 1980s. The age brought with it many technically innovative and genre-defining games developed and released in the first few years of the decade, including:

Action-adventure game: The Legend of Zelda (1986).
Action role-playing games: Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985) is considered the first full-fledged action role-playing game.
Adventure games: Zork (1980) further popularized text adventure games in home computers.
Beat 'em up: Karateka (1984), with its pioneering rotoscoped animation, and Kung-Fu Master (1984).
Cinematic platformer: Prince of Persia (1989) was the first cinematic platformer.
Computer role-playing video games: Akalabeth (1980) was created in the same year as Rogue (1980).
Console role-playing video games: Dragon Warrior (1986), developed by Yuji Horii, was one of the earliest role-playing video games.
Fighting games: Karate Champ (1984), Data East's action game, is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fighting game genre.
Hack and slash: Golden Axe (1988).
Interactive movies: Astron Belt (1983), an early first-person shooter, was the first Laserdisc video game in development.
Platform games: Space Panic (1980). Donkey Kong (1981), an arcade game created by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer. This game also introduced Mario, an icon of the genre. Mario Bros. (1983).
Scrolling platformers: Jump Bug (1981), Alpha Denshi's platform-shooter, was the first platform game to use scrolling graphics.
Scrolling shooters: Defender (1980) established the use of side-scrolling in shoot 'em ups, offering horizontally extended levels.
Isometric platformer: Congo Bongo (1983), developed by Sega, was the first isometric platformer.
Isometric shooter: Zaxxon (1982) was the first game to use isometric projection.
Light gun shooter: The NES Zapper was the first mainstream light gun. The most successful lightgun game was Duck Hunt (1984), which came packaged with the NES.
Maze games: Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right.
Platform-adventure games: Metroid (1986) was the earliest game to fuse platform game fundamentals.
Racing games: Turbo (1981), by Sega, was the first racing game with a third-person perspective, rear-view format.
Rail shooter: Astron Belt (1983) was an early first-person rail shooter.
Real-time strategy: Herzog Zwei (1989) is considered to be the first real-time strategy game, predating the genre-popularizing Dune II.
Run & gun shooters: Hover Attack (1984) for the Sharp X1 was an early run & gun shooter that freely scrolled in all directions and allowed the player to shoot diagonally as well as straight ahead.
Rhythm game: Dance Aerobics was released in 1987, and allowed players to create music by stepping on Nintendo'sPower Pad peripheral. It has been called the first rhythm-action game in retrospect.
Stealth games: 005 (1981), an arcade game by Sega, was the earliest example of a stealth-based game. Metal Gear (1987),
 developed by Hideo Kojima, was the first stealth game in an action-adventure framework, and became the first commercially successful stealth game.
Survival horror: Haunted House (1981) introduced elements of horror fiction into video games. Sweet Home (1989) introduced many of the modern staples of the survival horror genre. Gameplay involved battling horrifying creatures and solving puzzles. Developed by Capcom, the game would become an influence upon their later release Resident Evil (1996).
Vehicle simulation games: Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. Elite (1984), designed by David Braben and Ian Bell, ushered in the age of modern style 3D graphics. The game contains convincing vector worlds, full 6 degree freedom of movement, and thousands of visitable planetary systems. It is considered a pioneer of the space flight simulator game genre.
Visual novels: The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983), was the first visual novel and one of the earliest Japanese graphic adventure games.
Home Gaming Computers
Following the success of the Apple II and Commodore PET in the late 1970s, a series of cheaper and incompatible rivals emerged in the early 1980s. This batch included the Commodore VIC-20 and 64; Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum; NEC PC-8000, PC-6001, PC-88 and PC-98; Sharp X1 and X68000; and Atari 8-bit family, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, and MSX series.
Although the industry of video games was going from  strength to strength at the end of 1983 the industry experienced losses more severe than the 1977 crash. This was the "crash" of the video game industry, as well as the bankruptcy of several companies that produced North American home computers and video game consoles from late 1983 to early 1984. It brought an end to what is considered to be the second generation of console video gaming.
In 1985, the American Video Game Console market was revived with Nintendo’s release of its 8-bit console, the Famicom, known outside Asia as Nintendo Entertainment System(NES). It was bundled with Super Mario Bros. and instantly became a success. The NES dominated the North American and the Japanese market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s.
The 1990s were a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from raster graphics to 3D graphics and gave rise to several genres of video games including first-person shooter,real-time strategy, and MMO.
In 1993, Atari re-entered the home console market with the introduction of the Atari Jaguar. Also in 1993, The 3DO Company released the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer.
In 1994, three new consoles were released in Japan: the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, and the PC-FX, the PlayStation quickly outsold all of its competitors, with the exception of the aging Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1996 Capcom released Resident Evil, the first well known survival horror game.
It was a huge success selling over 2 million copies and is considered one of the best games on the PlayStation. Another major game and console would be the Nintendo 64 (1996) and the release of Goldeneye 007 (1997)
, which is considered one of the first major first person shooter that was exclusive to a console.
Finally in 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64 and is widely considered the highest critically acclaimed game of all time.
In conclusion the ‘middle’ history of computer games was –apart from the crash of 1977-
 one of innovation and dramatic change to the industry that enabled companies to produce much more visually pleasing and complex levels within affordable home console systems that resulted in the ‘boom’ of the industry of the era and such iconic names like Playstation and Nintendo 64.
The changes in videos games in just one decade were phenomenal between the 80-90’s moving past and beyond  8 and 16bit technology to 64bit,  the first CD-ROM drives were first seen in 1988 and 3D graphics entered into mainstream hands.
Many of the features and conventions of modern game genres were also laid out within this time through games like Zelda and Goldeneye, Super Mario and Final Fantasy.
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