Thursday, December 28, 2006

History of Video Games



Being an avid gamer (I'm currently in love with my Xbox 360 and PSP), it was interesting to read through a history of the gaming console. I stumbled upon it while browsing the wonderful world of the interweb waiting for some searches at work to finish. Being a "second generation" gamer, I missed out on all the initial consoles that were around well before I was born. Seeing some of the classics brings back so many memories of all the different systems I've played in my lifetime.

The first console my family had was an Atari 2600. I distinctly remember playing Combat a ton and being frustrated as hell by the abomination that was E.T. I also played a lot of Colecovision at my neighbor and friend, Karl's, house. There was some castle game and Q-bert that we played a bunch.

After those initial "old" consoles, the next one I had access to was the original NES that I bought after saving up an entire summer's farm chores allowance. It was amazing and our entire family (even my parents) played on that thing so much. No doubt that's why I find myself purchasing the Xbox arcade version of so many classic games.

Later on Karl bought a Sega Genesis while I bought a Super Nintendo. I didn't play the Genesis as much since none of the games Karl had really interested me outside of the oddly appealing Altered Beast. I spent most of my time on the SNES playing Super Baseball 2020 against my brother Randy.

Going for the Nintendo trifecta, my little brother, Ryan, got a Nintendo 64 after a good amount of prodding from his two older brothers. Truth be told, I think we wanted it more than him. I was slowly growing out of my gaming phase so I wasn't as interested in the N64 and didn't play much. I did play a bunch on Karl's Sega Saturn, however. It was pretty neat that my family was a Nintendo family and Karl's was a Sega family -- I got to experience both worlds.

Continuing down his Sega path, Karl purchased a Sega Dreamcast, which I eventually purchased well after he did. We'd play so much Soul Caliber and NFL 2K against each other and I'd always get my ass kicked. We also played a lot of NBA 2K with my team being the Indiana Pacers, his being the LA Lakers, and my brother Randy going with the Utah Jazz. Within my family, however, NFL Blitz was the game of choice along with Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

In my post Dreamcast days I only played computer games for a while. Eventually, however, my video game love returned to me and I threw down on an Xbox, loving every minute I played on it. And from there I migrated to my current darling, the Xbox 360.

Now that I think about it, that's a lot of video game history covered very briefly. I could write for days about the memories I have of playing video games with my family and friends! I wonder how long I'll keep playing? Hopefully until the day arthritis makes me retire my controller.

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