These are a handful of the most influential and important
games in the development of the games industry, though there are much, much
more. So in no particular order:
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Spacewars
One of the
earliest games made, created for use in MIT on the college computers in 1961,
it featured two ships on a black screen which could turn, move forward and
shoot. The object of the game was to shoot the other ship while avoiding the
star in the middle which pulled the ships towards it. The game had no colour or
any particularly interesting features bar the ability to teleport your ship
away from danger a few times during the game, yet it was extremely popular.
Even today if
you find a ported version online somewhere and give it a go yourself (which I
highly recommend to get a feel for what games went before today’s games, in
fact if you haven’t already you should definitely play all the games on this
list, even just for a few minutes.) and you can get it working, as the controls
are a little tricky to master at first, play against someone and you will still
enjoy it even 50 odd years later.
There are a few
reasons for its popularity when it was released first. Number one is no game
like it had been made before and it was a relatively simple concept to grasp
and play. Another is the theme. It was released during the space race so
anything to do with space and the great unknown was going to be popular at the
time.
-
Pong
Even if you’ve
never played it you’ve more than likely seen or heard of pong. Released by
Atari in the early 70’s pong was an extremely popular game which was played on
home consoles and in arcades alike. The game was ridiculously simple consisting
of two paddles which were just two lines of white squares, and a ball that
moved over and back, which was one square, and a “beep” sound when the paddle
hit the ball – and that was it. The whole game took a few days to code.
All you had to
do was move your paddle up or down to hit the ball and stop it going into the
goal behind you. Yet it became a craze and one of the most popular games of its
time with competitions being held in arcades and people everywhere playing it.
For one reason – it kept a score. It played on our human nature to be
competitive.
The game was so
simple that anyone could pick it up and play and all you had to rely on was
your reactions. This shows how important a tool adding a competitive edge to a
game can be, online leaderboards and multiplayer modes to games are all there
in modern day games for this reason.
-
Wolfenstein
3D
Wolf 3D was one
of the first FPS games released, and featured a “fake” 3D engine. The game
looked as if it had 3D models but this was only an effect. Yet the player could
move around and explore the areas in the game just as with subsequent FPS games.
The game featured an American soldier who has to escape from a Nazi stronghold.
This setting was quite controversial and the game was censored quite a bit.
The player
begins with a pistol and three lives and must try to escape the compound,
shooting enemies as you go. As you progress through different levels you rack
up points and find new weapons, unless your health drops to zero which results
in losing all ammo and weapons bar your pistol. In each level you could also
find treasure and extra lives.
Now on its own
that doesn’t seem all that impressive, but consider that this was one of the
first FPS games out, and even today a lot of games have lives, a score counter,
a variety of weapons for you to find etc. so it really set out the guidelines
for all future FPS games to follow.
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Zork
Zork is a text
based game. This means there are no images, no characters to look at, only text
to read. Now initially you may wonder how this could make an interesting game
to play, but consider a book, the readers imagination makes the book come
alive. Much is the same for text based games, you have a limited amount of
controls you type in, for example go west, pick up lamp, open door etc. with
the game only reading designated commands.
This type of game is not as common nowadays as
it was when Zork was originally released, but text based adventures are still
being made today, at a whole new level and I recommend anyone reading this to
at least give one a try. What Zork did so well was it showed how engrossing you
could make the most basic of settings if the player could interact with a
variety of objects and use them in interesting ways to progress to the next
area. The only way of getting through Zork was to think outside the box.
Go to this site
below for a good introduction to some modern text based games (or interactive
fiction) or to play Zork if you so wish.
-
Super
Mario Bros.
 |
Super Mario is
possibly one of the most well recognised names in the games industry, I can
nearly guarantee if you’re reading this now you have at least heard the name if
you haven’t played any of the games (which is unlikely). Super Mario Bros was
first released in 1985 by Nintendo, and subsequent games (Super Mario Bros 2
and 3, and Super Mario World) were all largely the same apart from a few extra
features and slight improvements in graphics.
The game is a
side-scrolling platformer that puts you in control of Super Mario, the small
Italian plumber who must pass through the levels in front of him to get to his
nemesis Bowser and rescue Princess Peach. Each level see’s Mario jumping from
platform to platform, avoiding or jumping on a variety of different enemies and
manoeuvring through obstacles. There are also boxes to hit which can give you
coins which you collect to get an extra life, or mushrooms which make you
bigger and stronger and a flower which lets you shoot fireballs, with the next
games in the series adding a few new power ups.
And that’s it.
However the gameplay is fast paced and fun and in the more difficult levels can
get quite hectic, but in a gradual way, so you can complete the earlier levels
and improve as it gets harder and harder. Also there is a nice variety of
levels including underwater, underground, cloud levels, and each one
(particularly in 3 and World) are beautifully drawn despite the basic graphics.
The main positive about this game though is that it’s fun. Even today I could
happily pick it up and spend a few hours of my afternoon happily playing away.
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| Super Mario World |
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Final
Fantasy VII
This has been critically acclaimed as one
of the best RPG games ever released.
Gamefan mag called it “quite possibly the
greatest game ever made”
IGN said “The RPG by which all others are to be measured, FFVII is a
cinematic wonder”
Released
in 1997 by SquareSoft (now known as SquareEnix) this game introduced the RPG
format to Europe and really set the standard of what could be done.
Final Fantasy
VII (FFVII) is an RPG that puts the player in control of a band of rebel
soldiers who are fighting against the corruption in their city and against a
bloodthirsty company that is damaging the earth. The game uses a turn based
system, where you pick a move (or attack) for a character, and then have to
wait for a bar to fill up before you can choose another action for that same
character, but fighting flows quite well. In the game you use “materia” orbs
which grant different abilities and powers to customise each person and fight
how you want to, and the combat is quite fun and can be very tactical and
challenging at times, keeping you on your toes.
The graphics do
certainly leave a lot to be desired, even for their time they were not
fantastic, but FFVII makes up for it in how it makes you feel. Every character
is really fleshed out and you get a really good impression of their
personality, everyone has a back story and you learn about everyone which is
impressive for a game that has no voice acting in it. You can relate to the
characters and they mean something to you in the story, and it is the story
that is one of the game’s strongest aspects, it is told beautifully and keeps
you hooked the whole way through with plenty of twists and surprises.
The main
character, Cloud as well as trying to save the planet, has to deal with his
relationship with the people around him and his own dubious past. There are
also sub plots going on the whole way through the game and it really ties
everything well together. Few games have engrossed me as much into the story of
a game.
Also you can
explore a huge game world with plenty of hidden surprises and extra activities
to keep you busy, and every area feels unique and distinctive in its own way.
This is helped in part to the music which sets the tone for each region and
event in the game and is an example of how important music can be in a game.
Try finding some of the music from the game and just listening to it and seeing
what kind of mood it sets.
So if you haven’t
played this gem of a game yet I highly recommend doing so if you are any way a
fan of RPG games.
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