when video games first began being more commercially available in the early 1970s with games such as Computer Space and Pong. Simplistic games with one objective were heavily played in peoples homes. Pong was simply a tennis type game with two players or one against a computer aiming to score points by shooting the ball passed the other players paddle.
Throughout the 70s and 80s Arcade games began to pop up with memorable classics such as
Space Invaders
Asteroids
Donkey Kong
Dragon's Lair
Super Mario Brothers
Duck Hunt
Metroid
Tetris
MegaMan
Prince of Persia
These games ring bells in any gamers heads and have been relentlessly revamped with sequels and special editions, and also been ported to countless consoles.
Eventually leading games into the realm of portable gaming.
a lot of these classics from the 70s and 80s were released on the Nintendo's Gameboy which was released late 1989 early 1990 over the world.
Games such as Tetris and Super Mario Land launched the console, and today with mobile gaming games truly have become a part of every day life, gaining time from commuters who have lengthy rides into work.
Graphics and the overall feel of games has been consistently changing too, not only does the look of the game increase interest to those who would otherwise not be interested in games, but it also determines the leading genre's for current games.
for example when i was younger and gameboy colour had just came out platform games were all the rage, also with the playstation 1 and nintendo 64 starting to experiment with 3d gaming platformers such as Spyro the Dragon, Croc Legend of the Gobbos, Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider were very big games. Now days however the platforming genre has dwindled.
with graphics advancing so much as well as the console's power and ability cinematic and sandbox games are very popular today, with games closing the line between film and game quite rapidly.
OH and i almost forgot, another catalyst for the evolution of games is the actual controls, which dictate what sort of games can be made,
but it seems the market is shifting again to have screens inside our controllers as well... which has been done before with the psp and gameboy being able to be connected to ps3 and gamecube respectivly and add another element of gameplay. but now the base controller for nintendos next console is going to have a screen.
Who knows where games are going next? with things like augmented reality becoming more of a well... reality the line between real life and gaming is just going to get smaller and smaller until it seems no longer existent!
