Games that have touched my life
In the 30 years of my life I've seen the rise of computer game industry. Here's a list of games and what I generally think of them.
List items
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1. Spacewar!
Possibly the first of computer games, introducing the basic idea of early games ie. "playing versus". Spaceships shooting projectiles at each other was unique, exciting and still is. And its a scifi-fantasy with the middle planet or without.
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2. Asteroids
First contact: Windows 3.11 era windows-game. This had a single player mode, -kind of- and it counted played games. While being reflex-based, a smallest strategy element could be seen in eliminating smaller asteroids before the large ones to get a safer environment.
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3. Space Invaders
The early arcade games showed many space themed games. This was simply because the early screen type would "burn" easily with light or color of any kind. The black "space" was already there. Space Invaders had hostiles and a time limit due to them.
The recent iteration on Xbox360 is a great if noisy game. It even includes multiplayer.
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4. Pong
I never really got into this. The game is too simple to excite me on any level. Sure, it's a piece of history but history isn't always interesting.
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5. Pac-Man
Pac-Man was a kind 3d-hit on C64 for me. I still recall that great music on SID-chip. Pac-Man introduced playing against tracking enemies, the first A.I.-enemies in a way.
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6. Zork
Infocom made many great text-based games. Zork introduced the idea that game needn't be a graphic novelty with animation though it could be argued that none of the early games were graphically impressive. They were technology demos all-round, but they played well.
Zork had wits and wordplay, with strength in content.
Legendary quote: "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here."
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7. Galaga
Even the early games copied each other and this was "the Space Invaders -clone". Adding to that, it had many different enemy types (in multiple colors) and levels - a nice and variable experience compared to the monotony of Space Invaders. I tried this on NES.
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8. Donkey Kong
Jumpman's first game. Special weapon or rather powerup was a first. This game had a human figure fighting the monster to rescue another human. As such it had the "knight-hero" archetype nailed.
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9. Ultima
Ultima series begun the rise of better graphics and a visual inventory/equipment. Click'n fight -interface in the latter releases was essential to many coming genres. I only played VII and Serpent Isle from beginning to end.
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10. Joust
Joust has that "fighting on a single screen" with these flying birds (ostriches?) and jousting. Maybe it introduced a pinch of crazy into gaming. Maybe the mount-birds are a prequel to Chocobos.
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11. Dig Dug
The concepts of exploding enemies with pumping them full (of air, I guess) or crushing them to pieces with falling boulders were violent. The enemies were probably sentient but still you weren't killing humans.
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12. Pitfall!
This could be considered a licence game for The Raiders of the Lost Ark. Action-adventure in a trapped jungle that was new. This one I didn't play that much and it hardly seems worth the trouble to try an emulator.
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