The Past & Present
In my
previous entries, I have spoken about my early experience with video games. I
am quite excited that in this week’s video lecture we were able to take a look
at games and game interfaces of the past. The first thing that was discussed in
the lecture was Pong, a classic arcade game that was created way before I was
even born. It is something my uncle owned on his very old DOS computer and I would
often go and play it. To be honest, I never found the game very fun. We also
talked about Pac-man, a game that a lot of people still play today. It was the
first game to introduce joy sticks and give more than two directions of
movement and also one of the first maze games that existed for its time.
Pac-Man was also a very attractive game for its time because it really showed a
lot of vibrant colors and was quite addictive to build a high score for. The
first time I had ever played Pac-Man was when my father first bought my brother
and I a few floppy disc games such as Pac-Man, Gremlins, Pinball and Space
Invaders. I personally had an addiction to pinball and often dreamed as a kid
of having my very own pinball machine in our basement. Looking back upon this I
do not feel the same way.
Peripherals throughout the Ages
These games all had very basic
interfaces since they were played with the keyboard. I was not around much for
the joystick era of video games, until much later when I went to my first
arcade. The first time I had ever experienced arcade controls was when I played
the original Street Fighter at a local arcade, which I believed is closed down
now. I understand that this was in fact a console game at the time for both the
Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, but this was the first time. Console game
interfaces have always been my favourite, I’ve always enjoyed using a
controller as I have stated in my previous entries. The Nintendo Entertainment
System was the first system that I owned. I used to watch my older brother play
Super Mario Brothers 3 and occasionally join in and try and beat the levels
with him. This was sometimes an annoying process as we did not have the save
game system. I had never been able to finish games like Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles and I believe The Legend of Zelda. This changed later on with the
release of emulation. The NES controller was very basic and after a long period
of time I remember it being very uncomfortable and sharp. It was simple how
they only had two main action buttons and a D-pad. What’s interesting to me
about this is how that formula still exists today in the most current
generation of gaming whether it is the Wii Remote or even the Nintendo DS
handhelds. The only improvements would be the addition of more buttons. Super
Nintendo and Sega Genesis’s controller design was greatly improved when they
made the controllers curved. Both were much more comfortable and even had more
buttons. The Super Nintendo controller was something I had to adapt to since I was
obsessed with fighting games. Playing Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and learning
different combinations to perform special moods often left my thumbs in pain,
especially when trying to make a down-forward motion. I am somewhat ignoring
the development of both the Power Glove and The Zapper gun used in duck hunt,
simply because I did not own them. My thoughts on the Zapper Gun have me
questioning how Nintendo may have been able to create the Wii controls much
earlier. If you look at the Nintendo Wii today, playing shooting games feels
almost similar to the duck hunt controls. One peripheral that I really enjoyed
as a child was the Super Scope Bazooka gun available for the SNES. I would
spend hours on this game just because the peripheral was so cool, it came with
a scope and it rested on your shoulder.
Generation V
Following this came my personal favourite generation
of controllers, the fifth generation Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation
controllers were both in my opinion the best controllers of all time. The fifth
generation of gaming was remarkable since it first introduced the 3D graphics
that we were all impressed by during that time period. The Nintendo 64 game
pad, though it was extremely large and had many buttons was a personal favourite
of mine. The design in the controller’s look and feel was thought out very well
in terms of how you would hold it from two different “spikes” to use either the
D-pad or the newly introduced analog stick. The analog stick was a huge
improvement since a lot of people had to get used to moving in more than just 2
directions. Playing games such as Banjo-Kazooie and The Legend of Zelda series
fully implemented the use of all the buttons in a creative and comfortable
manner. My personal favourite was the Z-targeting system in the Zelda games.
One interesting feature that was also introduced later in the system’s life was
the vibration. In the Nintendo 64 game pad it was an add-on called “The Rumble
Pack” which was really big and heavy. The Playstation controller later
developed a version called the Dualshock which implemented the vibrations in
the controller itself and adding two analog sticks. The Sony controller is
still being used to this date, and although a lot of people do complain about
it comparing with the Xbox 360 gamepad, the Dualshock series to me is the best.
Generation VI & VII
When
the Nintendo Gamecube was developed, the company had also designed a new funny
looking controller, which was not as preferred by most gamers. The L and R
buttons were very large and sometimes uncomfortable to press, the Z-button was
in somewhat of an awkward position and The C buttons had now turned into a four
directional analog stick. A D-pad was also included in the controller but most
games had barely used it. It was at this time when the console gaming industry
had been taken over by three major companies, Sony, Nintendo and the newcomer
Microsoft. The Xbox gamepad was disliked by a lot of people that I grew up
with. I had never given it a chance due to its massive size and addition of odd
buttons. It was at this time that I had chosen the Playstation 2 controller
which was simply a modified version of the original Playstation Dualshock. The
strange thing about the sixth generation is that there were not that many
peripherals created for them. With this I mean products similar to the zapper
gun, power glove, super scope etc. The only one that I can personally remember
is the Dance Dance Revolution gamepad that was rarely available. If we take a
look at how much the human interaction with consoles today are we can analyze a
large amount of changes and improvements. Video games of today are not as
catered to controller based gamers as they were in the previous years, though
competitive players still prefer the controllers more. A new degree of
entertainment was reached when the seventh generation console Nintendo Wii
introduced its motion based controllers. There had not been a huge graphic
improvement with the system but its motion is what sold it. Players of all ages
and types were able to enjoy games such as Wii Sports and more recent titles
such as Just Dance.
Devices such as the Kinect and the Playstation Move were
also recently released in order to compete and join in on the motion era of
gaming. Today’s devices are heavily influenced by touchscreens, motion sensors
and even speech and camera recognition. It is interesting to see what the new
generation of consoles will bring to the table with gaming. Personally I prefer
the traditional controller style, though with the recent release of the WiiU, I
am slowly starting to enjoy the touch screen and multi feature aspect.
Image Citations
[Nintendo Controller Generations].Retrieved January 28,
2013, from: URL :( http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/2109125.jpg)
[Nintendo GameCube Controller].Retrieved January 28, 2013,
from: URL :( http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/nintendo/gameCube/controllerFront.jpg)
[Super Scope].Retrieved January 28, 2013, from: URL :( http://www.90smovies.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/super_scope.jpg)
[Wii Sports Advertisement].Retrieved January 28, 2013, from:
URL :( http://www.thedrive.net/funstuff/images/wii-sports-wallpaper_thumb.jpg)
[Wii U Zelda Tech Demo].Retrieved January 28, 2013, from: URL
:( http://static-imgs-acf.hereisthecity.com/20110721//112/wiiu_26488.jpg)
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