Anyway, the "middle ages". By the middle ages I am referring to the 1980's - 90's of course. during this decade there was alot of development of the computer game front, mainly in the home. During this time, arcades became decreasingly popular and home computers became as good as their console counterparts.
The 80's saw Britain throwing their contribution into the ring in the form of the ZX Spectrum, which was the commodore 64's closest rival. Both were two of the oldest home consoles and, like today's generation, the old ones plugged into TV sets too. Unlike today's offerings though, the consoles of yester-year offered processing power of around 3.5MHz which is child's play compaired to a Playstation 3 for example, which is expected to have an atom bomb of a processor, clocking in at about 3.2GHz. Explosive.
Anyway, the first ever home computer game to be in 3D was called 3D Monster Maze on the Sinclair ZX81, while the first ever FMV was in a game called Dragon's Lair which was the first game produced on a laserdisk. A laserdisk was like a goddamn dinner plate, it was more like a frisbee than something you put inside a machine. Reaching sizes of 30cm (12 inches) and allowing for 30 to 60 minutes of recording time per side. You can give me a DVD over one of these behemoths any day, thank you!
Among others, like Electronic Arts, Lucasarts produced some damn fine games over this time span such as Sam and Max and the Monkey Island series. Although having never played these games myself, I hear great responses from people that have. I stick with Electronic Arts with their masterstroke, (you all saw it coming) Little Big Adventure though. ooooo yeah. I'm jumping the gun here as it was released in the 1990's but I don't care. I'll be mentioning it in the third installment of this assignment too so get over it.
The truely major releases in this decade were the NES (Famicom in Japan), Game Boy, SNES (SUPER Famicom in Japan. Inventive!) and the Megadrive (Genesis in the US). Some absolute classics were released on these consoles such as The Legend Of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario Brothers and of course, Sonic The Hedgehog. Also, the first Final Fantasy was released in this decade as a last resort for Squaresoft as they were running out of ideas and money to produce them. Lucky, the game was a breakthrough success, allowing them to make more epic titles over the coming years.
The consoles at this stage began using gamepads instead of the usual joysticks, keyboards and paddles which made for a much better control system.
The Nintendo GameBoy has had unprecedented success even though it wasn't as technologically advanced as others on the market such as Sega's Game Gear. Nintendo has since released many more variations of the handheld following it's release in 1989 in smaller and also more advanced forms (Gameboy Pocket, colour, advance,SP, Micro)
Not QUITE as small as I remember it...
Continuing my personal gaming history we move on from Ocarina of Time to another old favorite; Super Smash Bros. This game was an absolute classic. Never before had anyone had the chance to really pit Nintendo characters against each other in a no holds barred (not to my knowledge anyway). Once again, this was another game that I recieved at christmas, though not as hard to obtain than Zelda but a brilliant title to play.
Around this time our family must have also gotten our second computer to replace the now extremely dated Wndows 3.1 system. That's right, kids, we had reached Windows 98! *Cue over-dramatic power ballad and baywatch-esque scene with a computer*
Anyway, with this new computer came a whole new world of gaming. I don't know if anyone can remember the original Midtown Madness but it was fantastic. I saw it in game and found it goddamn impressive! I even went the full mile and got a steering wheel and pedals with a "Force Feedback" function. it was awesome (until a big Canadian man tore it right off the desk, breaking the clamp mechanism as he went. I jest not. Bloody Canadians).
At this time I had a 56k connection (as did most people around then) which charged so many pence per min. I broke the bank with Midtown Madness and trying to download the occasional song (I think the bill one month reached over £300) so I got my parents to get broadband as £30 a month is alot cheaper...plus it was fast...really fast...for then...
With my new connection I was able to play games such as Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (such an awesome game), Unreal Tournament, and Midtown Madness 2 (Couldn't resist...I even made a crappy website about it) with no problems. It was brilliant.
Soon enough, however, it seemed as though my gate to top-draw gaming on my PC was closing as specs became ever higher and my friends were playing Unreal Tournament 2003 while my machine struggled with the smallest levels on minimum detail...
On the console front, the PS2 I had gotten for my birthday was treating me fine and the GameCube that I had won from Channel 4 (that's right kids, let me see the jelousy :P) was keeping me very happy with Super Smash Bros. Melee and rogue squadron. They didn't think to send me a memory card though...hard nosed bastards...
COMING SOON...
Will Tom complete his collection of current generation consoles? Will he manage to get a new pc? What happens when he tries to wipe a hard drive? Will Sheela get back with Trent? Tune in next time to find out the answers to these questions and much, much more!...
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