A Computer Game Memoir
08.12.2002
"Games lubricate the body and the mind."
-Benjamin Franklin
This short essay is not necessarily a history of computer gaming; many of the facts may be wrong! Instead, this is a personal memoir of video games and therefore the facts are only as I remember them.
I've been playing video games, to various degrees, since a small child during the 1970's. You could say that I am part of the video game generation, not that my generation played video games as much as say the current one does, but we were perhaps the first generation to grow up with video games as a pastime.
The first 'video games' that I remember playing, way back when in the 1970's, were games such as Hunt The Wumpus, Chess and a Star Trek strategy game. Though over the years there have been many versions and variations of these computer games, the games were originally played not on a video monitor, but on a machine called a TeleType. In my case, the TeleType was hooked up to a huge mainframe computer via modem, though they could (as I recall) be hooked up directly to the mainframe as well. Instead of a screen, the TeleType showed updates by printing out changes onto a long roll of paper! Thus, everytime you made a move in Hunt the Wumpus, for example, the TeleType had to print out that move, and every time the Wumpus (a fictional monster) made a move, it had to print out that move, too. The TeleType was so called because it had a built in 'sock' style modem that had to connect to the phone line via the handset of an old rotary style phone (the data was transferred by actual sound in and out of the handset, oddly enough). The reason this style of modem was used wasn't due to a problem with technology like you might think but was due to the telecommunications regulations at the time, which stated that - by national law - nothing but a "Ma Bell" telephone could be connected directly to a phone line! Regardless of that foolishness, it could be said, therefore, that this was one of the first 'online' games.
Like everyone else in my generation (at least most guys - I'm not being sexist, just truthful), I spent countless hours (and countless quarters) playing such video arcade games as Pac Man, Asteroids, Defender, Space Invaders, Galaxia, Tailgunner, Missile Command and the like. These games were simple, the earliest of which often employing only two colors (many in black and white) to render the game, but they were highly enjoyable and quite addictive - and they didn't resort to the "insert another coin for more life" money making strategy of more modern games (starting, I believe, with the classic Gauntlet).
Also like many but definitely not a majority of others of my generation, my family owned an Atari 2600 model game console, which when it first came out was pretty much the only console game system in existence as I recall. With simple games such as Pong and Combat, both of which came standard with the console, Atari made a bold step into a brand new arena of consumer entertainment products - indeed it was Atari that brought gaming off the mainframe, the domain of programmers, and into the living room. It had another advantage over mainframe games and most arcade games, and that was that the console came with two controllers, so that you weren't forced to play against the computer, but could play against another player! While the graphics were extremely blocky (but only in retrospect), the play value of most of the games was great. Over time other cartridges became available, many of which were Atari versions of arcade games, such as Asteroids and Defender. Many of these later games tended to be more advanced, pushing the limits of the 2600's abilities. Indeed, it is ironic that one of the most famous and addicting video games of all time, Pac Man, ended up sounding the death knell of the 2600, for after a year or so of hype and much fanfare, Atari released their version of Pac Man... and much to the chagrin of those poor souls who pre-ordered the game cartridge for around $50 to $100, Atari's Pac Man was terribly done, due mostly to the technological limitations of the 2600 machine. But as Atari stumbled, Mattel (Intelevision) and Coleco (Colecovision) were there to pick up the peices (and Atari's fleeing customers). Later attempts by Atari to regain the console and TV-screen computer market failed, and they have since become a fairly successful video game publishing company.
At some point my parents bought me a Texas Instruments Ti/99-4a Computer System for Christmas, which was one of the first keyboard-equipped computers that used your television as a monitor. As with almost any computer ever, among the other types of programs that were available for it were games. Nearly as expensive as a low end PC computer system today, it used program cartridges (similar to the Atari 2600 game cartridges) to load and run programs, and a simple cassette-tape recorder to store user created data (no, really!) such as programs, saved games, etc. Games for this computer ranged from simple text based 'adventure' games, such as the aptly named "Adventure" series, to a Dungeons & Dragons style game called Tunnels of Doom. Though Zork, a text based game, would probably be considered the first 'role playing' computer game, as far as actual video games go, Tunnels of Doom was a precursor to MANY games now available, and it developed several paradigms (it is interesting to note, however, that both Zork and Tunnels of Doom, like so many other games since, were heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons). With its top-down view, turn based combat sequences Tunnels of Doom is truly the grandfather of such strategy and roleplaying games as Civilization and older D&D turn-based games, not to mention more modern real-time strategy and roleplaying games such as Age of Empires, Diablo, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. This is not to mention that with its 3D navigation between 'rooms' in the games tunnels, it perhaps could be considered the grandfather of the first person 3D shooters genre, reprented by the likes of Castle Wolfenstein, Doom!, Quake, etc. (As a side note, it was also on the Ti/99 that I had my first real exposure to programming.)
At one point, at about the time Apple first introduced most of the world to point and click interface, my parents bought an Apple IIe computer system. It was on this that I played such interesting games as Lode Runner and Choplifter. While the computer's main screen was a high-tech black background with green text characters, the computer also had a TV-out jack, which produced what was probably 16 color graphics. The computer had no hard drive (everything ran off of 8.5 inch floppy disks), sported 16k of memory, and cost more than most modern laptops.
In the early 1990s I finally scraped up enough money to purchase my first IBM-compatible style computer. Not too long after that DOOM! came out as a shareware program distributed via FTP sites and bulletin board system (BBS) services (at the time, the Internet had been heard of only by college professors and some students, and the Web was still a fledgling technology). In order to play this most excellent game I upgraded my 486/50mhz system from 4MB of RAM to 8MB, at a cost of $160 (you can, at the time of this writing, purchase a 128MB stick of RAM for approximately $40). Since then I've upgraded my computer system many times, mostly in order to play computer games, sadly enough. This of course has included other more advanced '3D Shooters' as time has gone on, such as the various other games id Software has created, including DOOM II, the Quake series, Half-Life and Counter-Strike. But my gaming hasn't been restricted to just 3D Shooters. Early on, at about the same time DOOM! was around there were other classic games such as Sim City, Civilization, Duke Nukem (first the 2D 'side scrollers' and later the 3D titles), and Commander Keen. More recently such titles as the Aliens vs Predator series, the Age of Empires series, Operation Flashpoint and even the Sims have caught my interest.
As of this writing my current focus is on the game Neverwinter Nights, based on the 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. I am, however, EAGERLY awaiting id Software's up and coming third installment in their DOOM! series (aptly named Doom 3), which promises to be quite a ride.
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