Gaming vomit

My first gaming memory was playing the original Duke Nukem side-scroller on DOS my dad had borrowed off a work colleague. I remember begging him to set it up so i could play as i went into a trance watching all the colours and the lights i can't remember if i was any good at it and if i had'nt played it again recently, still good btw, i could'nt even tell you what any of the enemies looked like I just remember watching this man with blonde hair jumping around the screen the primitive 'w00p' from the pc speaker just increasing my trance-like state. Until one day when he 'accidently deleted it' although i still maintain he purposely did it because it was possibly affecting my school work - well look what im doing now H0H0 ironies...

I also have memories of the original Aladdin, before you could play it you had to input a random code from this huge code book, i never ever got past the second level though those monkeys on the second level where something else oh my yes. I have memories of various other games around that time but the order in which i first played them is muddled these includeded Missile Command, Doom and Worms.

I remember getting a megadrive, me and my sister spending hours playing sonic2 she was Tails i was Sonic racing each other to the finish or playing Micro Machines V2 learning every track oh and Dr Robotnik's mean bean machine - clearly a Puzzle Bobble rip off it was still fun especially when you triggered lots of beans. After that it was a Gameboy, several variations later im now considering replacing my imported original DS 'phatty' with a sleek Lite but anywho first gameboy game i had was Super Mario 6 golden coins and get this i've never owned or played tetris, pretty scary eh?

The first game i bought was the original Quake, i think i was about 12 at the time just walked in and bought it, truly those were the glory days before you got all this sensationalist media blaming games for all societies downfalls. If Doom before it triggered my interest for first person shooters Quake cemented it and my love for all things ID. I can still remember my next door neighbour, being more than a bit of a delicate flower, watching as i dodged zombies hurling there own rotting flesh at me before gibbing a shabmler in the most visceral way this side of any 80's gore flick, she then ran outside and threw up on our frontstep - truly if games could do that i thought it was worth sticking around to see what else i could play to make her throw up quite so much again

So did i really keep playing games as a conduit to watch children younger than me throw up? Well not entirely, games have always intrigued me like a less cocky film industry games are literally interactive stories wrapped in something unique to games - gameplay not restrained by money or audience interest or books linear one-dimensional, you read/watch it once you've already seen all it has to offer but with games its different you can decide where to go and what to do, its a cliche to say people like being in control but its one of the reasons im still playing. Ever increasing technology is also another reason while i continue playing each new release be it a console or graphics card or even new rendering technique brings the zenith of ultra realistic visuals ever closer to the player

After that i heavily uh 'invested my time' in fps games, playing everything from unreal tournament to Half life everything was an open book with no means of analysing there quality i jumped jumped from game to game before settling on the ones i liked. I've played so many FPS games its more a case of finding out the ones i haven't played. I've only ever owned 3 consoles megadrive, PS1 and gamecube but i've upgraded my PC countless times and can still remember my first graphics card, tnt2 woo! with the fan the size of a postage stamp nowadays there the same size as the card and seem to make more noise than a hoover ah well thats progress i guess.

Im currently playing through oblivion - still and Quake 3 - again, looking forward to Bioshock, Assasins Creed and any info on ID's new game

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....

1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann patent a 'Cathode-ray amusement device' this simulated a missile being fired at a target, probably inspired by radar displays used during World War II. Several knobs controlled the trajectory and speed of the missile toward a preset target, because onscreen graphics were not possible at the time targets were literally drawn on the screen by the technicians. The patent states under the first claim 'The game is of such a character that it requires care and skill in operating the device...skill can be increased with practice and the exercise of care contributes to sucess' these two factors, practice and skill are still relevant to games today.
Its hardly surprising war was used as an inspiration for the game, World War 2 had only just ended and the games similarities in both presentation and style, the oval screen bore a close resembalance to a radars screen and the fact the player tracked a missile to its target would be thrilling to the post-war world.

The second widely agreed game was OXO a digital game of noughts and crosses, this was written by A.S Douglas as an example of his thesis on human-computer interaction while studying at Cambridge University. Written for the archaic EDSAC one of the very first computers in 1952 the player could select where to place his/her nought/cross using a mechanical telephone dialer the computer would then play a game of noughts and crosses with the player. OXO is considered to be the very first graphical computer game, the device designed in 1947 relying on targets being physically drawn on to the display while EDSAC was equipped with a ridicuously high resolution cathode ray display of 35 x 16 pixels for displaying the game ( my word sarcasm on the internets...)
OXO was created in a environment of learning and education as an example of computer-human interaction, its interesting to note that one of the first computer games was simply a remake of one of the more recognizable games in the world with the same rules and restrictions of its real world counterpart. Douglas was exploring the different ways in which humans could interact with computers believing digital representations of traditional games to be one of the more interesting aspects.

This trend of using high end university mainframes for producing games continued to 1961 where a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created Spacewar! on the then new DEC PDP-1. The game is notable for being the first two player title with both players piloting a space ship capable of firing missiles. A black hole in the center created an obstacle for both players to avoid while they blasted at each other. Instead of OXO which was limited to Cambridge due to the low availability of the ESAC system, Spacewar! was packaged with every new DEC computer and is regarded as the first widely circulated computer game. Like the cathode-ray amusement device of 1947 clearly inspired by the new radar technology spacewar! was written during the height of the spacerace when rocketships and astronauts where very much in the public eye, games were fast becoming another means for people to imagine the impossible much the same with books or films.

As computers became increasingly smaller and cheaper mainframes became less and less necessary, this miniaturization was central to computers becoming introduced into homes with games also making the transition. Specialist games machines known as consoles where also developed allowing the game to be displayed on a regualr TV display - this split between computer and console games still exists today

Until 1969 games were limited to large corporations or Universities as curious little asides, now anyone could play these games at home using the Magnavox Odyssey plugged into a standard television set this was developed from a prototype from 1968 the magnavox was capable of playing a number of games through a removable circuit similar to a cartridge slot seen in later consoles. Colour overlays which stuck onto TV screens emulated colour graphics hearkening back to the original cathode-ray amusement device of 1947 when targets where physically drawn on the screen.
Although commercially it was a failure the magnavox had created a pathway for future consoles and companies to follow, 3 years later Atari released pong and sold 19,000 machines this 'console arms race' of ever increasingly powerful consoles continues up to today with next gen consoles all battling for a slice of the multi-billion dollar games industry pie.

Eaten alive by heroin

Blerugh, heres reaon enough to never even consider 'trying' heroin, specially if it can reduce a person to this

'Maybe its behind those Amazon packages?'

My laptop was scheleued to arrive today, well scheleued this time course it hasnt arrived. I scanned the list with all peoples names awaiting deliveries against there room numbers willing mine to be on there the best i could find was F. Cameron from F03 with bad writing that can quickly look like a T. Carter from A03. I went so far as to demand the hall manager rummage through all the parcels it slowly becoming apparent that perhaps my laptop was'nt hidden in all those Amazon dvd containers.
Whoever said the wait is better than the eventual event is wrong, horribly wrong they just hated themselves

Falling into Oblvion

Started playing Oblivion again, gah that game scares me you start it with the intention of playing through one or two quests and before you know it its past 4 in the morning and you slink to bed feeling very sad for spending more time in Tamriel, Skingrad all the way folks(!) than the real world. Im not sure what it is but there seems to be a sense of tangible reality to the whole thing its the way the guards turn to watch you as you stroll past, the random conversations npc's have over quests you've previously completed 'they say he closed the oblvion gate!' and the heavy use of spoken dialogue throughout the whole thing, im convinced the game would be nowhere as apealing if you had to read a block of text at the bottom of the screen each time. My only saving grace from eternal bedromdom is that is so demanding i can only just about run it on medium at the lowest resolution although my ruddy nevergonnaappear laptop should sort that out.