Arcades (Centralised areas built around games of any form) have existed since the 1920's, but did not feature video games until much later. Because this is about video games in arcades, these will not be considered.
The first video game cabinet to be publicly playable was The Galaxy Game, which was the first coin-operated machine made. It was installed on Stanford University campus. In the same year, Computer Space is sold commercially, being the first arcade game that can be owned by anyone willing to front the cash. In 1972 Pong was released, becoming the first commercial success. It also showed how popular sports games could be if played digitally.
In 1973, Taito Corp. released Astro Race, an early example of a racing game that used a basic four-way joystick controller. They then went on to follow up this with other notable releases in 1974, such as the sprite-based game Basketball and Speed Racer, which used a skewed perspective to give an illusion of distance.
In 1974, Taito released Interceptor, a game that was an example of an early FPS and flight simulator, controlled with an (advanced for the time) eight-way joystick. This scaled enemies in sight depending on distance to the player. This kind of technique is seen in a later classic, Space Harrier. Another innovative release from Taito was Western Gun, a two player shoot-em-up. This game made particular use of joysticks to make a multi-directional control mechanic, which make the game much more action-oriented when a second player joins. It was also the first to depict a firearm and a story with characters to progress through the narrative.
Later in the year, Midway MFG adapted and re-released Western Gun under the same of Gun Fight. This edition, whilst playing in exactly the same way, was one of the first to represent a step up in hardware used in cabinets; the microprocessor. This allowed for higher graphical fidelity and smoother animation.
1976 saw SEGA release Moto-Cross, a motorcycle racing game that used a handlebar controller in place of a joystick. The game used a similar scrolling method to newer games such as Super Hang-On to create track movement, but more interestingly is the use of haptic feedback in the controller that could make it vibrate when the player collided with something. They used some elements from Moto-Cross in Road Race, which played from the first person instead of third. Atari followed suit with Night Driver, which played in an identical fashion.
The standout release of this year is Breakout, which has famously spawned a plethora of clones, some such as Shatter would dare to expand on the concept. This year's final hardware advancement came from Cinematronics with Space Wars, a game that used a vector graphic display. This would be used in the Vectrex home console, which unfortunately came out at a time when Vector graphics weren't as popular.
The Golden age of gaming would start with Taito's Space Invaders in 1978, which was the world's first blockbuster game. It has influenced shooters since its inception, and has also gone through several make-overs over the years. It also was responsible for a sumoured shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan, something which was quickly debunked. SEGA also released Secret Base, which was the first to feature co-operative gameplay.
In 1979, Atari released the classic Asteroids which sold tremendously well in the United States, becoming Atari's best selling game of all time. Namco released Galaxian, a shoot-em-up that began the use of basic RGB colour values to set it apart from all before it. Nintendo then released Sheriff and Radar Scope, both doing something different. Sheriff used dual stick controls akin to Geometry Wars and Super Stardust, and Radar Scope used a 3-Dimensional third person perspective that Konami would go on to use in games like Juno Fist.
1980 saw Namco's biggest selling game, Pac-Man. It introduced staples of the industry such as cutscenes and mascots, as well as opened the pastime to a female audience. They also released King & Balloon, which was the first game to use dual-core processors and synthesised voices. They had another hit with Rally X, which was the first to have background music and scrolling in more than one direction. Another innovation was the DECO cassette system, which bacame a popular standard.
Nintendo kicked off 1981 with Donkey Kong, which kickstarted the platformer genre. It was also Mario's first appearance. SEGA released Eliminator, which was the first vector game to be played with four people. Konami pitched in with several titles; Scramble, Frogger and Basconian. Each did different things to the predecessors in their genres
1982 had the first use of Parallax scrolling in Moon Patrol from Irem. The inrecidlby popular Pole Position was released, along with SEGA's Star Trek, Konami's Time Pilot and Atari's Quantum, which respectively had highly intricate simulation levels, free-roaming gameplay and boosted hardware.
1983 saw the first 3d-polyon game I, Robot, as well as Bally Midway's Journey that used digitised sprites, and Dragon's Lair which seperated itself by using cel-animations. The most well-known release would be Star Wars, the vector re-creation of the attack on the Death Star.
16-bit processors were used frequently from 1984 onwards, resulting in better visual quality of games. Atari hit the JAMMA board running with Marble Madness and Paperboy, and Namco released Pac-Land, which went on to be very influential.
Atari released Gauntlet in 1985, and Gradius was released by Konami. Space Harrier was released, and Super Mario Brothers made its way into arcades from the Famicom. The perhaps first signs of modern soccer games was released, Tekhan World Cup, using a top-down perspective.
1986 was the year SEGA took the world by storm with Out Run, a game which has since been remade many times. Creeper was also released, which was the first use of blood and gore, which was met with heavy disdain from critics.
After the Golden Age, Namco relased Shadowland, and Tehnos Japan released Double Dragon, going on to become a massive hit and the bair raiser for brawler-style games in 1987.
1988 sees the first 32-bit processor game, NARC. In addition to this, Reikai Doushi is released, becoming the first claymation game. Assault was released by Namco, which utilises rotating and scaling of large sprites. Splatterhouse was also introduced, which made prolific yet suitable use of violence. Winning Run was brought out which made use of Namco's 3D Polygonizer technology. Tetris was abso brought to the scene in a coin-op setting.
In 1989, Hard Drivin' is released and is the second game to have 3D graphics. The industry is changed with Exterminator, sporting the highest quality digital sprites for a time. The 3D technology is reinforced ahead of the 2D mechanics with S.T.U.N Runner, which used 3D graphics in a high speed.
Capcom stands above the competition in 1991 with Street Fighter II, which revitalised competitive fighting games and built even more upon the standard Double Dragon set years before, this trend persisting with Mortal Kombat in 1992, and its own sequel in 1993. SEGA capitalised on the new interest with Virtua Fighter, expecting 3D graphics to help it stand out. They also released the most successful arcade game in existence, Daytona USA.
Killer Instinct is released in 1994, being the only game to have a hard disk. This allowed the rest of the budget to go towardsadding more to the game, making it the best use of the movie background technique.
Two years later, SNK release Metal Slug, sporting superb hand-drawn sprites, a slapstick sense of humour and two player action well suited to the revided side scrolling mechanics.
Dance Dance Revolutiuon is released in 1998, which would enjoy much success and many iterative releases.
In 1999 Rush 2049 is released, the last game to bear the Atari Games logo before the name change to Midway Games West and the cancellation of the coin-op production line.
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