Avid video gamers in Roodepoort unite for it is Video Game Day and time to show your skills.
Whether your goal for today is to break your personal record, get to the highest level, play a marathon with your friends or simply try out a new game, make sure you’re celebrating Video Game Day.
These days video games can be amazingly realistic and are at our fingertips, being easily accessed from gaming consoles, tablets and smartphones. But have you ever stopped to think about the long way video games have come? Here is a brief history:
1940: A computer is designed that plays the traditional game Nim in which players avoid picking up the last matchstick. Tens of thousands of people play and the computer wins 90 per cent of the games.
1950s: This decade sees the creation of OXO (also known as Noughts and Crosses), Computer Checkers, Computer Chess and a military game, called Hutspiel, where red and blue players age war on each other.
1960s: The 1960s sees the birth of Spacewar! by Steve Russell. It is the first computer based video game.
1970s: Odessey, the first video game system is released. So is Maze Wars (a first person shooter), Space Invaders (the arcade game) and Atari 2600, a TV video game system which featured a joystick, interchangeable cartridges, games in colour, switches for selecting games and difficulty levels.
1980s: The 1980s was the time of Pac-man, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong (featuring Mario), Tetris, Legend of Zelda and the Gameboy.
1990s: Microsoft bundles the card game, Solitaire, into its Windows 3.0. Sonic the Hedgehog is born, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is released, the Sony Playstation makes it’s debut and Lara Croft becomes the famous Tomb Raider.
2000s: This decade sees the arrival of The Sims and the X-Box. Wii gets players off the couch with its interactive games and social games such as Farmville as well as mobile games such as Angry Birds change the gaming industry.
Present day: Today we move into the age of augmented reality. We also see games such as Gone Home, The Last of Us and Paper, Please which usher in a new wave of mature video game stories where players are confronted with tough emotional choices in ethically complex worlds.
Which video game will you play today?
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