Ranked: The 10 best Star Wars games you can play today
While the original "Star Wars" film trilogy cemented the series' legacy, the videogames and books in the Star Wars extended universe helped ...
Early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a "Cathode ray tubeAmusement Device" was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992.[1] Inspired by radar display technology, it consisted of an analog device that allowed a user to control a vector-drawn dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which were drawings fixed to the screen.[2] Other early examples include: The Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain; OXO a tic-tac-toe Computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two, an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; Spacewar!, written by MITstudents Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen's on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961; and the hit ping pong-style Pong, a 1972 game by Atari. Each game used different means of display: NIMROD used a panel of lights to play the game of Nim,[3] OXO used a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe[4] Tennis for Two used an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court,[2] and Spacewar! used the DECPDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other.[5]
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In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game. It used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips.[6] The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green. Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the "Brown Box", it also used a standard television.[2][7] These were followed by two versions of Atari's Pong; an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity.[8] The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, spawning the video game industry.[9]
A flood of Pong clones eventually led to the video game crash of 1977, which came to an end with the mainstream success of Taito's 1978 shooter game Space Invaders,[10] marking the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games and inspiring dozens of manufacturers to enter the market.[10][11] The game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores.[12] The game also became the subject of numerous articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines, establishing video gaming as a rapidly growing mainstream hobby.[13][14] Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS (later known as Atari 2600), becoming the first "killer app" and quadrupling the console's sales.[15] This helped Atari recover from their earlier losses,[16] and in turn the Atari VCS revived the home video game market during the second generation of consoles, up until the North American video game crash of 1983.[17] The home video game industry was revitalized shortly afterwards by the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System,[18] which marked a shift in the dominance of the video game industry from the United States to Japan during the third generation of consoles.[19]
A number of video game developers emerged in Britain in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[20][21][22][23]
The term "platform" refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate.[24] The term "system" is also commonly used. The distinctions below are not always clear and there may be games that bridge one or more platforms. In addition to laptop/desktop computers and mobile devices, there are other devices which have the ability to play games but are not primarily video game machines, such as PDAs and graphing calculators.
PC
In common use a "PC game" refers to a form of media that involves a player interacting with a personal computer connected to a video monitor.[25] Personal computers are not dedicated game platforms, so there may be differences running the same game in different hardware, also the openness allows some features to developers like reduced software cost,[26] increased flexibility, increased innovation, emulation, creation of modifications ("mods"), open hosting for online gaming (in which a person plays a video game with people who are in a different household) and others.
Controllers
Video game can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game, the most common game controllers are keyboard and mouse for "PC games, consoles usually come with specific gamepads, handheld consoles have built in buttons. Other game controllers are commonly used for specific games like racing wheels, light guns or dance pads. Digital cameras can also be used as game controllers capturing movements of the body of the player.
As technology continues to advance, more can be added onto the controller to give the player a more immersive experience when playing different games. There are some controllers that have presets so that the buttons are mapped a certain way to make playing certain games easier. Along with the presets, a player can sometimes custom map the buttons to better accommodate their play style. On keyboard and mouse, different actions in the game are already preset to keys on the keyboard. Most games allow the player to change that so that the actions are mapped to different keys that are more to their liking. The companies that design the controllers are trying to make the controller visually appealing and also feel comfortable in the hands of the consumer.
An example of a technology that was incorporated into the controller was the touchscreen. It allows the player to be able to interact with the game differently than before. The person could move around in menus easier and they are also able to interact with different objects in the game. They can pick up some objects, equip others, or even just move the objects out of the players path. Another example is motion sensor where a persons movement is able to be captured and put into a game. Some motion sensor games are based on where the controller is. The reason for that is because there is a signal that is sent from the controller to the console or computer so that the actions being done can create certain movements in the game. Other type of motion sensor games are webcam style where the player moves around in front of it, and the actions are repeated by a game character.
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