The Evolution of Personal Computing and Gaming...From My Point of View

The Evolution of Personal Computing and Gaming...From My Point of View

By Joseph Morin

   Twenty years ago if you would have told me that we would be using phones and tablets to do our everyday computing, I would have said no.  When I was in grade school we had computers, but they were honestly not good for doing much unless you really knew what you were doing.  They just weren’t powerful enough and the user interfaces were not useful or easy enough for the average user to make practical use of their computers.  When it comes to gaming, things have evolved a great deal.  From the first video game system in 1967 nicknamed the Brown Box invented by Ralph Baer.  To to Atari 2600.  To the Arcade machines.  To PC gaming becoming popular in the mid 90’s.  To the console war between Nintendo and Sega.  To the current war between Sony and Microsoft.  To the current emergence of mobile gaming on phones and tablets.  Games have gone from two lines hitting a dot around to beautiful games with graphics and story lines that rival Hollywood movies.  This is a look back at my personal journey through life with technology and gaming in particular.

Part1 

My first experiences with PC’s

   The very first computer I can ever remember using was a Unisys Icon.  This would have been in the early-mid 90’s.  It was a purpose built computer designed to be used as an education tool.  The processor was based on the Intel 286 and the operating system was UNIX based, similar to the Commodore PET.  It was supposed to help kids in school.  All I can remember was playing games on it.  One game in particular was called Battle Chess.  It was a simple chess game with an interesting twist.  Each chess piece was an animated character representing the corresponding chess piece.  Like a King holding a sword for example.  When two pieces met on the board they would fight and the character that initiated the move would win just like real chess.  This was also the first computer game I ever played.  Many hours were spent playing this in the computer lab instead of doing schoolwork.  This initial experience sparked my interest in computers and technology and gaming in particular. 

   Those ICON computers proved to be pretty useless for what they were intended for.  In my opinion anyway.  Next up for me was the first computer I ever owned.  It was a Macintosh Classic.  It was designed to be a “portable” computer, and even had a carrying handle on top of it.  It came with a separate keyboard and mouse and to the best of my knowledge, was one of the first computers to do away with the 5 1/4 floppy disk which was the standard and introduced the 3 1/2 inch floppy disk.  This by the way was one of the first times Apple would introduce something that would become the next standard in computing.  This experience with the Macintosh Classic would be short lived for me however.  Because all of the programs except for the operating system, were stored on the floppy disks.  I still to this day don’t know how I did it but, I deleted all the programs off the floppys so they were lost.  I never did get to use this computer to its full potential.  The next computers I remember using were the 286, 386, and 486 computers made by IBM.  These computers were introduced in our schools and I think were the first truly useful computers that the average person could make use of.  They ran the early versions of Windows which did away with the DOS and made use of the GUI or graphical user interface which made things quite a bit simpler.

   With the 486 IBM I was introduced to the two computer games that would change my life forever.  Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.  This was back when video games were still not censored and the ESRB still had not come into existence.  They were the first FPS(first person shooter) games.  They were violent, in your face, and very entertaining and a hell of a lot of fun to play.  The graphics and sound weren’t that spectacular but a very seminal moment for game developers and gamers alike.  

Part2

Game Consoles in the 90’s

   In 1990 I was first introduced to video game consoles with the Nintendo Entertainment System with a game called Duck Hunt.  When you played this game you were supposed to stand away from the TV to shoot at the screen.  Of course, I stood with the gun practically touching the screen.  Doing this, I still never ended up being much good at this game.  But it was fun and pretty cool for what it was.

Then came my first experience with portable or mobile gaming as it is now known with the Nintendo Game Boy.  I played it so much that the A and B buttons no longer worked because I played it so much.  

I really started to become obsessed with video games around this point.  Right about now came the release of a game called Mortal Kombat for SNES and SEGA Genesis.  It was released on September 13, 1993.  Dubbed Mortal Monday it was one of the first instances of people literally camping out to wait and pick up this game.  This game was also pretty well single-handedly responsible for the beginning of the ESRB which censors and rates the content of video games.  Mortal Kombat according to the ESRB would corrupt the minds of people who played it and so the game had to be toned down.  But it was still pretty violent and hardcore even by today's standards.  

   The debate over the content and censorship of video games is still a hotly debated topic and a factor even today.  Games like Call of Duty have been cited in recent court cases as being responsible for some of the mass killings that have happened over recent years.  I strongly disagree with this argument.  Yes violent content should controlled to a certain extent to make sure children don’t play some of these games like Manhunt 2 for example.  Which had you literally killing people for sport and showing every graphic and gory detail.  But we have to be careful not to get carried away with over censorship.  I have played several violent video games over the years, and I haven’t had the urge to go on a killing spree.  Those who have done so, have had pre-existing mental conditions.  Did playing violent video games cause them snap.  They probably didn’t help their mindset for sure but, I believe that games can not be blames for cases of people exhibiting violent behavior.   Am I saying allow children to play some of these violent games out there?  Of course not.  Mature rated games are just that.  Games for mature people are for, mature people.  Plain and simple.  Some people say how could they make a game like Manhunt 2 for example, knowing children might play it.  Games like that were NOT meant to be played by children.  Parents need to take an active role and make sure that their children don’t play mature rated games if they are worried that the content in those games will wrongly influence their child.

   So back to the SNES and SEGA Genesis consoles.  I didn’t get to own either of these systems but, I did get to play them a lot.  This was the first real console war, so to speak.  Both systems were very good and both had a large library of excellent games.  With either system you were pretty well guaranteed to be able to play every top notch game that came out.

   Two of my fondest memories with these systems were NHL 94  and Mortal Kombat.  This was back when we did what I call true multiplayer.  By that I mean sitting on the couch and playing against people in the same room as you.  Not to take away from online multiplayer gaming which is fun too but, you just don’t get the same satisfaction as beating someone sitting right next to you.  This is something that I think is lost on a lot of gaming newcomers and needs to be brought back.

   At around this time I also spent a lot of time in the arcade.  Which is also something that has basically disappeared here in North America.  The way that arcade games were designed is completely different to how modern video games today.  Arcade games for the most part were designed to provide you with short bursts of instant gratification and to be honest, to get your money.  As apposed to today's games which are designed for you to be able to enjoy the game.  This stems largely from games starting to have excellent story-lines to them.  This brings me to my re-introduction to PC’s and PC gaming in particular.

Part3

The Emergence and Possible Death of the PC as a Gaming Platform For The Masses

   In 1995 the now defunct developer LucasArts released the first game that I truly fell in love with.  The Tim Schafer classic called Full Throttle.  This game had it all.  Cool looking graphics, excellent gameplay and most importantly had an excellent story.  This was really one the first games in my opinion that incorporated a worth while story into it. This was around the time when the PC went from not being able to do really much to something you could play awesome games on.  The PC became the machine that you played on if were a real serious gamer.  This was the time when gaming really became part of my DNA.  I spent countless hours playing games when I probably should have been doing other things.  Like schoolwork for example.  But I had so many enjoyable experiences with PC gaming.  From the original Wolfenstein and Doom to games like The Dig and Full Throttle and Duke Nukem just to name a few.  I could name hundreds more but I quite frankly couldn’t name them all.

   I gamed on the PC for a good ten plus years.  But then what started happening was that games started getting a lot better and our machines couldn’t keep up and it started getting to the point where you would buy a game and you weren’t sure or guaranteed if your computer could run it or not.  Games started improving so quickly that you couldn’t keep up with upgrading your computer.  I literally found myself having to upgrade my computer almost every time a new game would come out.  You could only be a serious gamer on the PC if you could afford to upgrade your system all the time.  This got the point where I had had enough and gaming and I had a bit of a falling out and stopped paying attention to games for a while.

Part4

My Re-introduction Back Into Console Gaming

   I had been aware of the original Playstation since the mid 90’s when it was introduced but didn’t think much of it.  It seemed like and incremental change from the previous generation of consoles.  I was wrong about this of course because the Playstation became extremely popular with one of the largest library of games the industry had ever seen.  So I pretty much missed out on this generation of consoles which also included the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast which were also excellent systems.  

   Then on March 4, 2000 we saw the release of the Playstation 2.  When I first saw this system in action I was absolutely amazed.  This machine had amazing graphics, it controlled great and had an overwhelming amount of really good games for it.  But what really drew me to this machine was that you could play every game that game out for it.  This wasn’t any different from other generation of consoles but since I couldn’t do this with my PC and was so frustrated with the state of PC gaming, I wanted it immediately.  

   Unfortunately at this time I couldn’t afford the PS2, so I had to settle for a system from the previous generation.  The Sega Dreamcast.  To this day I still feel that this was an under-appreciated and very capable console.  The one main reason that I believe caused the death of the Sega Dreamcast was the format of the software it ran.  The PS2 and XBOX both ran DVD-roms which also allowed you to watch DVD movies on your console.  So this turned out to be an over sight on the part of Sega which lead to the death of making hardware for them.  Because of this, it lead to a bit of a paradigm shift for gaming consoles.  It wasn’t just something you could play games on.  Now you could listen to your music cd’s and watch your DVD movies as well. It became your home entertainment system, not just another gaming system.  This was especially the case with the PS2 because unlike the XBOX, you didn’t need to buy a separate remote to be able to play DVD’s.  This was one of the main reasons why I think the PS2 became the console of choice for people.

But for the time being I was stuck with my Sega Dreamcast.  Which like I said earlier was a great console with great games.  But because it was only made for a short period of time, it had only a handful of games available for it.  So sadly my time with the Dreamcast was short lived.  But Sega still lives on if only as a game developer and has made some pretty good games since then.

   The next game console for me was the Nintendo Gamecube.  This was a unique console which I nicknamed the “lunchbox” because it looked like a lunchbox and it even had a handle on it so you could carry it like a lunchbox.  This console was different for big reason.  Nintendo decided to use an 80mm optical disk format as apposed to the 120mm disk format that the other systems were using.  Nintendo was heavily criticized for this because it was only good for playing games unlike the competition, which could also play DVDs.  They also chose to use memory cards as apposed to a hard drive like Sony and Microsoft were using in their systems.  Also this system was mainly targeted for younger people and never really caught on for core gamers.  So unfortunately this console was never going to be able to compete with the juggernauts of Sony and Microsoft.  This has always seemingly been the case with Nintendo.  They just don’t seem to want to or even feel it necessary to cater to the core gamers that grew up playing their systems.  They have shifted to mainly catering to young and casual gamers.  This decision doesn’t seem to have hurt them business wise but I think most core gamers like myself, feel left out when it comes to Nintendo.  Luckily there are plenty of other platforms to choose from.

   Finally I got to get myself a Playstation 2.  I came a little late to game when it came to PS2 but, it was about half way through the life of system so I still got to appreciate all that it had to offer.  This console had the biggest game library that I am aware of, numbering at over 3000 titles.  The PS2 is a great example of catering to the core gamers with so many of these games being geared towards the hardcore gamers like myself.

   With the PS2 came one of my negative experiences with gaming.  A game called Manhunt 2(which I have already referred to) was released.  I feel that this was a step in the wrong direction for Rockstar Games (the games developer) for a few reasons.  This was a game that really glorified killing people.  It was just violence for the sake of violence.  Rockstar Games has made so many great games so, this really seemed like a bad choice for them to let this game come out.  Luckily this didn’t ruin them because they would later release several of the game industries’ best games for the generation of consoles to follow.

   One of my favorite games for the PS2 was called Shadow of The Colossus.  This game had a unique premise in that the majority of the game was boss battles.  It was a very good looking game, it really made you think about how you had to go about getting through the levels and was an example of how games can really be works of art as well.  Some game developers were willing to try new things.  Instead of just making another first-person shooter or third-person action game some developers gambled and made some really interesting games that broke the mould, so to speak.  Games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and Okami just to name a few.  These were games that weren’t afraid to be different.  They didn’t necessarily sell very well but, it was nice to see some different things.

   The interesting thing with this generation of consoles, is that they were all successful.  The PS2, XBOX, and Nintendo Gamecube were all good systems and all had a large library of games to choose from.  All three systems survived the entire life cycle but I think most people would agree that the PS2 was the real winner for this generation for one reason in particular.  They had the best games.

   Since then a lot more has happened in the tech and gaming industry.  On future blogs I will be delving into all that.  When I'm not blogging, im podcasting.  Check out The J&K Podcast.  Available on Podbean, Google Play Music, YouTube, and iTunes.  We talk about pro wrestling and technology as well.  That's it for this time.
  Don't let technology take a byte out of you.