A little Video Game Pre History

For those of you less versed in the birth of modern day video gaming lets take a trip down history lane and look at how it all began. Our first stop has to be with “OXO” a game released in 1952 by Cambridge University PHD student Alexander Douglas who created a simple case of Tic Tac Toe during his work on his thesis on human computer interaction.

“OXO” never truly made it to the public, since it was exclusive to Cambridges “EDSAC” machine (a.k.a. “Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator”) which at the time was one of only two programbearing computers along with Manchester University’s “SSEM” (standing for “Small Scale Experimental Machine”).

Douglas’ game was followed by American physicist William Higinbotham’s 1958 oscilloscope based game “Tennis For two”. Now this game was almost one of those little miracles of its time and the product of Higinbotham’s inventive mind. He drew a tiny dot ball’s trajectory over a laboratory oscilloscope, by using a small analogous mainframe then used its monitor as a screen for the game creating a little direction gizmo which served as a control pad and voilá! The first properly named videogame (though a historical second) was a reality!

Where No One Has Gone Before

So it came to be that one day, full time nerd and most probably Star Trek geek Steven “Slug” Russell finally got tired of just dreaming about space voyages and mega galactic battles and began to assemble his gang of MIT geek friends to make a game version. It was 1961 and “Slug”, Martin “Shag” Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen put their heads together to create the game otherwise known as “Spacewar”.

Developed on a PDP-1 mainframe the size of a wall closet (yes mainframes were that big) the PDP-1 or “Programmed Data Processor 1” was the first Digital Equipment Corporation PDP series’ computer, and is still renowned as both the first computer to host a “modern” videogame (which would be Russell’s) and having a major importance in the advent of hacking culture.

“Spacewar!” was about two galactic battleships fighting each other in a bucolic, black and white rigid screen. Needless to say there was no such thing as AI back at the time; therefore, the battles had to be fought by two live opponents.

Russell’s invention became the first massively played videogame, due in great part to it taking advantage of the Arpa-Net (“Advanced Research Projects Agency Network”), a U.S.A. Defense Department created network which is in itself a predecessor to the World Wide Web.

It’s also remarkable that Russell – the “nerd inside”, the nerd all of us game freaks have come to love - didn’t want to register a patent for his game, which sort of made him a free software pioneer and a full time cool guy. It would have been quite easy for him to sell out but he didn’t!

The Clone Wars

Spacewar had been around for almost 10 years when American engineer and entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell entered the scene in 1971. Along with co-operator Ted Dabney they decided to establish the “Syzygy” development company to create a cloned and improved version of Russell’s original game. They baptized this creation as a coin slot system which they called “Computer Space”. Not only was this a paradigm for future arcade games but it ended up being a complete commercial disappointment.

The reason for such failure? Well, try “reasons” instead. Firstly, it was an arcade videogame and with it being the 70’s most had never even seen such a system let alone heard of it. Secondly, potential clients would run away like damsels in distress at the mere sight of the console’s many controls and buttons. Sure, people were interested in having a good time, but not subliminally learning how to maneuver the Apollo 15 space rocket.

In the words of Bushnell himself:

“Before you could play it you had to read the instruction manual, and people didn’t want to read instruction manuals. If I wanted to be successful, I had to come up with a game people were already familiar with, something so simple any drunken in a bar anywhere could understand.”

The third and one that’s no less in stature than the first two has to be Nutting Associates extremely bad promotional campaign. (They were the circulation company who kicked off the games marketing and promotion.

Go Atari Go!

Having all that in mind and trying to learn from past mistakes, Bushnell yet again recruited long time fellow Ted Dabney to develop the world’s first commercial console aka “Magnavox Oddyssey”, a ping pong game that later became better known as “Pong”. It was as simple as it got, a black and white screen featuring a tennis match in two dimensional graphics, a game that could be played either by two human opponents, or solo against the system.

The game was released under their new company which they named… Yes, you guessed it, ATARI. The name for the company was taken from Japanese board game “Go”, which Bushnell has cited as being his “all time favorite game” and one that stands out for having simple runs yet a high strategic intricacy.

The “Pong” game released by Atari was a success, and as it usually happens with big smash cash hitters, Bushnell and partner started to become quite wealthy. Of course there were a whole array of companies that tried to take advantage of Atari’s “Pong” success. Competitors began to appear and grow larger in numbers, so an already market wise Bushnell decided to release a home version of the company’s big hit.

Bushnell Sells Atari

By the mid 70’s Atari was sold by Bushnell to Warner Communications who went onto develop the interchangeable cartridge system Atari 2600. Not only did this represent the birth of the home video game era but with the Atari 2600, standards were raised, triggering a whole new wave of games and consoles which we so rightly have enjoyed until today. By the way if you were wondering what happened to Bushnell well let’s just say that the ever grateful Warner responded by very quickly kicking Bushnell’s ass out of the company! Reason ? His very “liberal” employee policies.

Thanks For Playing

As you can see, lots of things happened before we got to where we are today. All those lovely games like Halo 3, GTA 4, Killzone, Street Fighter 4 (the list could go on) would never have been possible if it weren’t for the oldies. From OXO and Spacewar, to Computer Space, Pong, and all in between, these were the games that made it all possible.

Nowadays, Nolan Bushnell enjoys a reasonably wealthy life, and in exchange we the gamers enjoy the latest games and home entertainment consoles. Fair enough, huh? You bet!

Distributed by TAITO both in European and American markets back in 1986, “Renegade” was a single-player game which featured a character fighting his way through a huge cornucopia of street thugs. Originally created by Yoshihisa Kishimoto for Techno Japan, it was a ground breaking game in its kind, making history by opening the way for what gamers all over the world now know as “beat-em-up” games.

But probably, it is better known nowadays for paving the way to one of the more beloved and remembered arcade games in arcade history: Double Dragon, released by the same company / distributor exactly one year later. And while “Renegade” was a predecessor for beat-em-ups, “Double Dragon” was the first two-player co-operative skirmishing game.

Unfriendly Neighbourhoods

It all began with big bad supersized-headed “Black Warriors gang” leader Willy, discharging all his spoiled-childhood-driven hatred upon saucy girl-next-door Marian’s knees, prior to kidnapping her. Not like a guy like him would have it otherwise.

Thing is, sweet little pale-colored-underwear-fetishist Marian just happened to have a martial-arts expert boyfriend who just happened to have a martial-arts’ maestro twin brother. 

And they both just happened to have an attitude. A mean attitude, that is, so much meaner than Willy’s and his gang of losers.

Yeah, big bad Willy had a big bad idea, and so 1987 was going to be a mean season for the whole bunch, having to face the karate-jumping, behind-kicking, chain-grabbing-and-punishing-you-with rage deployed by martial artist twin brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee (Hammer and Spike for the U.S. version), the first one being Marion’s “prince charming”. 

Judging by the oh-so-many movies, TV series and comic books (and, how not, videogames) dealing with the “kidnapped girlfriend” subject, one could be left thinking how common a happening that must have been back in the day.
But even though Double Dragon could look pretty much like yet another “beat every living soul around you” sort of game at first sight, it was exactly that, with a little extra je ne sais quoi, which made it one of the most unforgettable, remarkably successful arcade games ever.

Walk On The Wild Side

The game got so much into public notice, there’s even been talk about a degree of actual social criticism allegedly implied in the Double Dragon arcade feature, as it showed how this “family” (the twin brothers) fought its way into the forbidden gang-dominated territories of the city, which included shopping streets and public parks, while taking good care of the urban scum that’s bugging it.

Storyline goes like this: 1 Marian gets kidnapped. 2 Enter Billy and Jimmy “Hey, Marion got kidnapped”. 3 Billy and Jimmy single-mindedly walk the city streets beating the shame out of a disgraceful collection of recurring baseball-bat-swinging thugs, knife-dropping drug addicts and chain-whipping hoes. And that’s how it goes all along four action-stacked screens.

One of the mark features of the game was the possibility of grabbing up your enemies’ weapons –everytime they ever fell from their dirty hands, which you could then use to inflict them some pain back giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Meet The Gang

Even thought the brothers never truly manage to make their enemies persist from keeping coming back for more, each one of the six criminal prototypes in the game has a certainly distinctive look and fighting style, which makes for a very enjoyable play-fighting all along the way.
You have “Williams”, for example; your average “punkster” with a thing for daggers and baseball bats. Sometimes he might also try dynamite on you for a gig.

Or you have “Linda”; a counterpart to girl-next-door Marian, she’s as bitchy as it gets, and wouldn’t hesitate whipping your head with a chain whip, should you look at her the wrong way (or not, either way, she’ll whip your head anyways).

There’s also golem-like “Bolo”, who’s name pretty much says it all; he loves to show the characters a panoramic view of the neighborhood whenever they get close enough to him.

And let’s not forget “Roper”, yet another punk-like felon whose taste for a healthy life and push-ups allow him to pick up large heavy objects such as oil barrels and big rocks.

Then there are the two pre-Willy bosses “Abobo” and “Jeff”.
The first, you could give Mr. T credit for, anytime. Curiously enough, somewhere in between his first appearances and the end of mission three he must’ve eaten something that was rotten, for the last time he comes into sight, he’s turned green. Bleah.

“Jeff” on the other hand, is as handsome as a character can be, at least a DD character, since he’s quite a doppelganger of the player’s character, and even has similar fighting skills.

Finally, there’s the big bad man himself, Willy. Of course, this is the definitive Boss of the game, and the guy who’s kidnapped (and who knows what else) Billy’s “little bunny”, Marian.
What’s somewhat unsportsmanlike about him is that he’s ready to “defend” Marian’s life with a machine gun, which he will use firing it to the brothers silly.

All For Love

As anyone can guess, the objective of the game is to defeat every single Black Warriors member, plus its big headed boss, and after all is said and done, there’s either ONE -or- BOTH of the twin brothers left.

Now, the real groundbreaking point about Double Dragon comes right here at the game’s conclusion, and right after the big bad Boss Willy’s been defeated and all done with; for here’s when we realize what an “easy going” girl this Marian gal must be.

IF there’s only One of the brothers alive by the end of the game, you’d probably blame Marian’s attitude towards life and love to the harsh times she’s recently endured.

Now, should Both brothers reach Marian, things get complicated, as they will have to fight each other for her love just the same as they fought against the barbarian urban hordes of Willy. And the lady Marian herself? Well, she’ll just settle for the love of the one who wins, mind you.

Was It Worth It

Maybe you’ve played the arcade version of Double Dragon. Maybe you have not.
If the first is true, then you must probably have at least a couple of anecdotes about going to the Arcades with your friends and spending a while cleaning up the neighborhood and fighting to get Marian’s love.

If not, chances are there’s still some lost Arcade facility somewhere with a functional Double Dragon in it. If so, get a few coins out of your pocket, play it. 

Finally, if you’re and emulator enthusiast, look out on the Internet for the MAME arcade emulation system or one of the kind, download the Double Dragon ROM.

Then you play it. It’s worth your while.

In April 2009, America revisited the school shooting at Columbine High. For a decade, survivors, friends and relatives remembered the 13 students and faculty killed from that tragedy, included in those 13 were the two teenage assailants. They dressed in black, trench coats and went about on a murderous rampage, targeting athletes, minorities and female students. Over two dozen students were injured or maimed and from that day, their lives were changed forever.

The Questions

How did this happen? Why did this happen? What motivated the killers to carry out this act? For a decade, there have been few answers. How did two, quiet but normal white teenagers carry out the most vile, school shooting in American history? The crime was only exceeded by an Asian student at Virginia Tech University in 2007. Posthumously, he declared that he was “inspired” by the acts of the Columbine duo. Like this crime and many others, there were little to no answers so America needed a scapegoat called gaming.

A History Of Blame

There were already concerns that fictional images depicting assault, mutilations and death desensitized those watching, and in 1976 a company called Exidy (Excellence In Dynamics) created a controversial video game called “Death Race”. It featured players controlling cars that ran over “gremlin-like” figures and funnily enough was immediately pulled from the consumer market, profiled on the primetime tv show 60 Minutes and lead to what was nothing short of a media fire storm.

GTA and the next 30 Years.

For the next 30 plus years, video games were being looked at for their violence, language, religious meanings and sexual content. They became the scapegoats of defense attorneys trying to secure lighter sentences for violent offenders. Video games fell into the same barrage of policing as songs with aggressive, perverse or violent lyrics in them.

During the 1990s, Sen. Joseph Lieberman conducted hearings over video game violence as it related to violent crimes committed by offenders. The video game industry grew more controversial as games with more graphical violence, sex and racially charged storylines were produced. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City drew the ire of Washington politicians, Vice City described a 1986 Miami, Florida showing Haitian and Cuban refugees embroiled in a bloody, gang war.

The main character earned “points” for car jacking civilians, and even picked up “perks” (ie: weapons, cash, etc) from murdering prostitutes, but what got to people the most was that he earned the most points by killing police officers. Several murders were blamed on Grand Theft Auto games. Attorneys used the “video game defense” in a number of trials with mixed results, sometimes it failed and other times it meant plea agreements were reached.

Studies Have Shown …

The Harvard Medical School Center of Mental Health, the Journal of Adolescent Health and the British Medical Journal failed to find a “conclusive link” to video game usage and violent activity. However certain studies have demonstrated that users display a higher level of aggressive behavior after playing violent video games.

A secret service study revealed that 12% of those involved in school shootings enjoyed playing violent video games; 24% of those examined read violent books; whilst 27% enjoyed watching violent films. So what’s the connection and why are video games still heralded as the primary cause of this unsocial and extremely violent behavior despite the studies showing very little correlation.

Hilary Clinton

Other politicians that have gone on violence in gaming campaigned include Hilary Clinton who in her time as senator helped implement a standard “Parental Advisory” tag on any video game having strong language, adult situations, sexual content and violence.

Game Over

Despite all the blame, games continue to be produced with violence, gore and sex. Problems within society still exist, suicide rates are on the rise, people are generally less satisfied with life, families are breaking apart, respect for elders is at an all time low, and of course the official reason for extreme anti social behavior is gaming.

Games have been blamed from as far back as 1976 and they will undoubtedly continue to take the blame. It’s just one of those things, a way to deflect the questions that politicians and leaders don’t have an answer to.

The realm of competitive gaming has evolved over the past decade with young women joining their male counterparts in the realm of competitive gaming. Not only have they carved out a niche in a field once dominated by men but they’ve followed the lessons of Oakland Raider owner, Al Davis “Just win, baby.”

Female gamers aren’t cowering against the boys anymore, they’ve taken the paths of their gender busting peers like Michelle Wie and Annika Sorenstam who have successfully competed against men on the PGA Tour. They’ve followed Danica Patrick who is the only woman to have won on IndyCar Racing, and has continued to take on her male counterparts week after week.

Vanessa Artega

For female gamers the situation is no different, gaming has it’s own heroine, one who is not only the best within her field, but perhaps one of the best of them all. Her name is Vanessa Artega, the Championship Gaming Series’s (CGS) most dominating gamer. She’s won an astounding 65 singles matches throughout the 2008 season. Her record of 65 wins to 12 losses ranked three times better than the best male gamer, Offbeat Ninja who interestingly enough just happened to be her ex-boyfriend.

The CGS (Championship Gaming Series)

Vanessa who plays for the San Francisco OPTX who are just one of six teams competing in an inter gender team based championship of America’s top gamers (other teams include Chicago Chimera [KI-MERA], Los Angeles Complexity, Dallas Venom, Carolina Core and New York 3D) puts all of these teams into a league competing for a winner’s cash purse of $150,000, the title of North America’s champion and more importantly the opportunity to later go up against the world in a winner take all tournament (cash prrize $500,000) and the title of being labeled “the world’s best gamers”.

Dead Or Alive Showdown

The CGS is just one of the places you can catch female gamers like Artega but the action of course doesn’t stop there! The male vs female controversy has always sparked attention in the realm of competitive gaming, so it was no surprise that when the creator of Dead or Alive 4 put on a contest of his own to field the best female and best male D.O.A. player in a “battle of the sexes” match, that heads were turned. The prize was an authentic, hand-made samurai sword and a chance to finally lay to rest who was the best.

So what happened ? Well prior to the match Artega received training from another D.O.A. expert, Master. He bested Ninja in several playoff contests before losing out to him in the finals and gaining these extra tips may have been exactly what Artega needed to pip her ex boyfriend in this battle of the sexes showdown.

The final result a highly tense and emotional battle ending in a triumphant Ninja who managed to win the battle 5-3. A walk in the park for Upbeat Ninja ? Not quite, in fact both players admitted at the end that the match took a real emotional toll on both of them.

The Future Of Girl Gamers

Despite the setback, female gamers have continued to turn heads and bring excitement to gaming as a whole and sponsors like Mountain Dew (Code Red) and Nintendo know this. They’ve continued to put their money to field new teams every year and this won’t be changing anytime soon.

Artega had a great year and despite the Chicago Chimera winning both the North American CGS title and the world title. Artega won the inauguaral best female gamer in the world title and is confident that she’ll eventually take over the men’s bracket. Watch out boys!! girl gamers are here to stay.

He’s been there for more than thirty years, entertaining a generation of arcade gamers in an era of “space invaders”. He’s round, yellow, and ever-smiling… oh, and yes, he’s Japanese. While planet earth was being seized by outer-space creatures and needed to be defended at ray-gun point, someone thought of an alternative. That someone happened to be videogames designer Toru Iwatani, from NAMCO enterprises, a Japan based game developer.

Turning American

It was the year 1979 and despite the pixilated naivety of the time, violence was the common thread in arcade games. Along came “Pakku Man”, as it was originally called back in Japan where it was first released, “pakku” being an onomatopoeic likeness of the sound it made when it opened his mouth. Soon after, their Japanese inventors decided to sort of “anglicize” the game’s name, by changing it to “Puck-Man”.

Later on, the name was definitely changed to the now renowned “Pac-man” when it was adopted by USA’s game developer MIDWAY, since North American distributors wanted to avoid any possible confusion between the word “puck” and the sometimes infamous “f” word when the game was released to the American market.

The premise of the game just couldn’t be any simpler: to “walk” your way as the Pac-Man through a seemingly endless chain of obscure pixilated labyrinths with the sole objective of feeding yourself up with the trail of dots, special items and occasional fruits in front of you, while at the same time avoiding any contact with “Shadow”, “Bashful”, “Pokey” and “Speedy”: the four hungry, yet somehow friendly ghosts trying to eat Pac-Man. This simplest of formulas made for one of the most successful games of all time, and an addictive one it was, for sure. 

In fact, the game became so popular it was given its own television show back between 1982 and 1984. The game has also collected many a homage from within the video games industry, it’s trademark logo appearing in the most improbable scenarios, such as the corner of a Mortal Kombat fighting room, or a screen in the Tekken game, and also TV series like Futurama, South Park and Family Guy, just to name a few. 

Pac Again

Everyone’s favorite yellow “smile” man will be making a triumphant return in an up to date new version from its original creator; according to NAMCO BANDAI sources, programmer Irokazu Yasuhara, one of the main responsibles of the success of SEGA’s emblematic “Sonic the Hedgehog” series, will perform as team lead for the project: “2010 marks his 30th anniversary, and we feel he deserves a comeback”, says NAMCO vice-president Makoto Imai. 

 “There weren’t any games for all audiences, back at the time, and specially no games that would be appealing to the feminine public”, Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani recalls, since his game was one of the first of its kind to achieve a massive feminine approval. Just ask mom, she’ll probably know what you’re talking about.

Pizza Pac

Legend has it that Iwatani’s primal inspiration for creating the dot-devouring Pac-Man came to him one day as he picked a slice from a pizza he had ordered just for himself. In fact, the whole game revolves around one sole, single-minded purpose: eating. “That’s a half-truth” says Iwatani, “Also; the Japanese ideogram Kuchi (the Japanese word for eating) is a squared symbol. It isn’t circular, like a pizza, but we decided to make it that way”.

As an appetizer while we wait for the game’s last incarnation, Pac-Man is available for playing online in a variety of gamers’ websites, in more than 200 variants of the original platform.