Introduction

Gaming today is a widely recognized part of our cultural landscape. But those of us over thirty are just old enough to remember a time before gaming, before digital entertainment invaded the arcades, our computers and our homes.

Gaming itself is as old as history. Artifacts from ancient Sumeria and Egypt have shown that our ancestors enjoyed playing board games thousands of years ago. But electronic games required the invention of electronic computers. The earliest computers were slow, failure-prone monsters that took over entire rooms and had less power than a modern pocket calculator. Still, early programmers on these machines felt compelled to waste time by making these computers do things like playing tic-tac-toe. After World War II, electronic computers moved out of the realm of cutting-edge laboratories and into universities and large corporations. Many university students became the first game programmers, transforming their fantasy and sci-fi imaginations into digital adventures.

The concept of hooking up an electronic game system to a television set was invented by Ralph Bauer in the early 1950s. Later he took his ideas to the TV company Magnavox, which released a refined version of his "Brown Box" prototype as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. The Odyssey was primitive, displaying only spots of light on the TV screen, and it required translucent plastic overlays to simulate the appearance of a game. Still, the revolution was underway, and there was to be no stopping it.

The first wildly popular home console system was the Atari 2600, released in 1977. It used plug-in cartridges to play many different types of games, and thanks to the popularity of Space Invaders, it became a best seller. Computer games, written largely for the Apple ][ and TRS-80 computers, were also taking off at this time. While the console industry experienced a crash in 1983, it soon recovered and both computer and console games never looked back.

There are many books and articles on the history of video games. But one area that I felt was not sufficiently explored was how games tended to be categorized in certain genres, and how the genres themselves had evolved and changed over the years. Besides the difference in graphics, was playing tennis on an Atari 2600 significantly different from playing the same game on a Playstation 2? Many old-school gamers often lament the focus of graphics over game play in modern titles, but was it really true that only graphics got better over time? I decided to find out.

Please note: The categories and games I decided to review are by no means exhaustive. In selecting eleven categories, I have left out a few that some will feel are significant. Also, due to time restrictions, I decided to choose only six games for each category. The choices of games are not random, and are not necessarily fully representative of all genres and platforms.

Of the 66 games reviewed here, I have personally played 50 of them, or 76 percent. I played over half of these at the time they were first released, and over the years have managed to finish 15 of them, although not all the games have an ending as such. 19 of the 66 games are console or arcade games, or 29 percent, so some may feel consoles are underrepresented in the list. However, if you count games that have been ported at some point to game consoles, 31 or 47 percent fall into that category. In only one game out of 66 was I a member of the development team.

With that said, let's jump right in to the genres and see how they have evolved over the years. When looking at the screen shots, make sure to hover your mouse over top to see if a higher-resolution image is available.

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Sports games

Tennis for Two (1958)

Tennis for Two was a demonstration only

Hardware:Analog computer (mechanical relays, potentiometers, resistors, operational amplifiers, a few transistors as flip-flops).

Tennis for Two was developed by Willy Higinbotham as a fun demonstration to liven up a rather dull tour of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The custom-made analog computer was hooked up to an oscilloscope, and two "paddles" consisting of a potentiometer and a single button were connected to it. It was a two-player game only: there was no logic for a computer player.

Each player could turn his paddle dial to adjust the "angle" of their virtual tennis racket. The rackets were not displayed on the screen, but this didn't matter as the ball could be hit any time after it passed over the center line. When the button was pressed, the ball would arc back at the selected angle, either traveling back over the net or hitting it and bouncing off the ground. Balls hit off the net would bounce lower than balls hit directly on the ground, so it was possible for the ball to eventually stop bouncing and rest on the ground on one side of the court.

There was no scoring system, and if the ball left the court or stopped bouncing, the game was restarted simply by hitting a reset button. As primitive as it was, however, it represented the first time an action game with an electronic display had been demonstrated to the public. There had been earlier electronic games (such as a version of tic-tac-toe) and Ralph Baer had come up with the concept of a games machine hooked to a TV as early as 1951, but Tennis for Two was nevertheless a landmark in video game history. Higinbotham never thought to patent his ideas, and the unit itself was disassembled a couple of years later.

A video of Tennis for Two in action.

Pong (1972)

Pong was available in the arcades and at home

Hardware:Custom digital circuitry, later reduced to a single "Pong" chip for use in home systems.

Pong was actually Atari's second game, but it was their first bona-fide hit. Their translation of MIT'sSpaceWar, Computer Space, proved too difficult for new players to pick up and understand. Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, realized that what he needed was something simpler, a game that anybody could start playing and understand immediately.

Pong featured a simple scoring system that would register a point each time the ball made it past the opposing player's virtual paddle. The ball would normally reflect off the paddle at the same angle it approached it from, but if the paddle was in motion it would impart some extra vertical motion, or "English" to the ball, adding an element of strategy to the game. Pong allowed two people to play each other, or a single player could play against the computer.

Pong's success bred many imitators, forcing Atari to come up with new variants and different types of games altogether, eventually culminating in the release of the flexible Video Computer System (VCS), otherwise known as the Atari 2600.

Atari Tennis (1981)

Activision's Tennis for the Atari 2600

Hardware:Atari 2600

• 1.19MHz 6507
• 128 bytes RAM (0.125 Kb)
• 0k VRAM
• 2kb ROM cart
• TIA custom chip
• 8 sprites
• 128 colors
• 40x192 resolution for backgrounds

Activision was formed by disgruntled ex-Atari programmers, and wound up being one of the most successful software companies for the Atari 2600 console. Tennis was released rather late in the console's life, and featured a static and simplistic background and net. The players had limited animation, with the only the sprite's legs moving, and there was only a single racket swinging motion. There was no special animation for serving, which meant that the ball simply bounced up and down on its own prior to a serve. The player could move away from the ball before serving and watch it bounce all on its own.

A shadow helped the player determine the height of the ball, and the player could hit it after it bounced or on the volley. However there was no way to control where the ball went, as it was calculated merely by where on the racket the ball was hit. All balls were hit with equal force, left the racket at an equal height, and bounced equally high every time. Because of this, it was impossible to hit the ball into the net, and so double-faults were not implemented. Each game was scored according to tennis rules, but the match lasted only a single set. Players could face off against each other or against the computer, but the latter was extremely frustrating as the computer AI would never miss a shot. It took me ten minutes of playing just to score a single point against the computer!

Nintendo Tennis (1983)

Tennis for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Hardware: NES

• 1.79 MHz 6502
• 16k RAM
• 16k VRAM
• 32k ROM cart
• PPU and MMC custom chips
• 64 sprites
• 52 colors
• 256x240 resolution

The Nintendo Entertainment System was much more powerful than the old Atari 2600, despite having only a slight edge in CPU clock speed. NES Tennis featured a referee, had a much more colorful and detailed background, and had many more frames of animation for the players. The ball not only had a shadow but changed size according to perspective, which made it easier to follow. However the players remained the same size at all times, which meant that a player at the net appeared to be more than twice the size as he did at the baseline. The computer AI had a selectable difficulty, and was not difficult to beat on the easiest level, where he would run extremely slowly and missed many shots.

The game could only be played against the computer, but two players could play together in doubles mode.The game was scored with standard tennis rules, and each match was a best of three sets.

Tennis Arena (1997)

Tennis Arena for the Sony Playstation

Hardware: Sony PlayStation

• 33 MHz R3000A
• 2 MB RAM
• 1 MB VRAM
• 650 MB CD-ROM
• 3D Geometry Engine
• 16.7 million colors
• 740x480 resolution

With the arrival of the Playstation came the move for mainstream games into full 3D. The tennis court was now rendered as a full 3D object and the camera could rotate 360 degrees around it and zoom in to any distance. The players too were full 3D models, and thus were always in correct perspective, although the Playstation lacked texture smoothing so the textures tended to look a bit blocky and pixelated. Players are animated in motion-captured 3D, which looked smooth and realistic. Due to polygon limits, however, the crowd is rendered as a bunch of flat cardboard cutouts.

The game itself had more advanced control features that took advantage of the extra buttons on the Playstation's game pad. Lobs, top spin, flat swings, and after touch were all included, although some features (such as diving for a ball or executing a smash) happened automatically when the hit button was pressed.

Both single player and two player modes are supported for both singles and doubles modes. However the AI for your doubles partner was not all that competent, unlike your computer opponent.

Virtua Tennis (2003)

Sega Virtua Tennis for the Playstation 2

Hardware:Playstation 2

• 294 MHz MIPS IV
• 150 MHz Graphics Synthesizer
• 32 MB RAM
• 4 MB VRAM
• Emotion Engine
• 16.7 million colors
• 740x480 resolution

The graphics on the Playstation's successor are noticeably improved, with bilinear filtering making textures smooth and not pixelated. Additional graphic effects include shadows on the players, weather effects (such as the occasional passing cloud), and scuff marks on the court from the ball and the players' feet. The crowd is now fully modeled as 3D polygonal people, although with fewer polygons than the players. Player animations are more realistic and there are more of them.

In terms of game play, not much has been added from the previous generation. Lobs, top spins, flat swings and after touch are still available by using different buttons on the controller. The game itself does feature some new modes, such as tournament, exhibition and world tour, and up to four human players can participate at once. The AI is also improved, as it will learn to exploit different weaknesses in your game as you progress.

Space combat games

Space War (1960)

Space War inspired every action game to come

Hardware: DEC PDP-8: 12-bit custom minicomputer, black and white vector graphics video terminal.

Inspired by Doc Smith's Lensman novels of galactic conquest, university computer hacker Steve "Slug" Russell invented Space War, a simple space combat game between two human players, one flying a thin rocket ship and the other a bulky wedge-shaped craft. Players used rotating paddles and trigger switches to fire a series of missiles at each other. The game became wildly popular and was even distributed with new system software by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Later enhancements to the game included a realistic star field background, based on the actual positions and brightness of stars in the sky (this was dubbed "Expensive Planetarium"), and an emergency "warp" button that could transport the player to a random area on the map. But the most important innovation was the addition of a star in the center of the screen and simulated gravity, which added a huge element of strategy to the game.

Interestingly, Russell tried adding more realistic torpedoes that would sometimes fail to fire, but annoyed players soon went into the code and changed it back. It was an early victory for fun over strict realism.

The original Space War, recreated as a Java applet for play in any web browser.

Star Raiders (1979)

Star Raiders set the standard for 3D space games

Hardware:Atari 400/800

• 2 MHz 6502
• 48KB RAM
• 16 colors
• 192x160 resolution

The Atari 400/800 series were ahead of their time, and so was Star Raiders. The game made the leap into 3D, requiring players to think about space combat in an entirely new manner.

The game involved the player as the pilot of a lone combat craft, trying to rid the galaxy of an alien infestation. Long-range scanners could show the player where the enemy was marshalling his forces, and where the all-important star bases were located. The player could refuel and rearm at any star base, but had to plan ahead to make sure he didn't squander these resources.

Although the game used very simplistic scaled sprites for the enemy craft, it still kept track of their movements in three dimensions. To help the player, a short-range radar screen was displayed that could locate enemy ships ahead and behind him. This 3D radar display would be used in all future space games to come.

Elite (1984)

Elite created its own sub-genre

Hardware: BBC Micro

• 2 MHz 6502
• 32KB RAM
• 20k VRAM
• 4 colors
• 320x256 resolution (later ported to IBM PC, C64 and others)

Elite represented a revolution, not just in space combat games but computer games entirely. Not only were the graphics improved by representing spaceships and planets in 3D wire frames with hidden line removal, but the scope of the game improved significantly as well. A huge universe was generated using a clever algorithm that stored hundreds of different planetary names and configurations as a mathematical formula, rather than as raw data. This allowed a much larger and richer game environment to be stored than could ordinarily fit in the small memory of the computers at that time.

The game featured not only space combat but also trading, and players could build up money to purchase new weapons and better ships. There were multiple factions at work in the universe, and the player could have a different reputation with each of them depending on his actions. As in Star Raiders, space stations acted as points of refueling and re-arming.

As the player improved in the game, her ranking went up. The ultimate ranking was that of "Elite," which took hundreds of hours of play to attain.

Wing Commander (1990)

Wing Commander brought everything together in one package

Hardware: IBM PC

• 286 16 MHz CPU
• 640KB RAM
• 64k VRAM
• 256 colors (VGA)
• 320x200 resolution

Chris Roberts was inspired by the combat in Star Wars when he created Wing Commander. When he found that he couldn't get the rights to the Star Wars universe, he designed an entirely new universe himself. The cat-like Kilrathi were the fearsome enemies of humanity, and the game was loosely based on the carrier battles of World War II.

The player was thrust into the war against the Kilrathi as a pilot on the carrier Tiger's Claw. The graphics were revolutionary at the time, simulating 3D using detailed bitmaps that were scaled and rotated on the fly. Each ship was built in a 3D modeling program (ironically on an Amiga, which would not get a version of the game itself until years later) and rendered at various angles to create the bitmaps. The process of pre-rendering the bitmaps kept the display speed high, and allowed details such as lighting and reflections that would not appear in games for years to come. However, because only so many bitmaps were rendered for each ship, there was a certain jerkiness as they turned around in a circle.

The game play was fast and furious. Players had various weapons (lasers, mass drivers, neutron cannons) and missiles to hurl at their enemies, who would taunt the player with text messages. Missions included patrols, protection of transports, and strike missions against enemy capital ships. When back on board the carrier, players could interact with the other pilots by clicking on them at the bar. Each pilot had his or her own back story, and would fly differently in combat.

The game went on to sell over five million copies, a ridiculous number given the size of the market at the time, and spawned four direct sequels and numerous related games.

Wing Commander III (1994)

Wing Commander III broke both new ground and sales records.

Hardware: IBM PC

• 486 66 MHz
• 32 MB RAM
• 4 MB VRAM
• 3D card
• SVGA (65,535 colors)
• CD-ROM
• 640x480 resolution

Wing Commander III came on four CD-ROM discs, and for the first time contained live-action video with actors working against blue-screened virtual sets. In an ironic twist, Mark Hamill, who was most famous for playing Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, played the title role of Maverick. Other notables were Malcom McDowell who played Admiral Tolwyn, and the hilarious Thomas Wilson (Biff in Back to the Future) as Maniac.

The game used the Strike Commander engine, redesigned to support SVGA (640x480 in 256 colors) resolution. Enemy ships were fully modeled in 3D and every polygon was texture mapped. Enemy pilots now taunted you over the video link, with every voice recorded in stereo sound. The impressively detailed cockpit could be turned off to get a larger view of the action.

The game featured some stunning cut scenes, some of which were shown to the player in the middle of combat in order to try and lead him into a trap. The final showdown involved the end of the decades-old war with the Kilrathi, but there would be other enemies for future games to explore.

Freespace 2 (1999)

Freespace 2 remains well-loved and updated to this day

Hardware: IBM PC

• Pentium II 200 MHz
• 64 MB RAM
• 64 MB VRAM
• 3D card
• SVGA (16.7 million colors)
• CD-ROM
• 1024x768 resolution

Freespace 2 was the sequel to Descent: Freespace, which was itself built on the impressive 3D engine from the game Descent. In Freespace, the enemy had been a group of aliens called Vasudans, but by the end of the game an even more dangerous enemy called the Shivans had forced a Human-Vasudan alliance. In the sequel, a battered allied fleet must deal with dissent and civil war before engaging the Shivans one more time.

The game supported many new features found in 3D graphics cards, such as colored lighting, and featured some of the most beautiful backgrounds ever to be found in space games. Sadly, the cockpit itself has gone for good, replaced by a heads-up display.

The game was infinitely modifiable thanks to a campaign editor and user-programmed tools that allowed modders to build and texture entirely new ships. Recently the source code to the game was released to the public, and resourceful coders have added entirely new features, such as specular highlighting, to the existing game code.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games

Multi-User Dungeons (1975)

MUDS were so addictive that many students failed their classes because of them

Hardware: University mainframes with ANSI character terminals.

Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs, were an offshoot of the text adventure games such asColossal Caves, but with a very different twist: they were designed to be played by more than one person at the same time.

Because of this, interactions between players were given high priority. Players could develop their characters, talk and interact with other players, and even attack them. Combat was not emphasized, however, as players often found it more interesting to explore new areas with each other.

All this would be addictive enough, but the real gotcha was that if you advanced to a high-enough level, there was the opportunity to actually extend the MUD, adding new areas, quests and items, and even changing the way the virtual world worked. Some MUDders wound up flunking out after getting too involved with building and playing in these games.

Habitat (1986)

Habitat was an early experiment in graphical MUDding.

Hardware:Commodore 64

• 1 MHz 6502
• 64k RAM
• 16KB VRAM
• 320x200 resolution

Habitat was an early experiment in online gaming from the folks at Lucasfilm Games. Using the QuantumLink online service (which would eventually become America On-Line), users of Commodore 64 computers could dial up using their 300 baud modems and connect to a virtual world, where they would be represented byavatars, cartoon characters that could be customized for each user.

The world consisted of up to 20,000 "rooms," or screens, each connected to each other in one of four directions. Control was handled through the joystick, which acted as a mouse substitute and allowed the player to move to a new location or interact with various objects in the world. Up to 20,000 players could be connected at one time, but in practice the number was typically much lower.

The game included various types of weapons, which immediately began the debate over whether players should be allowed to kill other players. It was allowed, but the ramifications soon overwhelmed most players. The game allowed players to accumulate money, and a primitive economy soon emerged, although it quickly got out of control.

Habitat only survived for a few years before the Commodore 64 became an unviable platform, but thelessons learned from the project were invaluable for future MMORPG builders.

Meridian 59 (1996)

Meridian 59 added 3D graphics to the MMORPG genre

Hardware: IBM PC (486 CPU @ 66MHz)

Meridian 59 was made by 3DO, the same company that came up with the idea of a "standardized" gaming console platform that ended up failing in the marketplace because of high cost. 3DO morphed into a software company and was mostly known for their "Army Men" series of games, but a tiny project called Meridian 59 wound up being a groundbreaking development in the MMORPG genre.

The game was the first to feature a world rendered with 3D graphics, although they were not hardware accelerated, but rendered entirely by the CPU. Many of the features that would becomede rigueur for MMORPGs were enabled here, including NPCs that bought and sold items and offered quests, the concept of "karma" which meant that your actions in the world affected how others saw you, and the idea of increasing separate "skills" in various aspects of fighting and spell casting.

Attacking and killing other players (PVP) was allowed, but it had serious consequences. Besides drastically affecting your karma, the "ghost" of the player you killed would follow you around and haunt you mercilessly. You would be branded a "murderer" and treated as such by other players and some NPCs. Regardless of the consequences, there were plenty of people willing to PVP on Meridian 59, because you could loot any of a player's possessions from their corpse before they had a chance to come back and retrieve them.

The game was updated in recent years with 3D acceleration and is still being played and supported to this day.

Ultima Online (1997)

In this historic screen shot, Lord British, the creator of Ultima, is killed

Hardware: IBM PC

• Pentium 100 MHz
• 32 MB RAM
• 1 MB VRAM
• Hard disk
• Mouse
• SVGA (256 colors)
• CD-ROM
• 640x480 resolution

Ultima Online took a step backwards in the graphics department by presenting an oblique 2D view of the world, but was a tremendous advance in almost every other respect. It was the first MMORPG to break into the mainstream, selling over a million copies and receiving a ton of attention from the press.

Ultima Online had incredibly ambitious goals from the outset, including the idea of a completely dynamic economy and monster population. The idea was that as players hunted certain types of creatures, their natural prey would take advantage of the situation and increase in population. This idea was scaled down significantly after alpha testing when it was realized that the balance of species would quickly fall out of equilibrium.

New ideas such as crafting were introduced, where players could create their own clothes, armor and weapons. Very wealthy players could also purchase their own virtual homes, where they could store some of their excess possessions under lock and key, although as the world filled up these homes became harder and harder for new players to obtain. Players could gain skills in all sorts of activities, from swordplay to fishing, and the game was designed so that players could specialize in particular areas that they most enjoyed.

The social aspects of Ultima Online were the most significant advance in the genre. Players performed virtual concerts, virtual comedy clubs and even virtual weddings (some of which were not so virtual!) Several expansion packs were issued for the game, including one that updated the graphics into a kind of pseudo-3D. While the game has lost popularity to its newer competitors over the last few years, it still retains a core base of players.

Everquest (1999)

Everquest was so addictive that fans started calling it Evercrack

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 400 MHz)

Everquest was Sony's venture into the world of MMORPGs, and it was a smashing success. Developer Verant created a brand-new world called Norrath and populated it with all kinds of fantastical creatures. The game was rendered in full 3D with hardware acceleration, creating the best-looking MMORPG environment at the time.

Everquest moved away from Ultima Online's skill-based system in favor of a simpler mode of advancement, closer to the old Dungeons and Dragons idea of gaining experience points in order to gain a new level. The level system was implemented so that players could gain early levels quickly, but would slow down as they reached the maximum level cap (initially 50, but increased with subsequent add-on packs) Each level would add hit points and abilities to your character. The game conveniently rated enemies by color to indicate how much of a danger they would be to your character.

Players could fight each other if they wished, but separate servers were set up for people who wanted player-versus-player combat to apply to everybody, and those who only wanted it to be consensual between the two combatants. Most of the game play revolved around combat, either with other players or monsters. Lower-level monsters were always around, but at higher levels, they tended to spawn more rarely, and players often had to group together to survive the journey towards these spawn points. Frequently, characters would need to rest to recover strength or magical power. While resting, the game would display an inventory panel full-screen, so that the player would have to pay attention to the game sounds in case he got attacked.

World of Warcraft (2004)

World of Warcraft became the most popular MMORPG of all time

Hardware: IBM PC

• Pentium III 800 MHz
• 256 MB RAM
• 32 MB VRAM
• 3D video card
• Hard disk
• Mouse
• SVGA (16.7 million colors)
• CD-ROM
• 1024x768 resolution.

World of Warcraft took Blizzard's popular real-time strategy series and moved it into the MMORPG arena. The game had a consistent artistic style, something players of Warcraft II and III could instantly recognize. It has quickly become the most popular online world in history, after expanding into areas such as China.

Players choose one of two sides, the Alliance or the Horde, which correspond to the Humans and Orcs of the original game. Each character race is assigned to one side or the other, so Night Elves are part of the Alliance whereas Trolls are (quite rightly) part of the Horde.

In a merging of Ultima Online's game play and Everquest's, players can both level up and increase their skills in various areas such as fishing, mining, and crafting armor and weapons. There are new features, such as "mounts" (large animals that you can ride or fly on) that characters can gain at the higher levels. As in Everquest, quests can be undertaken by single players at the lower levels, but at higher levels it becomes necessary to travel in groups in order to survive long enough to complete them. To eliminate the problem of multiple groups fighting over who gets to complete each quest, some dungeons are created asinstances, in which every party traveling to an instance gets their own private copy of the dungeon.

The game is designed so that both the casual player and the stay-at-home addict can find things to do and have fun, which explains its continuing popularity.

Adventure games

Adventure (1976)

Adventure was ported from a popular mainframe game

Hardware: University mainframes with character terminals; later, 4.77MHz IBM PC running MS-DOS in text mode (80x25 characters)

Adventure was written on mainframe computers by Will Crowther, who had been involved in playing pen and paper-based Dungeon and Dragons, and had recently spelunked the world-famous Mammoth cave in Kentucky. He wrote a simple text adventure game, the first of a genre that was to become massively popular, and later the programmer Don Woods found a copy of the program by accident and added many features.

These adventure games displayed information about the world and its inhabitants entirely in text form, and the user typed simple sentences of the form "GO NORTH" or "PICK UP BOTTLE" to move around and interact with the world. Points were scored for finding treasure and bringing it back to the starting point, a small brick building. The rooms inside were imaginative and the puzzles clever and exceedingly frustrating. In particular, mazes filled with "twisty little rooms, all alike" (or different) could drive a player to distraction until they figured out a way to differentiate between them.

Combat was extremely limited. One encounter with a dragon seemed impossible to bypass, until the player typed KILL DRAGON. The game asked, sarcastically, "WHAT, WITH YOUR BARE HANDS?" Of course, I answered "YES", and the game said "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE MANAGED TO KILL A DRAGON WITH YOUR BARE HANDS!" Other enemies, such as a pirate who stole your hard-won items, would slip away before you even had a chance to fight them.

The game was ported to all the personal computers of the day, including my venerable Heathkit H-89, and eventually the IBM PC, where it spawned a host of imitators. The largest text adventure game company, Infocom, continued to write larger and more complicated prose-only adventures, until it was sold in 1986.

Mystery House (1979)

Mystery House is widely considered the first graphical adventure game

Hardware: Apple ][

• 1 MHz 6502
• 16KB RAM
• 8KB VRAM
• 8 colors
• 280x193 resolution

Mystery House was created by Roberta Williams, the shy and retiring spouse of mainframe programmer Ken Williams. She played Adventure on a mainframe terminal used by her husband, and convinced him to purchase the then-new Apple ][. While she enjoyed the simple graphic games on that platform, none of them appealed to her as much as Adventure. For months she secretly designed a game of her own on stacks and stacks of paper, including drawings of the rooms the game would contain. One day she took Ken out to a fancy dinner and literally laid her idea out on the table. To his credit, he took notice and began to program it into the Apple ][. As there was no room on a floppy disk for all the pictures, he drew them in the form of lines, where only the X and Y coordinates of the lines needed to be stored. (I once programmed a graphics editor that used a similar concept in Apple BASIC.)

Mystery House was a huge hit, and gave the Williams' so much money that they were able to start a company, On-Line Systems (later Sierra On-Line and then just Sierra) and hire more programmers. Roberta was thrilled, and for years still answered the phone and helped out stuck customers with hints on solving the puzzles in her games.

The game was fairly simple, with somewhat less depth than Adventure and a similar, but less-capable text parser. However, it struck a chord with Apple owners and Sierra On-Line would soon become a multimillion dollar company with dozens of products.

King's Quest III (1986)

King's Quest III was just one in a long line of sequels

Hardware:IBM PC

• 8 MHz 8088 (16 MHz 80286 recommended)
• 640 KB RAM
• 32 KB VRAM
• 4 colors (CGA) or 16 colors (EGA)
• 320x200 resolution

By the time of the release of King's Quest III, Sierra On-Line was a thriving company and Roberta Williams' imagination was running in overdrive. The games were now released on multiple platforms including the IBM PC, and the graphics had evolved from simple line drawings to rich bitmapped backgrounds and characters. The game doubled each pixel, which halved the actual resolution (160x200) in order to save memory. Four blank lines were left at the bottom to type in commands, an artifact of the way high-resolution graphics modes worked on the Apple ][. However, the main character's movement was controlled using the arrow keys.

The game had an interesting plot that again involved saving the Kingdom of Daventry. The evil wizard Manannan kidnapped the son of King Graham, and raised the young Prince Alexander as his own slave. As he did with all of his captors, he plotted to kill him when he turned 18, in case the boy became too powerful a wizard himself. When you start the game, as Prince Alexander, you are unaware of your history and think you are simply a slave named Gwydion. During the game you uncover the truth and eventually escape, only to have to save your sister, Princess Rosella.

The game was the first in the series to feature magic. Spells included Causing a Deep Sleep, Understanding the Language of Creatures, Flying like an Eagle or a Fly, Teleportation at Random, Brewing a Storm, Transforming, and Becoming Invisible. It was unforgiving in the many ways it could kill your character for making a wrong move, so gamers were encouraged to save their progress often.

Monkey Island (1990)

Monkey Island brought a silly sense of humor to the genre

Hardware: IBM PC (80286 @ 16 MHz)

LucasFilm Games, the tiny division of the Star Wars empire owned by George Lucas, had come out with many popular and humorous adventure games such as Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. But it was with Monkey Island that the combination of humor and graphic adventure really took off.

The game involved a wannabe pirate with the unfortunate name of Guybrush Threepwood. His main goal in life is to be taken seriously as a pirate, but that path involved all kinds of crazy encounters with insult-wielding pirates, fast-talking used-ship salesmen, large men afraid of tiny birds, sexy Governesses, and ghost pirates vulnerable to root beer. The jokes were fast and furious, and occasionally subtle.

The game play had changed from the King's Quest days. LucasFilm Games pioneered an adventure game interface called SCUMM, where all the available action verbs are displayed below the main screen, and all inventory objects to the right. All game interactions can be completed by clicking on one of these items and on a special hot spot on the screen. The hot spots are found by sweeping the mouse cursor around interesting areas, and watching as the game identifies the object on the small space above the main verb and object area. This technique would prove so popular that almost all adventure games afterwards would adopt it in one form or another.

Unlike the Sierra games, LucasFilm adventures did not ever kill the player for making a wrong move, so saving the game was only necessary if you wanted to get some sleep. Despite this, Monkey Island still managed to maintain the appropriate levels of tension in the serious moments. Killing the ghost pirate LeChuck was immensely satisfying, even if he did have a nasty habit of reappearing in the sequels.

Myst (1993)

Myst sold millions of copies and almost many CD-ROM drives

Hardware: IBM PC

• 386 33 MHz
• 4 MB RAM
• 1 MB VRAM
• Hard disk
• Mouse
• SVGA (256 colors)
• CD-ROM
• 640x480 resolution

Myst was a groundbreaking game in many respects. It drove sales of CD-ROMs for personal computers and reached millions of customers, but is most often remembered for how it enticed people who had never played games before. While the gaming industry has grown at a rapid pace over the years, the number of games that have attracted nongamers has always been low. Myst was definitely one that broke that barrier.

Game play was at once simple and complex. The player used the mouse to click on objects, both on the main screen and in inventory, and clicked near the edge of the screen to move. The world was presented as a series of static screen shots, with each click leading to a new perspective of the virtual island. Occasionally a tiny Quicktime movie would play inside a small box. While moving around was simple, solving the intricate puzzles was not.

There were no characters in the story to interact with. The island was uninhabited, and part of the mystery of the game was discovering exactly why that was so. Despite these limitations, the game remained popular, and recently a remake, Real Myst, was issued that recreates the entire island in full 3D with complete freedom of movement.

The Longest Journey (2000)

The Longest Journey won critical acclaim and
sold well in a declining market for the genre

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium 166 MHz)

The Longest Journey was one of the last true adventure games to be released. Sporting a combination of detailed prerendered backgrounds and fully 3D-rendered characters, it straddled the middle ground between 2D and 3D. The game featured full voice acting of consistently good quality. It was set both in a near-future world and a mysterious past, and you played April Ryan, a young student at an arts academy.

The Longest Journey was not the first adventure game to feature a female protagonist (that distinction probably goes to King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella), but it definitely is one of the few to flesh out the character of said protagonist in great detail. The player gains a real sense of April's past and her attitudes and feelings towards the world, and this only becomes magnified when she is sent back into a strange alternate dimension. Game play is similar to other Adventure games, using the mouse to click on objects on screen and in inventory, and to move April around.

The Longest Journey ended up selling over 450,000 copies, a very good number considering many people had already written off the genre as being irrelevant in the face of action games such as Grand Theft Auto. A sequel is in the works, partially funded by the Norwegian government.

Driving games

Night Driver (1976)

Night Driver may have been the first driving game

Hardware: Arcade (custom Atari microprocessor and circuitry, black and white, 336x240 resolution)

Night Driver was an attempt to create a fast-paced driving game with the illusion of 3D, using the limited hardware available at the time. Using off-the-shelf logic chips, Atari put together an extremely simple custom microprocessor and video circuitry that was capable of displaying black and white pixels at high speed. On the bottom of the screen, an artist painted a picture of a car's cockpit on a piece of plastic.

The game was exceedingly simple. All the player had to do was steer the car along the road without crashing off the side. As the game continued, however, the road became narrower and more winding. More points were scored for driving at a higher speed, so the challenge was to race as fast as you can without crashing until the road became too narrow to navigate. The game came with a steering wheel, a four-speed gear shift, and an accelerator pedal. There was no brake.

Pole Position (1982)

Pole Position set many conventions for driving games

Hardware:Arcade (Z80 3 MHz, 128 colors, 256x224 resolution)

Pole Position was an arcade favorite and set the standard for most racing games to come. The player drove a single qualifying lap, then raced against seven other computer-controlled cars in a four-lap race. Victory would earn you a spot on the high score board.

Editor's note: I shudder to think about how many quarters I dropped into this game at the 7-Eleven near my house. Also at the number of Big Gulps and nachos consumed while playing same.

The gear shift was simplified to two settings: High and Low, but a brake pedal was added (although it was rarely used). If the player's car even slightly touched an opponent, both vehicles would explode in spectacular fireballs. You could drive off the road to cut corners, but only for a slight distance until an invisible barrier stopped you from going any further. It was risk to do this, however, as you were likely to run into a road sign and explode. You could lose as many cars as you liked, but near the end of the race even a single explosion would take enough time off the clock to end your game.

Despite persistent rumors, there was no way you could enter in a secret code and drive off to Mount Fuji in the distance.

Hard Drivin' (1988)

Hard Drivin' stressed both realism and fantasy at the same time

Hardware: Arcade (68010 8 MHz, 1024 colors, 640x480 resolution)

Hard Drivin' was a serious attempt at bringing a more realistic driving simulation to the arcades. The steering wheel supported force feedback and thus felt more like driving a real car than the zero-resistance wheels of games past. The physics of driving were accurately modeled by Doug Milliken, the son of William Milliken, widely acknowledged as the world's leading expert in car modeling. A realistic four-speed gear shift and detailed cockpit interior were designed to simulate the driving experience as accurately as possible.

At the same time that all this gritty realism was being put in, the game itself was designed as pure driving fantasy, with giant track loops reminiscent of toy slot-car racers. If you built up enough speed, you could drive upside down on the track and make it safely to the other side. If you were unlucky, your car could run off the track and would crash to the ground upside-down.

The graphics were flat-shaded 3D polygons, rendered in software without any GPU acceleration. While you still couldn't drive off the track completely, you could at least get a little ways away from it before the game forced you to go back.

Virtua Racing (1992)

Accelerated 3D came to racing games with the Virtua series

Hardware: Arcade (NEC V60 16 MHz, plus 68000 12 MHz, Sega AM2 3D chip, 8192 colors, 496x384 resolution)

Sega's Virtua Racing was one of several arcade games in their "Virtua" series, starting with Virtua Fighter, that used the AM2 arcade motherboard commonly referred to as the Sega Model 1. This board was capable of smooth, hardware-accelerated, flat-shaded polygon animation at 30 frames per second. In order to maintain a constant 30 fps, polygons over a certain distance limit from the viewer would "pop in" as the car approached them.

In terms of game play, Virtua Racing lacked the realism advancements of Hard Drivin' and played more like Pole Position. However, touching another car did not mean instant death, merely a loss of speed and time. The greatest advancement was the fact that multiple arcade units could be linked together, so that up to eight human players could race each other at the same time.

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000)

Despite featuring only Porsches, NFS:PU was state of the art

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 400 MHz)

The Need for Speed series actually started life on the doomed 3DO console, but hit its stride when it was released on the PC. In the fifth release, EA inexplicably decided to feature cars from only one manufacturer: Porsche. Despite this limitation, the game itself was quite a bit of fun to play and contained many new features.

All cars and track elements were rendered in accelerated 3D, including the cockpit steering wheel and driving hands. Early in development software rendering was going to be supported, but it soon became clear that requiring 3D acceleration was necessary. An extensive damage model was included, which enabled you to bang up your car in interesting ways and still finish the race. New racing modes were added, including an "Evolution" mode where the player started with the original 1948 Porsche 356 and through winning races, upgraded and sold the car in order to purchase new models when they came out.

The game supported analog steering wheels and force feedback, and multiple players could play over a local area network or the Internet. I was working for EA during this game's development, on the quality assurance team. My assigned area was multiplayer connectivity and game play, which means that if you find a bug in the multiplayer game, it's not my fault. While at EA I had the honor of working with probably the world's best NFS player, Brad Porteous, who actually set the speed lines that the game AI cars would follow (suitably dialed down so that regular humans had a chance of beating it).

Forza Racing (2005)

Forza raced onto the XBOX in style

Hardware: Xbox

• Pentium III 733 MHz
• 64 MB shared RAM
• 250 MHz nVidia GPU
• 16.7 million colors
• 640x480 resolution

Microsoft's Forza racing was an effort to one-up Sony's popular Gran Turismo series. The game featured real cars and a mixture of real and imaginary tracks to race them on. Damage modeling was included, as were multiple customization options for your car. Like Porsche Unleashed, there is a "Career Mode" where you start off with a single car and some money and work your way up by upgrading your car and winning races.

Multiplayer support is provided through the XBox Live! service, as well as a split-screen mode and by directly connecting up to eight XBoxes together. Players on Live! can form "Car Clubs" where their stats and information are stored for the purpose of challenging other clubs online.

The driving part of the game is modeled to be more accurate than traditional racers. Tire wear and heat, slipstreaming (following closely behind another car to reduce drag from wind resistance), and damage effects are all taken into account when racing.

Turn-based strategy

Everyone who played Empire wanted to rule the world

Hardware: Mainframe computers with ANSI terminals, later ported to the IBM PC and many other platforms.

Empire is widely considered to be the grandfather of strategy games. Released in 1978, it proliferated among university mainframe terminals worldwide. The game consists of a battle between a human player and one or two computer players. The game involved conquering the opposing player's cities with land, air and naval units.

The game was rendered with ASCII characters on a black and white screen. When you started out, the world was "blank", requiring you to send scouting units to reveal the randomly generated geography. The map consists of sea '.', land '+', uncontrolled cities '*', computer-controlled cities='X', and your dominated cities='O'. All sorts of details of combined arms combat were simulated, including ferrying troops over in transports and putting aircraft on carriers.

Utopia (1981)

Utopia was fast-paced world-conquering action for two players

Hardware: Intellivision

• General Instruments CP1610 @ 0.9 MHz
• 1 KB RAM
• 8 KB VRAM
• 16 colors,
• 196x160 resolution

Utopia was a bit of a hybrid game, as it ran in real-time but events happened on a regular turn-based cycle. The game matched two players against each other: there was no artificial intelligence or computer opponents. However, you could still play the game in single player mode with no opponent.

Players began their civilization with a single city on a randomly-generated continent. The goal was to increase the population on your continent faster than the other player, by building farms, fishing fleets and other infrastructure. Natural disasters like hurricanes would randomly wreak great swaths of havoc across the virtual landscape.

While there was no combat in the game, there was a lot of strategy required to be successful. Famines and other disasters were frequent threats. Carefully balancing population growth against infrastructure building was necessary for success.

Civilization (1991)

Quite possibly the most addictive game of all time

Hardware: IBM PC (8086 @ 8 MHz)

Civilization was originally modeled after a board game of the same name, but went far beyond that game's scope. It became a legend, balancing exploration, city-building, technology research, trade, government, diplomacy and warfare. The player started the game on a black map with a single settler in 4000 BC. Setting your tax and science rates and building the first city, the game became a race against up to seven computer-controlled opponents who would try to outresearch, outbuild and outfight you in a struggle to the death.

The game was turn-based, with each turn representing a certain number of years that steadily dropped as the game approached the year 1900, after which each turn represented a single year. Players could find random huts that could turn into scrolls of lost wisdom (scientific advancements), advanced tribes (free cities), or a horde of barbarians. Combat was based on unit strength, veteran bonuses, terrain, and whether or not units were in forts or behind city walls. Players also directed what scientific and technological improvements their civilization would research next, and were rewarded for good play with the improvement of their palace.

The game had many different ways to win. You could try the "Mongol Hordes" strategy and flood the world with horsemen and chariots in an attempt to conquer the world as quickly as possible. Or you could sit back, build up your defenses, pay off any would-be aggressors and try to out-research everyone else. You could build Wonders of the World that gave certain advances to your civilization, as well as bonus points at the end of the game. Finally, you could win by constructing a spaceship and successfully flying it to Alpha Centauri.

Warlords II (1994)

Warlords II leaped into high resolution

Hardware: IBM PC (386 @ 16 MHz)

Warlords II was the sequel to the popular turn-based strategy title that had been released for many computing platforms, including the Amiga and the PC. The player fought against up to seven other computer opponents to capture strategic castles and gain total domination over the land. Castles could train new armies, and special units called heroes could find bonus items hidden in ancient ruins across the landscape. Heroes cost money, however, so there was an economic element to the game as well.

The original game used a higher resolution than most strategy games of its era (640x200) and the sequel upped the ante even more by running at 640 x 480. Unlike the original, Warlords II came with an extensive campaign editor and many different historical scenarios, such as conquering Great Britain.

Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999)

Heroes of Might and Magic added lots of options

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 133 MHz)

Heroes of Might and Magic was a popular series of turn-based strategy games that was based on the role-playing games of the same name. They had a medieval fantasy setting, where heroes in shining armor could also cast powerful spells and wield potent magic.

In the Heroes series, the player battled several computer opponents for control of the land. Like in Warlords, heroes could wander about searching for relics that gave additional powers to their armies. In addition, they could find valuable gems that contributed to the economy. Players could build mines that would provide them with cash and valuable resources.

A new addition to Heroes III was the idea of heroes performing certain quests, usually searching for a specific artifact. The player could decide whether to keep the artifact for its specific powers or return it for its owner's reward.

Multiplayer games were available, both against other human players and co-operatively versus the computer.

Civilization IV (2005)

Conquering the world never looked so good

Hardware: IBM PC

• Pentium 4 1 GHz
• 256 MB RAM
• 32 MB VRAM
• CD-ROM
• 3D card
• 16.7 million colors
• 640x480 resolution

The Civilization franchise will get its biggest facelift with the release of Civilization IV. A move from a 2D isometric view to a full 3D display will allow the player to zoom into the map at any level. Cities are displayed on the main map with all their improvements (such as Wonders of the World) fully visible at all times.

The standard attributes of exploring, researching, building, trading and fighting are still intact, but subtle changes and enhancements are everywhere. The user interface has been tweaked to make all the options more visible for the player. There are more civilizations to choose from (18 in all) and more ways to win (a new "Alliance" victory allows you to win by partnering with another civilization). The leaders of each computer-controlled civilization are fully animated in 3D and can express different emotions depending on how they feel about the player.

Simulation games

Flight Simulator (1979)

Flight Simulator was available on many early computers

Hardware: Apple ][

In 1975, electrical engineering student and avid pilot Bruce Artwick wrote his master's thesis on the possibility of a flight simulator on a personal computer, mathematically proving that the meager chips of the day indeed had enough power to drive such a complex simulation. A few years later he and Stu Moment founded SubLogic, and wrote the first ever flight simulator for the Apple ][.

The graphics were primitive, displaying all terrain formations as see-through wire frames, but the underlying game was solid and carefully modeled the actual experience of flight. Virtual pilots had to take into consideration wind speed and direction, and safe landings were just as tricky as in real life.

The game was also ported to other early computers of the day, such as the Radio Shack TRS-80.

Flight Simulator 2 (1983)

Flight Simulator 3 improved the graphics and added features

Hardware: IBM PC (8088 @ 4.77 MHz)

Flight Simulator was ported to the PC in 1982, and quickly became a best-seller on that platform as well. In the early days of Compaq and the first IBM PC clones, the ability to run Flight Simulator was considered the acid test for proving 100% IBM PC compatibility.

Flight Simulator 2 featured an enhanced graphics mode with 8 colors, which was available on the Tandy 1000 and IBM PC Junior computers, along with releases for the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and Atari 400/800. The wire frame models were now gone, replaced with solid shaded polygons with hidden lines removed. New planes were added, along with additional scenery and 80 different airports to land at. The cockpit instrumentation was improved, with more information available to the player.

Falcon 3.0 (1991)

Falcon 3.0 got many people to upgrade their computers

Hardware: IBM PC (386 @ 16MHz)

The Falcon series of games simulated not just flight in a civilian aircraft, but air combat flying the US Air Force's advanced F-16 fighter. The single-engined F-16 was one of the smallest and definitely most maneuverable fighters in the American arsenal.

The game featured solid polygonal graphics, and supported the new 256-color VGA mode. The extra colors helped support features such as soft gradients on the edge of the horizon, and also allowed the image to smoothly fade out to simulate pilot blackout from excessive G-forces in tight turns.

The game meticulously simulated not only the complexity of flight but the detail in preparing for military missions. While an "Instant Action" mode was available for people who just wanted to jump in and shoot things, the campaign mode was brilliantly detailed, and even took into account success and failure in previous missions when generating new ones. For example, if you failed to take out an airbase in one mission, it would be available to launch fighters against you in another.

The game also supported multiplayer games over modem or direct connection (null modem cable) The player could fly as part of a strike wing of up to eight planes.

Strike Commander (1993)

Strike Commander brought texture mapping to the skies

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 60 MHz)

Origin's Strike Commander was three years in development and suffered many delays before release. For the first time, texture mapping was integrated as part of the graphics engine, although for speed reasons only planes and buildings were texture mapped. Gouraud shading added an extra smoothing element to the edges of polygons as well.

The game added the storytelling aspects of Wing Commander to the flight simulator genre. The player was put in charge of a mercenary squadron of pilots trying to do good in a world where the concept had gone out of fashion. In addition to managing the pilots, the player also had to keep track of the money the squadron had earned, and use it to make repairs and purchase new equipment and ordnance.

While the game struggled to run smoothly on the hardware available at the time, it would go on to be extremely successful on the next generation of computers, and the engine was used as the basis of the blockbuster Wing Commander III.

Falcon 4.0 (1998)

Falcon 4.0 pushed systems to their limit

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 166 MHz)

Fans had been waiting for Falcon 4.0 for a long time. and Microprose did not disappoint. The updated version supported higher resolutions and texture-mapped polygons, as well as supporting the new generation of 3D graphics cards. The game had increased in complexity as well: the manual had doubled in size to 600 pages.

As well as better graphics and more options, the physics of flight were modeled more accurately as well. Stalls and spins, which had been present in flight sims for many years now, felt more like they did in real aircraft. Weather modeling was added as well, so that the player had to be aware of such events as thunderstorms.

Although complexity and realism were the main selling points, the game could be "dialed back" to an almost arcade-like simplicity if desired. Dynamic campaigns, introduced in 3.0, were also available. The only major drawback to the game was a plethora of bugs, which were eventually fixed with patches.

Pacific Fighters (2004)

Pacific Fighters built on the successful
IL2:Stormovik game engine

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium 4 @ 1 GHz)

The popular flight simulator IL2:Sturmovik was moved to the World War II pacific theater with stunning results. As the screen shot shows, the plane and ground details were greater than anything that had been seen before. Both bodies of water and cities looked realistic.

Over 40 planes were included, as well as numerous ships. Aircraft carrier landings were nearly as risky and thrilling as in real life. Dynamic campaigns were included, and players could fly against each other in multiplayer scenarios over the Internet. In addition, it was possible to modify the decals and skins on individual planes, creating a truly customized experience.

Role-playing games

Rogue (1980)

Rogue was created by a couple of university students

Hardware: University mainframes with ANSI character terminals; later, 4.77MHz IBM PC running MS-DOS in text mode.

Rogue was created by a group of students who had been enjoying the text gameAdventure (also known as Colossal Caves) and wanted to write something in a similar vein that would utilize the new cursor movement and character graphics libraries on the terminals they were using. When the IBM PC was released in 1981, a port of this game to that platform soon followed. It would later appear on many other personal computers.

Rogue was a simple, yet addictive game of exploration and character advancement. You controlled the player (who looked like a happy face in the PC version) with the cursor keys, uncovering new rooms in the randomly-generated dungeons, and you could attack monsters (who appeared as uppercase letters) by simply running straight into them. Single key commands enabled the player to drink potions, look at his inventory, equip better weapons and armor, and cast spells—essentially all the basics that Dungeons & Dragons pen and paper players took for granted.

Despite the randomness of the dungeons, there was an ending to the game, a final ultimate evil to defeat, although getting there was difficult as dying meant the game was over. The game wound up being distributed with the source code to BSD UNIX, which meant it almost instantly became one of the most popular games on college campuses.

Ultima III (1983)

Ultima III was originally released on the Apple ][,
then ported to other systems

Hardware: Apple ][

Richard Garriott began the Ultima series with a game called Akalabeth, released for the Apple ][ in 1981. Akalabeth set the basic frameworks for each Ultima game to come: a tile-based overland world in which the player tromped across large swaths of geography in order to visit cities and dungeons, the latter being rendered in primitive 3D wire frame graphics.

Ultima III was the first to really set down many of the conventions that would last for the remainder of the series: a continent named Sosaria (later renamed Britannia), a capital city named Britain and a king named Lord British (based on Richard's summer camp nickname) In addition, for the first time you could have other nonplaying characters join you in a party of up to four adventurers. At any time on the overland or in a dungeon your party could wander into a monster, at which point the screen would shift to a close-up view of the encounter, often with multiple monsters of the same type. Players took turns issuing commands to attack or cast spells, and the monsters then returned the favor. Badly injured monsters would attempt to flee from the scene of battle.

Players interacted with nonplayer characters by typing single words like "NAME" and "JOB" to them, which would trigger replies that contained further key words. Many NPCs had important information that was vital to completing the game.

The game had an ultimate goal (defeat Exodus, the unearthly half-machine son of the evil sorcerers Mondain and Minax) but it wasn't until Ultima IV that the goal changed from "defeat the ultimate bad guy at the end" into something a little more complex.

Ultima VI (1990)

Ultima 6 was the first version to come out for the PC initially

Hardware: IBM PC (8088 @ 8 MHZ)

Ultima VI was the first to support the new 256 color VGA graphics modes available on IBM PCs and clones, and it was the first to support a mouse (although the mouse was definitely optional). The world looked a lot more vibrant at this color depth, and unlike Ultima V, all objects in-game were oriented at the same 45 degree angle, to achieve a kind of pseudo-3D effect known as anoblique display.

The well-tested formula of gathering a party together to help out Lord British and save Britannia was back once again, but the plot had all sorts of subtleties that made it stand out from typical RPGs. The introduction was a chilling and memorable encounter with demonic-looking gargoyles, who strapped you to a sacrificial table and nearly killed you before you were saved by your trusty friends Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre. However, as you played through the game you learned a shocking secret: your actions in the world of Britannia through the last five games had been destroying the world of the Gargoyles, who lived on the flip side of the planet. To them, you were the ultimate evil, foretold by religious prophecy, and only through killing you could their world be saved. It became up to you to convince the Gargoyles that you weren't evil after all, and work together with them to save both civilizations.

Action was still turn-based, but the use of the mouse to move and attack objects anywhere on the screen foretold the move to a real-time combat and movement engine in the next game. You could also click on key words in conversations instead of having to type them in, although that was still an available option.

Darklands (1992)

Darklands was a popular and open-ended adventure

Hardware: IBM PC (80286 @ 16 MHz)

Darklands was an intriguing and unique RPG, in that it was based in a real historical setting (15th century medieval Germany) with fantasy and magic elements added on top. The fantasy elements were based on many medieval beliefs of the time. A party of up to four characters explored the large world map and braved difficult dungeons, all rendered in an oblique display. When the player was in one of the over 90 cities, the interface changed to a menu-based list of options, overlaid on top of artistic scanned drawings of important game events happening in that city. The choices you made in the cities determined where you would go next and would also subtly alter the plot.

Magic was performed by mixing up to 15 types of potions and four bases in flasks, which were then quaffed or hurled at the enemy. Armor and weapons had authentic weights and damage levels. Combat was in real-time, but there was also an "auto combat" option to handle all encounters automatically.

The goal of the game was unusual among RPGs: rather than defeat an ultimate evil, the quest was simply to become famous, and so the game had no ending in the traditional sense. There was a single, most difficult quest, to defeat the Templar Knights and their demon lord, Baphomet, but after finishing him off you got a single victory screen and the option to continue playing and racking up fame points. There were dozens of optional side-quests that could be pursued at the player's leisure.

Baldur's Gate (1998)

Baldur's Gate provided hours of licensed D&D adventure

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 166MHz)

Baldur's Gate was one of many computer role-playing games that were based directly on the granddaddy of paper and pen RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons. Because it was fully licensed, it used that game's world, places, characters, and monster types. The player could control a party of up to six characters, and multiple players could connect to the same game through an Internet connection. All the elements of paper-based D&D (such as saving throws and multiple dice rolls for almost every action) were carried out behind the scenes, but the user could view these results if they so pleased.

Combat was handled in real-time, using the mouse to click on opponents and cast spells. However, to make things a little less frantic in a busy melee, the user could hit the space bar and pause the game to make changes and issue commands. The world was made up of very large objects that had been pre-rendered in 3D programs, unlike older RPGs where lower amounts of memory made it a requirement to build the world up out of repeated small graphic "tiles." So instead of a house being rendered as four different sections of perfectly symmetrical wall tiles, it could look like anything the game designers imagined. The landscape also contained information about the relative height of each section, so the player appeared to climb over hills, ascend ladders, and fall into pits.

The storyline started with an unusual iron shortage and progressed into the discovery of an ultimate evil who was behind the whole thing, and of course had to be eliminated. However, there was much subtlety along the way, and the choices you made in interacting with other NPCs would directly affect both their relationship with you and the plot as a whole.

Multiplayer was a relatively new addition to these types of RPGs, which had spent years as single-player quests. However, multiplayer was essentially the same as the single player game, but with other players helping you out in addition to the computer-controlled NPCs.

Neverwinter Nights (2002)

Neverwinter Nights spawned hundreds of user-created modules

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 450 MHz)

Neverwinter Nights was also a fully licensed Dungeons and Dragons computer product, but advances in hardware technology made it look and feel very different from Baldur's Gate. The world and all characters in it were now rendered in full 3D, with hardware-assisted texturing and lighting. The camera would automatically follow behind the centered player character, but the user could move it around 360 degrees with the sweep of the mouse.

Combat was handled in real-time, although behind the scenes the game engine was still rolling the dice and calculating the result for each turn based on the D&D rules. While the world was rendered in full 3D, each area was self-contained, and entering a door or traveling to an adjacent area would result in a loading screen. Curiously, although the world appeared to be rendered out of discrete objects, the landscape (terrain and buildings) was built using large 3D tiles, a step backwards from Baldur's Gate. The player would never notice this unless he realized that many sections of dungeons and towns looked strikingly similar. The reason for this approach was again one of limited memory, this time memory for textures on 3D graphics cards.

The game plot involved a deadly plague that had stricken the city of Neverwinter, and the player attempted to discover the real source behind this calamity, which ended up being very surprising, and not at all expected. To finish the quest, the player could employ an NPC "henchman" to fight alongside with. While the plot was not terribly deep, the game was engrossing and the ending certainly memorable.

Neverwinter Nights' greatest strength, however, was not its story, but its infinite capacity for extension. The game shipped with a very serviceable game and script editor, which allowed nonprogrammers to create new modules, new stories and even new graphics for the game. Hundreds of such modules became available, and some are still being written today. Even new multiplayer modules were created, including game engines that could be run as an always-available server and mimic many of the features of massively multiplayer online games, only without the monthly fees. The ease of expansion also allowed Bioware, the company that produced Neverwinter Nights, to come up with two retail expansion packs (Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark) as well as a number of shorter modules that can be purchased online, some with very different looks and themes, such as Pirates of the Sword Coast.

Platform games

Pitfall (1982)

Pitfall was the first of the side scrolling platformers

Hardware: Atari 2600

Pitfall was a groundbreaking game for its time and pushed the limited hardware of the Atari 2600 to its limits. Instead of confining the action to a single game screen, as most of its contemporaries did, Pitfall scrolled the entire screen horizontally from right to left as the player moved through various challenges.

The player had a choice of action in some screens. He could try and swing over the crocodile pit by timing a jump on a rope exactly, or he could climb a ladder down underground and brave the deadly scorpions below. Each collision with an enemy would result in the loss of a life, and the player only had a certain number of lives to start with.

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Super Mario Bros. revolutionized the genre

Hardware: NES

• 1.79 MHz 6502 CPU
• 16 KB RAM
• 16 KB VRAM
• 32 KB ROM cartridge
• PPU and MMC custom chips
• 64 sprites
• 52 colors
• 256x240 resolution

Super Mario Bros. brought the characters Mario and Luigi from their single-screen world into the side-scrolling genre. Designer Shigeru Miyamoto brought his childhood memories of postwar Tokyo to life with plenty of tunnels, secret rooms, and even secret blocks that contained special items.

The significant new game play element involved eating a mushroom to grow to twice the size, which enabled the player to not only bump but destroy certain blocks, as well as being able to absorb an extra hit from a monster without dying.

Wonderboy in Monsterland (1988)

Wonderboy in Monsterland added
RPG elements to the genre

Hardware: Arcade (Z80 @ 4MHz)

The sequel to a more standard arcade platformer, Wonderboy in Monsterland added role-playing elements to the jump and run genre. The player could gather gold coins and exchange them in shops for better armor and magic spells such as fireballs or whirlwinds.

The game scrolled both horizontally and vertically and featured hidden rooms and a complex maze at the end. Instead of multiple lives, the player had a certain number of hearts. Each hit from a monster took off a certain proportion of a heart, and when the meter ran to zero the player would either use a revival pill (if available) or the game would be over.

The game was a hit in the arcades and was ported to Sega's home console, the Master System.

Sonic the Hedgehog (1990)

Sonic sped up the action with his fast-paced rolling

Hardware: Sega Genesis

• 68000 8 MHz
• 65 KB RAM
• 65 KB VRAM
• 64 colors
• 320x240 resolution

Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega's answer to Super Mario Bros. The funky blue creature looked very little like a hedgehog, but most players didn't care. They were too enthralled with the fast action, especially when Sonic rolled himself into a ball and launched himself up ramps, around loops and into the sky.

The main goal in Sonic was to defeat the evil Dr. Robotnik, who flew around the sky in contraptions of his own making. While rolling around in a ball was fun, it did not prevent the player from getting hit by enemies. When this happened, Sonic would lose all the golden rings that he had collected so far on that level. Extra rings could be translated into extra lives.

The fast pace and funkiness of Sonic was significantly responsible for the Sega Genesis managing to displace Nintendo from its position of complete dominance in the console arena. However, Nintendo was not done yet.

Mario 64 (1996)

Mario 64 leapt into the world of 3D

Hardware: Nintendo 64

• MIPS R4300 94 MHz
• 4 MB shared RAM
• SGI 3D graphics processor
• 65535 colors
• 640x480 resolution

Mario 64 brought the platforming genre into full 3D, changing the scope of the game significantly. Instead of a mad dash in a single direction, Mario could now explore his world at leisure, adjusting the camera to get the best possible view of the action.

Mario's familiar enemies were all present, and the game added many new ones. More significant than defeating enemies was the idea of searching the whole level and collecting as many coins and stars as possible. The lush, colorful world invited exploration and the 3D environment presented new jumping challenges.

The Nintendo 64 offered fairly advanced graphics hardware for its time, rendering all items as 3D texture mapped graphics, with bilinear texture smoothing and gouraud shading.

Jak and Daxter (2001)

Jak and Daxter pushed the Playstation 2 to its limits

Hardware: PlayStation 2

• 294 MHz MIPS IV
• 150 MHz Graphics Synthesizer
• 32 MB RAM
• 4 MB VRAM
• Emotion Engine
• 16.7 million colors
• 740x480 resolution

Jak and Daxter were new characters created by Naughty Dog software, the makers of Crash Bandicoot for the original PlayStation. Jak was a quiet, pointy-eared and spiky-haired generic hero, and Daxter was his faithful companion who had been transformed into a small ferret-like creature by an evil spell.

The game featured large, richly textured levels with an unbelievably long draw distance, so a player could stand on a high point and see parts of the level that were far off near the horizon. Lighting was an important part of the game, from flickering torches to the smooth day-night cycle.

The game featured several miniquests, each of which involved collecting valuable items. Some miniquests involved driving futuristic vehicles across the landscape. Collecting every item gained the player a rather disappointing extra scene at the end of the game.

First-person shooters

Hovertank 3D(1991)

Hovertank was the first 3D game
written by the id software coders

Hardware: IBM PC (286 @ 16 MHz)

There were other games that presented the player with a three-dimensional view of the world before Hovertank, but this game was one of the first to update the display in real-time. The player raced a futuristic hovertank around colorful corridors, blasting enemies that were rendered as scaled sprites.

All walls were of equal height, and all wall angles were 90 degrees. Ceilings were not rendered, The walls and floor were rendered with plain colors, and enemies as flat sprites. Unlike later FPS games, the player raced against the clock to complete each mission.

Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein set the basic game play for all FPS games to come

Hardware: IBM PC (286 @ 16 MHz)

After Hovertank, the id programmers looked to the past for inspiration. They found it from an old, 2-dimensional Apple ][ game calledEscape from Castle Wolfenstein. The player was trapped inside a Nazi fortress in World War II, and had to fight guards, attack dogs, and tough end bosses to survive.

All walls were still of equal height and all angles still 90 degrees. However, walls now were painted with texture maps. Ceilings and floors were still flat shaded, although flat, sprite-based light fixtures dotted the ceiling. Enemies and other in-game objects were flat scaled sprites, which looked the same no matter what angle the player viewed them from. For the first time, the player's weapon was visible.

The game had no time limits. The idea of requiring certain colored keys to progress through like-colored doors was added, and was used in many FPS games to come. The player's face was rendered as a small graphic in the status bar, and would look worse and worse the more damage the player accumulated.

Doom (1993)

Doom brought gaming into the mainstream,
even earning a mention on Friends

Hardware: IBM PC: (386 @ 16 MHz)

DOOM was id software's first breakout hit, selling millions of copies and catapulting the company into the ranks of the elite game producers. The game was fast, scary and fun, and made a significant mark on pop culture. It was most likely responsible for turning the IBM PC into the premiere and dominant game computer, overshadowing the Amiga (the Amiga's planar graphics architecture, which made side-scrolling games run so smoothly, was a disadvantage when it came to 3D games).

For the first time, angles other than 90 degrees were possible to render in-game. While the engine still could not render full areas above other areas (ruling out bridges and tunnels) it could seamlessly connect areas of one elevation to another, making staircases possible.

The game engine did not allow a full 360 degree vertical view. You could look up and down, but not straight up or straight down. All architectural elements were texture mapped, but enemies and in-game objects were still flat scaled sprites, meaning they looked the same from every angle.

Game play was similar to Wolfenstein 3D, with color-coded keys still required to finish each level. However, the monsters could now damage each other by accident, and would sometimes even start fighting each other if this happened too often. This added another strategic option to the game play. In addition, sneaky monsters could turn off the lights at certain points in the level.

In addition to the single player game, multiplayer "Deathmatches" were available over modem connections or a local area network.

Quake (1996)

Quake added true 3D to the 3D FPS genre

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 60 MHz)

Quake represented two significant advances in the FPS genre: true 3D representation of the world, and the ability to host and play multiplayer games over the Internet. The 3D engine meant that all items in the world, including monsters and objects, were rendered as full texture-mapped 3D objects. Levels could exist on top of other levels, and the player could look 180 degrees up or down.

The game play at times seemed a bit confused, as the game had started out as a medieval role-playing game and slowly morphed into a standard sci-fi first person shooter over time. This left many levels that looked like cathedrals, and certain weapons (like the axe) that seemed a bit out of place. Nevertheless, the game was a smashing success and went on to do even better than Doom.

The game supported a wide variety of screen resolutions, making it still capable of looking good years after the graphics technology had been surpassed. Furthermore, a free update called GLQuake was released to support the new 3D graphics cards—including the massively popular 3DFX—that had taken the PC gaming world by storm. GLQuake make the textures look better and less pixelated, and made the game run smoother and at higher frame rates.

Quake 3 (1999)

The Quake 3 engine was used for dozens of games

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 200 MHz)

Quake 3 was a departure for id software in that it eschewed the single player game entirely, focusing only on multiplayer deathmatch. While this disappointed some fans of the series, the improvements in the graphics engine more than made up for this deficiency. Better yet, the graphics engine wound up powering many great single-player games from other companies, such as Alice and Jedi Knight II.

The engine built on Quake II's use of colored lighting and added support for curved architecture, as seen in the screen shot. The walls were not actually curved, but the game engine figured out how many short straight segments it could use to maximize the curved look while still keeping frame rates high.

The basic deathmatch game was later enhanced with add-on packs offering new modes of play, including Capture the Flag.

Half-Life 2 (2004)

Half-Life 2 raised the bar for the genre.

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium 4 @ 1.2 GHz)

The original Half-Life was built on an enhanced version of the Quake II engine, but for the sequel, Valve software built their own graphics engine from the ground up. Called Source, it featured many new advanced features—such as bump mapping—that made the world seem more realistic than ever. Thanks to bump mapping, the player could shoot a bullet into a steel barrel and see a realistic indentation.

The game play was enhanced as well. Valve licensed the Havoc physics engine, which made objects fall and move realistically. In addition, they added a new weapon, the gravity gun, which was like a license to play with objects. In some levels, found items like circular steel saws could be manipulated with the gun and used as weapons.

The game supported both single- and multiplayer modes. Recently, a new graphics technology calledHigh Dynamic Range lighting was showcased on the Half Life 2 engine, for use in all future Valve Games.

Real-time strategy games

Dune II (1992)

Dune II set many of the standards for real-time strategy

Hardware: IBM PC

• Intel 386 @ 16 MHz
• 3 MB RAM
• 64KB VRAM
• Hard disk
• Mouse
• VGA (256 colors)
• 320x200 resolution

Dune II was nothing at all like its predecessor, a fairly standard adventure game. The sequel threw all the rules out the window, and defined a new genre all of its own, something that happens rarely in video gaming.

There are some who look at earlier titles like Herzog Zwei on the Sega Genesis and call it the true father of real-time strategy, but having played that game I find it difficult to describe it as such. Dune II laid down many of the conventions that became standard for all real-time strategy (RTS) games to come, and it looked and played very different from Herzog Zwei. The elements included building your own base from the ground up, sending mining units out to gather resources which could be spent on more buildings or attack units produced from those buildings, building up an army, and finally sending that army over to the opposing base and attempting to destroy it. The player could use the mini-map to view the entire field of battle at once, but until areas had been explored they remained dark, which made the early stages of the game very exciting.

In Dune II, set on the planet Arrakis from the science-fiction novel series of the same name, the main resource was spice, gathered by harvesters. Harvesters could be attacked and eaten by spice worms who buried deep underneath the sand. Dune II required that the player build large concrete slabs and lay them down below any further buildings could be placed (you could place buildings on raw sand but they would quickly fall into disrepair) There were three sides, Artreides House, Harkonnen House and Ordos House, and the player attempted to conquer Arrakis with all three. Each side had the same units plus some special units (such as the devastating Artreides Sonic Tank) that were special to that House.

The game was strictly a single-player affair against the computer. The computer had rather boneheaded AI and would gladly throw dozens and dozens of units against your base even if it was well defended by turrets. This lack of AI smarts would prove necessary in the last few missions, where your opponent started with a huge base to begin with, and memory limits in the game prevented you from building many units until you destroyed some of the computer's.

Despite these limitations, the game was insanely fun to play and remains so today. An updated version of the game, Dune 2000 was released to mark the end of the millennium but it did not sell particularly well, as it was facing many competitors in the genre that it originally created.

Command and Conquer (1995)

Command and Conquer added multiplayer action

Hardware: IBM PC (486 @ 25 MHz)

Command and Conquer was another release from Westwood, which had originally created Dune II. In C&C, the player was placed into a near-future world where the Global Defense Initiative battled the evil forces of NOD for world domination. The game featured a full-motion, live-action video introduction and cut scenes, and had a pulse-pounding soundtrack

The graphics had a stronger isometric arrangement, and units had more frames of animation. Some new game play features made things easier on the player: you no longer had to place concrete slabs down before the buildings, you could group multiple units more easily, and you could stack building orders in your barracks and factories so they would continue to produce units without constantly watching them.

The best feature of the game was its multiplayer, available over local area network or dial-up modem. I had many hours of happy memories blasting (and being blasted by) my friends while playing this game. I still have nightmares about swarms of NOD motorcycles coming at my base from all directions.

The game was extremely popular. Its sequel, Command and Conquer: Red Alert sold two million copies within a year of its release.

Warcraft II (1996)

Warcraft II upped the resolution of battle

Hardware: IBM PC (486 @ 25 MHz), PowerPC (PPC 601 @ 60 MHz)

Warcraft was Blizzard Entertainment's answer to Dune II and Command and Conquer. The original game came out between those two titles, but it was the sequel that garnered significant attention. The move to SVGA made the units much clearer and more detailed, and small touches like having the units complain if you clicked on them too many times in a row enhanced the overall game. In the Warcraft world, Orcs and Humans battled each other with units that looked different but had basically equivalent powers (although it is generally acknowledged that for human players, Ogres with Bloodlust outclassed Paladins with Heal because they were easier to manage in large numbers.)

The game introduced a new concept for RTS, the "Fog of War." No longer would merely exploring an area with a single unit cause it to be visible for all time. The landscape would be unveiled, but unless a friendly scout unit maintained its presence, enemy troop movements would be invisible. This added a significant dimension to strategy.

The game allowed you to complete two full campaigns against the computer, one as the Orcs and the other as the Humans. Multiplayer was supported via local area network and dial-up modem. A later re-release allowed players to connect over the Internet using Blizzard's matchmaking service, Battle.net.

Total Annihilation (1997)

Total Annihilation used 3D-drawn units

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 100 MHz)

Total Annihilation upped the RTS ante by rendering all of the units in 3D, so their movements were completely smooth no matter what direction they were facing in. The backgrounds were hand-drawn, but took into account elevation, so units firing down from higher ground gained advantages over their unfortunate foes below. The game took a slightly different direction from other RTS' titles with the introduction of the Commander, a master unit that cannot be destroyed without losing the game and has certain special features including the ability to build other units.

The game featured a plethora of units and free expansion packs added even more. The game developed quite a community following, which has survived to this day even though the original maker, Cavedog Entertainment, did not.

Starcraft (1998)

Starcraft is still widely played today, especially in South Korea

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 100 MHz)

In 1997, Blizzard leaked some screen shots of an early alpha of Starcraft, basically Warcraft in space, based on the Warcraft II engine. The response was lukewarm, so Blizzard decided to write a new engine from scratch. Starcraft was the result. It featured three very different races, the scrappy Terrans, the prolific Zerg, and the ancient and dignified Protoss. For the first time, units from the three races did not mirror each other but had very different abilities and strengths.

For example, Terran buildings could take off and fly (slowly) and resource gatherers could repair damaged units. Zerg could build any available unit at any hatchery. Protoss units took longer to build but had greater strength and had extra protection from shields. The result was a rock-paper-scissors type game where each race had units that were more effective against specific units, but in turn were more vulnerable to others.

Three single-player campaigns were included in Starcraft, one for each race, and numerous multiplayer modes were available over local area network or the Internet through Battle.net. An expansion, Brood War, added more units and balanced the sides still further. It was the extreme balancing of one-on-one battles that made Starcraft multiplayer games extremely popular, and in South Korea today the top players are showcased on four full-time Starcraft TV channels and are treated like superstars.

Warcraft III (2002)

Warcraft III added new game play elements to the genre

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 400 MHz)

Warcraft III attempted to emulate the art style of its immediate predecessor, but this time in full 3D glory. The player could zoom in closely to the action or zoom out to emulate the old isometric view. However, full camera freedom was not implemented, presumably to simplify game play (there had been some earlier RTS games that allowed this, and it tended to get confusing very quickly.) The zoomed-in effect was used in all of the game's cut scenes, allowing a greater immersion into the storyline.

The game operated much like Warcraft II on the surface, with the addition of new playable races such as the Undead and Night Elves. The significant game play change was the addition of heroes, special units with extra stamina and skills, who could gain experience and use special items. This was a fusion of role playing elements into the traditional RTS genre, and the reaction of the gaming public was generally favorable. Warcraft III would go on to sell over five million copies, and inspire the creation of a massively multiplayer game based on its world and story.

Conclusions

Gaming has definitely come a long way from its humble beginnings in a laboratory in the 1950s. From flickering lines on an oscilloscope we have advanced to realistic three-dimensional representations that in some cases are starting to look like the real world.

When I started the article, I expected to find that while graphics had advanced by leaps and bounds, game play had either stopped advancing or was developing extremely slowly. I was surprised to find that improvements in game play had occurred at every level of game development, right up to the present day. The addition of multiplayer modes, where players can compete against many other players at the same time, is one obvious improvement. But there have been many other subtle changes and additions to basic game play in all genres over the decades.

There are some exceptions. In the genre of role-playing games, 1993's Ultima 7 had more realistic nonplayer character (NPC) movement than many modern games. NPCs had homes, would wake up out of bed and open shutters, go to work and eat dinner at the pub afterwards. Contrast this with 2002's Morrowind, where the world is rendered in beautiful 3D but the NPCs stand fixed to a single spot 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. However, the sequel to Morrowind, Oblivion, is expected to have improved NPC behavior, so perhaps this was only a temporary step backwards.

Different genres lend themselves to some platforms more than others. While one of the best driving games of its time (Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed) was released for the PC, overall the genre has fared better on consoles. Sports games are also more popular and more numerous on consoles, and platform games such as Super Mario Bros. have also had more success on consoles than on computers. However, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, flight simulators, turn-based strategy games and real-time strategy games have enjoyed greater success on the PC. While some people are always eager to proclaim that the latest batch of consoles will mark the end of PC gaming, it seems more likely that certain genres will always lend themselves better to one type of playing environment.

Other platform trends have become evident over time. While games used to come out for many different computer platforms, today the vast majority are released only for the PC. On the console side, a wide variety of different platforms have fallen by the wayside, leaving only three companies (Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft) still competing in this arena. But even with this three-way split, game publishers are pushing more and more for multi-platform releases, to try and maximize profit from what has become a very expensive and cutthroat industry. The arcade, once the leading edge of gaming, has dwindled to also-ran status.

What the future holds for gaming is anybody's guess. Both PCs and consoles will continue to get more powerful and graphics will continue to improve. If the development of next-generation titles like Oblivion is any indication, game play will also continue to advance. New ideas like Nintendo's Revolution controller have shown that there is still a place for innovation even in the basic way in which gamers interact with their games. One thing is for sure: I can't wait to see what the next thirty years will bring.