Notes

Top Ten Classic VIDEO GAMING
10. Pong

Origins: Pong was predicated on a casino game called 'Tennis for Two' that was a simulation of a casino game of tennis on an oscilloscope. Physicist William Higinbotham, the designer, goes down in history as creating among the first electronic games to employ a graphical display.

The Concept: The game is intended to represent a casino game of Tennis or PING PONG (Ping Pong). Each player includes a bat; the bat could be moved vertically. The screen has two horizontal lines on the top and bottom of the screen. A ball is 'served' and moves towards one player - that player must move the bat so that the ball hits it. The ball rebounds and moves back another way. Depending on where in fact the ball hits the bat, the ball will move around in different directions - should it hit among the top or bottom lines, then it will bounce off. The idea is simply to make the other player skip the ball - thus scoring a point.

Game play: while it sounds utterly boring, the overall game play is in fact very addictive. You can easily play but very difficult to understand, especially with faster ball speeds, and much more acute angles of 'bounce'.

Nostalgia: for me here is the father of video gaming. Without Pong you probably wouldn't have video games - it started the craze that could continue grow and be a multi-billion dollar industry. I am going to always remember this game!

9. Frogger

Origins: this game was developed by Konami in 1981, and was the first game to introduce me to Sega. At the time it had been very novel and introduced a new style of game.

The Concept: Easy - you want to walk in one side of the road to the other. betwing88 - there's a lot of traffic; I better dodge the traffic. Phew Made it - hold on, who put that river there. Better join those turtles and logs and get to the other side - hang on that's a crocodile! AHHH! It sounds easy - the cars and logs come in horizontal rows, and the direction they move, the number of logs and cars, and the speed can vary. You need to move you frog up, down left and right, avoiding the cars, jumping on logs and avoiding nasty creatures and get home - do that several times and you also move to the next level.

Game Play: Another simple concept that's amazingly addictive. This game relies on timing; you're dinking in and out of traffic, and sometimes going nowhere. The graphics are poor, the sound is terrible, but the adrenalin really pumps as you try to avoid that very fast car, or the snake that's hunting you down!

Nostalgia: I love this game for most reasons. I played it for years, but never really became an expert - however, it had been the first ever game I were able to reproduce using Basic on my ZX81 - I even sold about 50 copies in Germany!

8. Space Invaders

Origins: Tomohiro Nishikada, the designer of Space Invaders was inspired by Star Wars and War of the Worlds. He produced on of the first shooting video games and drew heavily from the playability of Breakout.

The Concept: aliens are invading the planet earth in 'blocks' by moving down the screen gradually. Because the intrepid savior of the Earth it's your task to use your solitary laser cannon, by moving horizontally, and zapping those dastardly aliens out of the sky. Luckily, you have four bases to cover up behind - these eventually disintegrate, but they provide some protection from the alien's missiles.

Game Play: this is the very repetitive game, but highly addictive. Each wave starts a little nearer to you, and moves just a little fast - so every new wave is really a harder challenge. The game involved a fair quantity of strategy and also good hand eye co-ordination.

Nostalgia: I wasted lots of time playing this game. While originally simply green aliens attacked, some clever geek added color strips to the screen and the aliens magically changed color the low they got - that has been about as hi-tech as it returned in the times of monochrome video games!
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