Advances in Gaming.
(This is a blog I wroter several years ago and I completely forgot to post it then. I jut found it and thought I would share. Keeping this in mind, note that the Kinect has released)
How funny that you can do everything from your phone now a days. It really puts in to prospective how things have changed. I'm only 30 and it seems like in just my lifetime the advances in technology have been astonishing. When I was 8 years old we weren't playing games like, Need for Speed, I was playing Pole Position. We had an Atari game system, which when compared to the Xbox 360, looks like a spinning top or marbles.
It wasn't until I was 12 that the Nintendo game system came out and that blew our minds. Super Mario Bros was amazing, with the jumping up on blocks and over creatures and monsters and the coin collecting. It was great. This made Atari games look like a game of jump rope. And the upgrades just kept coming.
Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega and Sega Genesis all come out with in a five year span. My brain racked with excitement when my homework was done. Then it was which game to play. After High School I let gaming go and didn't touch another system until I was 22. This was thanks to my husband.
Introducing me to the Microsoft manufactured Original Xbox, I became what u would call an avid gamer. With its dynamic for the moment visuals and it’s more than complex controller when compared to the 5 button controls for the Nintendo and Sega systems, it became something to fill times of boredom quite fast. It didn't consume my life, but it was time consuming. I found myself attracted to the shooter games which most girls that play video games, don’t venture to. These were games such as Halo and Halo 2. There were nights when my husband would get home from work at 3am and he and a bunch of co-workers/friends would play Halo until all hours of the morning. At times I even found myself up with them to play mini tournaments.
Sony made its way to the gaming scene as well with the Playstation. Somewhat like the Xbox, you played games on CD and the controller was also more complex. The PS2 soon followed its predecessor and the graphics and controls were also upgraded.
As the PS2 made its way in to many homes and introduced free online gaming (which didn’t meet many owners standards), it was only a short time until Microsoft realized they needed to keep the playing fields even. They upgraded the Xbox to the Xbox 360. One word described the system: WOW! The games improved like hell fire and blew me away. But it wasn't until we bought an HD TV that we really reaped the benefits of our purchase. The system was expensive, nearing 500 dollars compared to the 99 we paid for our 1980's systems. But as we soon found out, well worth it.
Now with games such as Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 I found myself liking games even more. The HD TV brought the games to a new height. Xbox Live gave the feeling of being right in the action, it was hard to believe that so long ago I was afraid to die on Centipede and Super Mario Bros. It was ten times more intense. Walking around corners in Halo not knowing if something was going to jump out and shoot you or stab you was exhilarating and the adrenaline rush was like that of riding a roller coaster for the first time.
With the release of the 360 Sony upped the ante one more time releasing their PS3. Not only was it an incredible gaming platform for graphics but it introduced the Blue Ray player installed right within itself. But the game play online just couldn’t compete with Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Again this online play was free, which Microsoft has yet to introduce, but the quality of free is known over and over again. You get what you pay for.
I soon found myself enthralled with the guitar and band games. These games putting me right in to make believe land of being a rock star. You could now return to the feeling of being a kid or fulfill a long time fantasy of actually starting a band. What makes it more realistic is how they make contests for your Rock Band or Guitar Hero Band that allows you to show your talents as a gamer by making videos and playing challenges online against other bands.
With gaming expanding more and more everyday, Nintendo felt they needed to catch up. They tried the Game Cube and the DS and presented us with the Wii. Which brought what was supposed to be body full action to the gaming world with bowling, tennis, baseball, golf, boxing, yoga; the list is endless. Using the Wii-motes you use your arms like the racket, the bat, etc. It’s a great addition to the gaming family with kids that want to game. The Wii makes it much easier for them to play than trying to learn the complex controllers of the Xbox and the PS systems.
So, as I look back on my time in the gaming world I wish that I could have had the games that my kids now have and the ones they will soon have with the release coming soon from Xbox 360, the Kinect. You will no longer need a controller. The controller will be your body and there will be no more cheating the gaming system as there is with the Wii. They attempted to make it a healthy gaming option to only have kids and adults the same finding ways to play without being active. The Kinect will put the Wii out of existence.
(This is a blog I wroter several years ago and I completely forgot to post it then. I jut found it and thought I would share. Keeping this in mind, note that the Kinect has released)
How funny that you can do everything from your phone now a days. It really puts in to prospective how things have changed. I'm only 30 and it seems like in just my lifetime the advances in technology have been astonishing. When I was 8 years old we weren't playing games like, Need for Speed, I was playing Pole Position. We had an Atari game system, which when compared to the Xbox 360, looks like a spinning top or marbles.
It wasn't until I was 12 that the Nintendo game system came out and that blew our minds. Super Mario Bros was amazing, with the jumping up on blocks and over creatures and monsters and the coin collecting. It was great. This made Atari games look like a game of jump rope. And the upgrades just kept coming.
Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega and Sega Genesis all come out with in a five year span. My brain racked with excitement when my homework was done. Then it was which game to play. After High School I let gaming go and didn't touch another system until I was 22. This was thanks to my husband.
Introducing me to the Microsoft manufactured Original Xbox, I became what u would call an avid gamer. With its dynamic for the moment visuals and it’s more than complex controller when compared to the 5 button controls for the Nintendo and Sega systems, it became something to fill times of boredom quite fast. It didn't consume my life, but it was time consuming. I found myself attracted to the shooter games which most girls that play video games, don’t venture to. These were games such as Halo and Halo 2. There were nights when my husband would get home from work at 3am and he and a bunch of co-workers/friends would play Halo until all hours of the morning. At times I even found myself up with them to play mini tournaments.
Sony made its way to the gaming scene as well with the Playstation. Somewhat like the Xbox, you played games on CD and the controller was also more complex. The PS2 soon followed its predecessor and the graphics and controls were also upgraded.
As the PS2 made its way in to many homes and introduced free online gaming (which didn’t meet many owners standards), it was only a short time until Microsoft realized they needed to keep the playing fields even. They upgraded the Xbox to the Xbox 360. One word described the system: WOW! The games improved like hell fire and blew me away. But it wasn't until we bought an HD TV that we really reaped the benefits of our purchase. The system was expensive, nearing 500 dollars compared to the 99 we paid for our 1980's systems. But as we soon found out, well worth it.
Now with games such as Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 I found myself liking games even more. The HD TV brought the games to a new height. Xbox Live gave the feeling of being right in the action, it was hard to believe that so long ago I was afraid to die on Centipede and Super Mario Bros. It was ten times more intense. Walking around corners in Halo not knowing if something was going to jump out and shoot you or stab you was exhilarating and the adrenaline rush was like that of riding a roller coaster for the first time.
With the release of the 360 Sony upped the ante one more time releasing their PS3. Not only was it an incredible gaming platform for graphics but it introduced the Blue Ray player installed right within itself. But the game play online just couldn’t compete with Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Again this online play was free, which Microsoft has yet to introduce, but the quality of free is known over and over again. You get what you pay for.
I soon found myself enthralled with the guitar and band games. These games putting me right in to make believe land of being a rock star. You could now return to the feeling of being a kid or fulfill a long time fantasy of actually starting a band. What makes it more realistic is how they make contests for your Rock Band or Guitar Hero Band that allows you to show your talents as a gamer by making videos and playing challenges online against other bands.
With gaming expanding more and more everyday, Nintendo felt they needed to catch up. They tried the Game Cube and the DS and presented us with the Wii. Which brought what was supposed to be body full action to the gaming world with bowling, tennis, baseball, golf, boxing, yoga; the list is endless. Using the Wii-motes you use your arms like the racket, the bat, etc. It’s a great addition to the gaming family with kids that want to game. The Wii makes it much easier for them to play than trying to learn the complex controllers of the Xbox and the PS systems.
So, as I look back on my time in the gaming world I wish that I could have had the games that my kids now have and the ones they will soon have with the release coming soon from Xbox 360, the Kinect. You will no longer need a controller. The controller will be your body and there will be no more cheating the gaming system as there is with the Wii. They attempted to make it a healthy gaming option to only have kids and adults the same finding ways to play without being active. The Kinect will put the Wii out of existence.
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