Great Games From Unlikely Places

When people think of video game developers,they often think of Japan and America as they make the majority of video games and video game consoles,for example Sony are originally based in Japan and Microsoft are originally based in America.But what people don't realize or seem to forget is that many other countries have made their mark in the video game industry,countries such as Poland and Denmark and many others that I will be talking about in this blog.


Poland has made some very notable games including The Witcher and Bulletstorm (I can confirm that both games are very good).The Witcher is a fantasy RPG game based off of a collection of Polish stories.Because of Bulletstorm,the developers of the game,People Can Fly,have made quite a name for themselves in the video game industry.

Another European country that has made a name for itself in the video game industry is Denmark,who have made quite notable games such as Limbo and Hitman:Absolution (also two very good games).Denmark has a history of creating dark yet intriguing stories as Hans Christian Andersens collection of fairy tales also told stories that were childlike yet full of dark humour.Nearly all of the scandanavian countries have made their mark on the video game industry,with Finland making games like Angry Birds and Alan Wake and Sweden making games like Battlefield,Minecraft and Amnesia:The Dark Descent.Scandanavian game developers such as DICE,Rovio and IO Interactive have all made a name for themselves and have become quite popular in their respective countries,showing us that video games are becoming a growing industry in scandanavia.



But a big surprise is the number of indie games being released in the past couple of years (games created by an amateur game developer,not by a development company).Naturally,the majority of these indie games come from America and England.Games like Slender:The Eight Pages and Hotline Miami have become very popular and these games were made by only a couple of people who were not getting paid to make these games and used very simple programming and development engines,not like the high-tech,state of the art gaming engines that the big development companies are able to use.Obviously,these indie game developers don't make much money,at least not as much as big game developers do,but in the past 3 or 4 years,they have become much more popular,which shows me that perhaps the gaming industry is changing,perhaps in 5 or 10 years all video games will be made by indie game developers,and big game developers will be out of business.There is nothing wrong with big game developers,I would just like to see indie developers getting the recognition that they deserve.Anyway,I hope you enjoyed this post.Let me know what you think in the comments.


Cheers,
Darren

Are Video Games Too Violent?

This was a topic I mentioned in my last post,a question that was first raised in the 1990s,as video games were becoming much more realistic in that era,with games such as Doom,one of the first ever first person shooter games to be created for pc's.Parents were astonished with how much blood and gore was in the game,and this prompted many parents to complain to their government that this game and others should be banned from public use.

In 1994,the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) created the ESRB (Entertainment System Rating Board) to appropriately rate video games based on their content,for example,Doom was rated M (for Mature) by the ESRB because of its excessive violence,meaning only people over the age of 18 were allowed to purchase and play the game.However,this did not stop kids from playing these games or watching other people play these games.Of course,back in the 90s,this argument had just started.Now,20 years later,we are still asking the question-are video games too violent?Most people today would say yes,as video games today are very realistic and very violent,which some people would say makes a dangerous combination.

But I,being an avid gamer for about 13 years now,would say that it isn't video games that are too violent.In my opinion,it is the real world that is too violent and video games,being a realm of fantasy created by humans,are following the example of the real world.Basically,I believe that it isn't video games that cause violence,it is violence that causes video games.Consider this for a moment:which was created first,murder or video games?Which happened first,World War 2 or all the video games about it?From my opinion,you could say that if there was no violence in the world,there would be no video games,but that would be a very boring world.It's getting quite frustating to see angry parents blaming video games for all their kids' problems,when I think the blame should be placed on those parents for not watching over their kids appropriately.Games consoles today offer parental control settings for parents to monitor the content their children are allowed to watch and play,as well as the age rating given to every video game on the market so parents will know what type of game it is.Anyway,this is just my opinion.Perhaps I'm wrong and video games are too violent,I'm just saying that I believe I've seen much more violence in the real world than in video games.Let me know what you think about this topic in the comments,and I'll see you all next time.


Cheers,
Darren

The Origins of Video Games-Part 2

The video game industry really took off in the 1980s,with many classic games coming into being such as the super mario brothers games,the first game being released in 1981 and the first tetris game being released in 1984 for the pc.There were also many more video game consoles being released,such as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System),released in 1985 and the Sega Genesis,released in 1988,as well as the Atari 7800,released in 1984,started a big rivalry between the 3 companies who were all based in Japan.Nintendo,Sega and Atari all competed with each other,constantly trying to get the advantage on their opponents by releasing new video game accessories like the Nintendo Light Gun that was a plastic gun in real life that shot targets on the screen.Of course Sega and Atari had their own versions of these guns and they tried to get the advantage on their opponents by creating plastic rifles and other plastic weapons that worked the same way as the Nintendo Light Gun.As the 1990s approached,gaming entered a whole new era-handheld gaming.With devices like the Nintendo Gameboy,the Sega GameGear and the Atari Lynx.People were amazed with the idea of being able to travel while gaming and millions of these handheld gaming consoles were sold.As the 90s arrived,the gaming industry was changed in many ways,some positive and some negative.



Games such as Mortal Kombat and the first person shooter Doom raised the question of:are video games becoming too violent?This was debated quite often in United States Senate hearings and this brought about the video game rating system that groups all games to different age groups depending on how much violence or bad language is in the game.Getting back to games consoles for a bit,in 1995 Sony released their own home console called the Playstation which became very popular in the USA because it was cheaper than other consoles.To compete with the Playstation,Nintendo released a new console called the Nintendo 64 which also became very popular.The arrival of the Playstation,along with Nintendo's ever-growing popularity,forced Sega and also Atari to quit the game console industry and focus on making just video games.As the 21st century arrived,Playstation and Nintendo were dominating the gaming industry.



In 2001,another company debuted their own games console to rival the Playstation 2,released in 2000.Microsoft gained lots of fans with the Xbox because it revolutionized a new feature in gaming:online multiplayer.The Xbox featured many games in which you could play with your friends online,which many people enjoyed.Then in 2004,Nintendo released the Nintendo DS,a handheld console which dominated the market.Unfortunately for Nintendo,Sony and Microsoft had taken over the home console market with the Playstation and Xbox.Over the next couple of years all 3 companies each released a new console,gaining all of them a big fanbase.Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in 2005,introducing for the first time high-definition gaming.Nintendo released the Nintendo Wii in 2006,introducing gamers to motion-sensitive controllers and Sony released the Playstation 3 in 2007,introducing Blu-ray technology to the world.Coming in to present times,pc gaming really got a boost with games like World of Warcraft becoming very popular,as well as indie games such as Minecraft becoming popular as well.And then we finally arrive to today,with the Playstation 4 and Xbox One.I hope you enjoyed this timeline on the origins of video games,thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Darren

The Origins of Video Games

The origins of video games begins first in 1940 when Edward Condon created a computer that played the game called Nim,in which players tried to avoid picking up the last match.It was used for the Westinghouse display at the World Fair and it was played by tens of thousands of people,but what they didn't know was that the computer was programmed to win at least 90% of the time.Over the next couple of decades video games were quite simple games on quite simple devices,such as the "cathode ray tube amusement device" that played a game where people would fire a gun at a target.The next couple of breakthroughs in gaming involved programming games like chess and noughts and crosses to play on computers,which was revolutionary at the time but today is common on all computers.



The next big breakthrough in video game technology was the creation of the BASIC programming language by John Kemeny in 1964,making it easier for college students to create games of their own. The first ever video game console was the Odyssey by Magnavox,released in 1972 it was able to play a total of 27 different games.Although it was a great success,it was completely overshadowed 3 years later by the Pong console by Atari,which played simple 8-bit versions of hockey and tennis.Then in 1978 the arcade version of a classic video game was released in Japan-Space Invaders.Within a year,the machines were being shipped over to the USA so millions of Americans could drive back the hordes of alien ships.Then in 1980,the arcade version of Pac-man was released in Japan and within 2 years it had gotten ported to a home console,the Atari 2600.2 years later,Ms.Pac-man is released in the arcade and for home consoles and it quickly becomes the best selling arcade game of all time.In the next post,I will be finishing off the origins of video games.Please let me know if you enjoyed this post in the comments.

Cheers,
Darren

Introduction Post

Hello everyone!My name is Darren and this is my blog about all things video games.I will be writing about the origins of video games,about the creators or developers of video games,and also about important topics such as how do video games affect society and the world in general.I have been playing video games for about 13-14 years now so I consider myself quite knowledgeable about these things.So if you're in any way interested in video games,check out my blog!Thanks for Reading!