Rise of the Video Game

I finally sat down with my Tivo and watched an episode of Discovery's
video gamed docu-series "Rise of the Video Game". Sure, we've seen the
odd one off about games and related topics but unless I'm mistaken
this is the first major series that's tried to chronicle the history
of Video Games as a whole.

Anyway, I found the show to be very informative and I learned a great
number of things that I didn't know beforehand which suprised me, for
example:

Sega was primarily a toy company before entering the video game
market. it's earliest claim to fame was it's creation of 'Frogger' in
the 1970s.

Donkey Kong's 'Mario' was the first majorly successful video game
character/mascot and would go on to be a major force during the 80s.
However, as technology increased Mario lost prominance and was pretty
much replaced as a relic by 2000.

The Legend of Zelda was the first successful game to incorporate 'RPG
Like' elements into a video game. It's griping storyline also caused
many gamers to cry as the game packed a heavy emotional punch.

Super Mario Bros. introduced the character of Luigi and helped set
Marios identity which hadn't really been updated since Donkey Kong.

The Nintendo 64's cartridges could hold a maximum of 16 megabytes.

Despite being the 3rd game in the series, Grand Theft Auto III was
revolutionary in the fact that it allowed players to work outside of
the law and get rewards for committing crimes which was something
virtually unheard of at the time.

Everybody that had a computer of any sort in the early 80s also bought
sierra's 'Mystery House' to go with it.

Leisure Suit Larry was also a sign of the changing times when it
debuted in the early 90s. It's realistic urban setting stood in start
contrast to fantasy games available at the time such as The Legend of
Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

With games like Quartet and the original Phantasy Star, Sega's new
16bit graphics really pushed video games as a whole.

I'm sure I learned quite a bit more, but that's what I most remember.
What a great series. I'm wondering if perhaps The Space Boss
contributed in any way? If your interested, I'm sure Discovery will be
running these continously forever.

= numsix
= http://www.villagebbs.com






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