Arcade Classics

arcade games were very popular back in the 80's and some are still popular now here are some of the most popular arcade games.

Space Invaders - you have to shoot out rows of aliens as they slowly move down towards you and every so often they will shoot at you and you can hidu under little shelters to avoud been hit.

Pacman - the objective of the game is to collects the dots using the arrow keys on your keyboard to send you up down left and right, to complete a level you must collect the dots and avoid the ghost like characters within your 3 lives. This game is very addictive.

Asteroids - your ship is the little triangle in the middle of the screen and you have to destroy asteroids as they move towards you, when you shoot the big ones they will split into two seperate smaller asteroids.

Pong - the objective of the game is to hit the dot and get it past your opponant just like ping pong.

Tetris - you have to rotate shapes to fill the rows, every row you fill will disapear if the shapes hit the top of the screeen then you lose game over.

The battle of the 16 bit machines

The battle of the 16 bit machines was between the SEGA and Nintendo.

When the Sega Megadrive brought out sonic the hedgehog it became very popular selling millions this became a real competitor for Nintendo who soon after brought there own 16-bit console out called the super Nintendo.


the Sega had a better processor and a better custom speed but the Nintendo had better colour, resolution, feature and sprites.

5th Generation Consoles

The 5th generation consoles were Sony's PlayStation 1, Nintendo N64 and the Nintendo game boy colour and the Saga Saturn

Playstation 1 - it was created by Sony Computer Entertainment. This consoles games used a compact disc format, this was the first games console to sell more than 1 million units. the controller for the console was simple with four directional buttons and on the right hand side it had buttons that were easy to remember with shapes square circle triangle and X it also had four buttons at the back of the controller R1 R2 L1 and L2, eventually there was a better controller with analogue which made easier t for you to control your character.

N64 - This was Nintendo's 3rd home games console, it has a 64 bit CPU, its game were on cartridges instead of Compact discs which were used by its competitors. its best game was super Mario 64, its game graphics were 3D.

Game boy colour - This is a handheld console its Best-selling game was Pokémon Gold and Silver it has simple controls just your directional buttons and two action buttons.

Saga Saturn - its a 32 bit games console this was popular in Japan but failed to gain a market in Europe and North America so they were unable to become competion for the Playstation 1 and the N64.

The Video Game Crash Of 1983

The video game crash of 1983 was caused by several thing, these are:

• Flood of consoles and games
• Competition from personal computers
• Loss of pulishing controll
• Atari, pac-man and E.T

People were no longer interested in vidoe games because there were alot of diffeerent types of consoles and too many were produced

The 7th generation

These are the 7th generation consoles, PS3, Xbox 360,PSP, nintendo DS, nintendo wii, PS2 and the Xbox.

The big games for each con sole is:

• PS3 - Uncharted 2
• Xbox 360 - Halo ODST
• Nintendo DS - Pokemon and brain training
• Nintendo WII - Wii Fit
• PSP - Monster Hunter Frredom Unite

The playstation 3 allows you to play against other people around the world using an internet connection. the format for the game is blue-ray disc the basic model had a 20 GB hard drive and the premium model has a 60 GB hard drive.

Xbox 360 - one of its main features is Xbox live which allows you to play against other people online and allows you to download game demos, music and many other things, you can also watch TV from sky.

Nintendo DS - on this console you have a WI - FI connection to the Internet so you can play against other people within a short range another feature that it has is pictoChat which allows people to communicate with other people with a DS.

Nintendo WII - this consoles controller is a handheld remote that detects movement, another feature that it has is WiiConnect24 which allows you to receive messages and updates from the Internet while on standby.

PSP - this is the first handheld console to use an optical disc format the Universal Media Disc. you can also play UMD movies and you can access the internet with Wii - Fi and on the latest PSP which is the PSP Go you have bluetooth.

The rise of Nintendo

In July 1983 a company from japan called Nintendo released a 8 bit games console called the Nintendo entertainment system (NES) bringing out successful arcade games such as Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr and Popeye, but due to a bad chip it didn't start selling until the end of 1984. Nintendo had brought the games industry back into business.

Pong/Atari and the birth of video games

Pong was the first ever comercialy made arcade game created in 1972 by the company atari wich was formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. http://www.ponggame.org/. The first machine to have this game on was called the Brown Box which was a 13 inch black and white TV in a cabinate but people found it too hard to play. the first game console that people could buy for their homes was called the magnavox odyssey which was released in august 1972, which was designed by Ralph Baer.














Another early games console was the Atari 2600 which was released in 1977 and it was created with a microprocessor hardware, it's games were stored on cassette tapes, some of its most popular games were combat and pac-man.the atari 2600 became the most popular console from the second generation consooles.