Gaming Galaxy Volume 1 | Page 10

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Video games have evolved over the years. It is anyone’s idea on how games have been doing as the years go by but we aren’t talking about that right now. What we’re going to talk about is the history of videogames; the times of the Magnavox Odyssey and Jumpman.

This article will be divided into two parts. One part will talk about early games, and the other part will talk about the origins of popular games.

Early Games

The first ever commercially available video game was produced by Atari and is called Pong. Pong was released in 1972. It is a two dimensional sports game that simulates table tennis. The player controls a paddle that goes vertically across the screen. Hitting a ball to the opponent paddle. The object of the game is to gain more points from making the opponent fail to return the ball. The maximum number of points is ten.

Pong was also one of the first games to reach mainstream popularity. The co-founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell inspired Pong after an electronic ping-pong game included on the first ever home video game console known as the Magnavox Odyssey and assigned the Atari founder Allan Alcorn to create the game as a training exercise. This later resulted in a lawsuit against Atari. Eventually the game was manufactured.

Origins of Popular Games

The first game we will talk about is the Mario Series. Mario was the most Famous character in video game history. His first ever game appearance was in Donkey Kong in 1981. He was created by Shigeru Miyamoto while developing Donkey Kong in an attempt to produce a best-selling video game for Nintendo. Originally, Miyamoto wanted to create a video game that used the characters Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl. At the time, however, Miyamoto was unable to acquire a license to use the characters, so he ended up making Jumpman (later known as Mario),

The second game we’ll talk about is The Legend of Zelda. The game was

Early Games