When video games first hit the market both in the arcade and the home version of Atari a silent revolution was taking place. Many adults dismissed the games as trivial and just a source of diversion for their children but as those children grew up they turned the video gaming industry into a 20 billion dollar worldwide industry. But even as the video gaming industry has shifted many of the new games would be unrecognizable to the children who started playing in the eighties.
When video games first started there was one objective – get the highest score. This was because the first generation was in arcades where the principle point was to get the best score. This was true of games from pong to Pac-man to space invaders. But then in 1980 a game called Space Panic is credit with the first platform format. Soon followed by Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. games started to be linear with stories, plots and goals set in place for the user to accomplish before moving on to the next level or winning the game. Developed by Shigeru Miyamoto in 1983 Mario Bros was the first game to allow simultaneous two-player cooperative play and laid the groundwork for future multi-player games.
Most video games today have no linear perspective. They may have an end goal but due to increased graphics and memory ability they move in a 360 frame of reference and at times there is no particular end point or goal. Some people may ask themselves what happened to rescuing Princess Toadstool or Zelda? Was that not enough? Today’s games have levels with sub levels which have other sub-levels in a never ending maze of graphics. To some this means a good return on your investment. It means there are countless options and days if not weeks or months of opportunities to play this game without getting repetitive. But some of us still miss Mario.
