video game
n.
An electronic or computerized game played by manipulating images on a video
display or television screen.
However, video games are more than just that. Video games are now an integral part of modern culture. From Pong to Halo 2, video games have become something more than just a diversion. Now, almost every action movie has a video game made out of it, media multi-millionaires rush to acquire video game companies, and major brands compete to get their ads in games. Video games show some of the most promising advances in computer technology, getting things to look better, act smarter, and have enough imagination to outwit the player. To the outsider, video games may seem a strange preoccupation for so much of America's younger generations, but the truth is that video games have taken the world by storm.
Get ready to enter a world where a plumber in a red suit and blue suspenders spends his days stepping on mushrooms and riding turtle shells, where a yellow dot is beset by ghosts, where aliens have invaded earth, and World War II is relived daily. Bands of friends rely on their swords, their wits, and the occasional potion to rescue a world from darkness. Artifacts of immense power are unearthed in dank dungeons. Advanced spacecraft trade laser fire over an alien sun. Cars speed around a track. Daring generals lead their army to victory. Get ready to enter the game.
Video games have a long history. The first one was made in 1958! It was a tennis game made by William Higinbotham. The program was created on an oscilloscope, an early computer used to track moving objects. It was unveiled at the 1958 visitor's day at Brookhaven National Labratory, where Higinbotham worked. Since then, huge leaps have been made in programming and computers.
Nintendo started out as a gambling card company in the late 1800s, about at 1889.
Much later, in 1975, it united with Mitsubishi Electroinic to make its first electronic system. It had an electronic video recording, and made a system with a microprocessor one year later.
In 1977, Nintendo made its first video game system for houses.
Nintendo started making arcade-type games in 1979.
It made made more 2-D systems until 1996, including the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), and many forms of the Gameboy, when it made the Nintendo 64, its first 3-D system*.
Since then, it has made two other 3-D systems:
The Nintendo Gamecube and The Nintendo DS (dual screen), Nintendo's first 3-D handheld.
*Note that the SNES could play a few 3-D video games, such as Super Mario RPG.
There are many kinds of strategy games. Real time strategy is either when you build units and have them fight the enemy and control them, while the enemy controls their units at the same time. It can also be a game where you can go from city to city or planet to planet selling things in a multiplayer environment at the same time as the other person, so that you can race from planet to planet trying to get the best things for the lowest prices before the other guy. There is also turn based strategy. Turn based is when, instead of controlling your units at the same time as the other guy, you take turns moving. That even includes chess and checkers. You can also play trading games like real time. Only taking turn moving. Other games can be civilization builders, such as civilizations 3. You take turns building structures and moving units.
The Battle for Middle Earth is a real time strategy game. Its campaign is like a board game, but when you attack another part of the board, it switches to real time. One of the best parts is, if you build 20 swordsman, they transfer over to the next time you use that specific army. The 4 civilizations are Gondor, who use elite units, Rohan, who use the power of calvary to trample their opponents, Isengard, who use pure power, with strong units and a very strong bomb unit, Mordor uses cheap units and massive amounts of soldiers. Gondor and Mordor are the best at defense, but Isengard and Rohan are more for offense. Its a very good real time strategy.
Homeworld 1 is the first in a series of space real time strategy games. The single player campaign starts with the construction of the first mother ship to take the kushan back from their exile to their home planet of Hiigara. The only thing that stands in you way is a few massive encounters with the Tiidan Imperial fleet, a few other races and a couple of obstacles like ghost ships.
It also has a multiplayer and a skirmish vs. CPU modes where you can take on other people online or fight with CPU players. There are lots of different multiplayer maps. Overall this game is very good apart from the graphics (although it was made in 1995), which are a bit off in places.
Homeworld 2 is a classic example of a space real time strategy game. It has all the features including a 3D view of the game universe. It has 2 main races, the Hiigaran and the vaygr. These races battle it out throughout the campaign (total of 15 levels). You are the Hiigaran commanding the pride of Hiigara (the mother ship) and you have to race across the galaxy to find sajuuk (The great creator) and defeat any enemies that get in your way. The game starts with a surprise attack on the mother ship construction just after the hyper space core is inserted.
Apart from the quite difficult single player campaign there is multiplayer and skirmish vs. CPU modes where you go head on head against you enemies (either players and a CPU or just a CPU). Up to six players on the biggest map make this game a must play.
A first person shooter is a game,where you see out of your characters eyes and control them. You then get to aim at a target and when you shoot, it will look like you actually are the character that is shooting, only on the screen. Most first person shooters, including Halo 2, have a HUD, or Heads Up Display. It shows your health, ammo, radar, and anything else you could need. Most first person shooters have story lines, but others don't have very good ones. Some are just boring senseless shooting. It all depends on the game.
There are other kind of shooters too, like third person, or rpg shooters, etc. Shooters are linked with many different genres subcategories such as stealth. Splinter cell is a good example because it is a 3rd person stealth shooter.
Halo 2 is a first person shooter where has you playing as a human cyborg super soldier. It has a very in-depth storyline, and lots of secrets that you could figure out, if you are lucky and perceptive. It is a first person shooter with a heads up display or hud, and works like most other first person shooters. It shows you how much ammo you have, shield, but no health. They only have a recharging shield and if it runs out and you get shot, you lose. In Halo1 though, it did have a health system, and only half of your life was made up of your shield, but you would need to get a health pack to recharge your health, because it didn't charge up like your shield did.
Sport games are very popular now, and they have evolved in huge ways. They used to have bad graphics and very little control over the game, but now they have become so good and have such good graphics that everyone wants a piece of the action. There are different games for each sport, for example, with basketball games there is a "Street" version and a real "Arena" version. Either way there is almost always one that you will like.
A simulator is a game that allows you to experience more realistic experiences, that you might not get to in real life. Some simulators can also help train you such as a flight simulator. Flight simulators would simulate a realistic plain, such as you would actually have to click the right buttons to get it to start, such as the engine control. Others allow you to simulate buisnesses, or just live a life you normall wouldn't, such as a farmer. There are many simulator games that make it possible to do anything or be anything as simply as a few buttons. Unfortunatley, it doesn't allow you to do it in the real world.
Harvest moon is about your character going through stages in life. You can only be a boy, not a girl in the game, which stinks. Your person inherits a farm, gets animals, and grows crops.The game is a lot like the real world, and like our lives.
You can choose to marry three different people after the first year of the game. One person is named Celia. She is very nice and she helps you with your crops. Another person is named Nami. Nami is shy but also helps you with your crops, but in the game she is the hardest to marry. Muffy is that last person that you can choose from. She isn't very reliable and doesn't know anything about crops.
You can have a child/children after the first year of the game, after you get married. The main purpose of the game is to watch your child/children grow and help him/her succeed in his/her life. Your child's jobs can be a artist, an athlete, or a farmer just like you. If you don't persuade the boy you have to do any of these jobs the boy will sail away. He will also do this if the he doesn't like you. He will never come back after that. You can only do this with the boy, the girl doesn't get a job.
You can also get pets. The pets you can get are a lizard, two dogs, cat, and a racoon. In the game you can give people stuff like flowers to befriend them. When you befriend people sometimes you get tools, pets, or other stuff. If you befriend a white monster, you get a lizard. If you befriend Carter, you get a small dog. If you befriend Marlin or Vestal you get a racoon. If you befriend Romania you get a black cat that she finds. In the beginning of the game you find two dogs. There is one with pointy ears and one with droopy ears. You get to choose which dog you want to keep.
Another kind of animal you can get or buy are cows, horses, sheep, chickens, goats, and ducks. The cows, horses, sheep, and goats all go in one room. On the other hand the ducks and chickens go in a chicken coop. The chickens and geese give you eggs, and you have to feed them every 3 to 4 days. You can get more chickens by putting a fertilized egg in a incubator. This process takes 2 to 3 days. You can only have 8 chickens total, but you can sell them also. The barn animals, such as a cow, can be milked, bathed, or brushed. You can only milk a cow after it has given birth. You can impregnate a female cow by using a miracle potion. you can bathe your animals by taking them to a water bin outside in the pasture area, and then use the brush on them. If you brush your animals it will make them happy. The goats are the same but they don't give off as much milk as the other animals do. The horse is nice because it never gets sick and you can ride around on it. The sheep give you wool, and if you take real good care of them they eventually give you golden wool. The chickens and livestock are your main source of money, so treat them well.
That is all for the game Harvest Moon. I hope you will get this game or try it. It is my favorite game, even though it is sexist!
This basically means that you create and control a character. Typically, RPGs are fantasy-themed, with swords and magic as your primary weapons. Good examples of this are the Final Fantasy series. Features of standard RPGs are random battles, experience points, mazes, bosses, item management, and saving the world.
Fable is an RPG for Xbox made by Lion head Studios and Big Blue Box. It has an exciting and complex storyline, many unlockable magic powers, weapons and armor shown cosmetically on your character, and a simple but challenging battle system. It has a large world that is brought to life with many NPCs (Non-Player Characters) that exhibit realistic emotions and react to your player.
Racing games come in many different ways. There is futuristic racing, modern racing, and even old time racing. Lots of games include racing or are all about racing. Even games that have nothing to do with racing may have a race in it. Whether a building is about to blow and you have to escape, or your on an errand for someone and your in a hurry. You can race against different things to, such as other people, the clock, or you could just be trying to score a point for your team. Either way, It's still racing.
F-zero is an intense, futuristic racing game that is totally unique. You race in hover ships in some "Out of this world" locations. It has some of the coolest features, such as building and customizing your own ship, four player multi-player, story mode, and practice mode. there is a wide variety of ships to choose from and each ship has different stats that you can either customize or leave the way they are. Over all, it's a great game.
Fighting games come in many styles. For example there are wrestling games, street fighting games, kung-fu games, and weapon fighting with swords and other weapons. Two games that stand out are Super Smash Brothers and Super Smash Brothers: Melee. In these games, all the Nintendo characters (From the Ice Climbers to Pikachu from Pokemon) battle it out in these high intensity, action packed games. There are lots of characters to choose from and each one has their own cool moves and abilities. There are also items that range from home run bats all the way to health upgrades. Overall these are great games and I suggest that you at least play the original for N64 or Melee for Gamecube once. They are two awesome games.
Ratings, placed on the box of a game by ESRB are very helpful in many ways because they tell whether a game is safe to play for your age. There are six different ratings as you can see above: Early Childhood consists of games made by Disney. Everyone says that any person is able to play the game but this type of game can't be very violent. Teen has mild violence but no blood and gore. Mature has lots of violence and blood and gore. Adults Only is what it is and it has adult themes. Rating Pending means not rated yet. The ratings aren't always completely correct, but if it's not, it will always be an Everyone game rated Teen or Teen rated Mature. That way they take less risks by rating it lower than it should be, and having 6 year olds playing first person shooters that should have been rated Teen.
The developers are the people who actually program and test the games. These guys are geniuses! To pay them their due, head to the web sites of these studios:
Publishers are the people who manufacture the games. To learn more about these companies, you can visit their web sites.
Distributors are the people who sell games. To learn more about them, find store locations, and purchase games. Visit their web sites.