Sailing through space at the speed of light, you spot a villain in an enemy ship. You line him up in your sights and fire. It's a miss. Now he's after you! Soaring this way and that, you struggle to escape his missiles, searching for a way out. Something appears ahead, and a rush of hope runs through you. It's a small planet, possibly a place to hide. You focus your attention…
In 1958, William A. Higinbotham, an engineer working for the United States government, developed the first game played on a type of screen. It was a two-player tennis game played on an oscilloscope, a piece of electronic equipment with a 5-inch display. Compared to the games we play today, Tennis for Two was very simple. But in 1958, this was an exciting new technology. Visitors to the facil…
If you enjoy playing video games at home, you are not alone. You might have a problem choosing between the different game consoles, though. Each year brings new choices and new games. Game systems in the first generation of video game consoles were introduced in 1972 through 1977. Spacewar and Computer Space, along with Odyssey and Pong, were part of this first generation. The Odyssey and Pong co…
Maze games, such as Pac-Man, are one of the earliest genres of video games. The entire screen is a maze through which players must find their way. Sometimes players compete against each other, and sometimes a player tries to earn as many points as possible before time runs out or he is eaten by a monster or some other alien creature. In platform games, characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog …
Some people learned to love playing video games as children and want to stay involved with them professionally as adults. They are part of a group of people who work in the video game industry, dreaming up exciting ideas and turning them into popular new games. You might think a career in the video game industry would be all play and no work, but putting out a quality product takes effort, just a…
animators (AN-i-may-turz): artists who create drawings for cartoons or video games bit (BIT): a basic unit of information storage, or memory Bluetooth (BLOO-tooth): short-range wireless transfer of information bundled (BUHN-duhld): when a game is sold packaged with a console circuits (SUR-kits): complete pathways for an electrical current compact disk (KOM-pakt DISK): also called a CD, it is a pl…