Wednesday, October 29th 2008

Technology... remembering the past

The videogame medium is, depending on when you start counting, roughly 46 years old this year. Still relatively young compared to other forms of media, but it’s now old enough to start preserving the industry’s rich and sometimes turbulent history.

Launched earlier this month, the UK’s first official National Videogame Archive will house a wealth of consoles and cartridges ranging from the simple beginnings of 1972’s Pong, to the blockbusters of the 21st Century.

The archive has been formed by academics at Nottingham Trent University, in cooperation with the National Media Museum in Bradford. The archive will be located at the National Media Museum, and managed by Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play.

Along with games and consoles, the archive will also include an array of game-related media, advertising campaigns and artwork.

The Archive’s official launch will take place tomorrow to coincide with Nottingham’s Game City festival.

So what games would you like to see preserved for all-time?

For me (yes, it’s another indication of my age) it would have to be some of the early Spectrum games, Commodore 64 games and, my all-time favorite, Marathon – a Mac-based first person shooter with a great storyline.

Posted by Richard on Wednesday 29th of October 2008 at 2:46pm

Comments

I don't even know where to start with my favourite computer game of all time. Super Mario Bros was my first computer game and the mighty Castle Wolfenstein is heavily responsible for my love of first person shooters.

But the game that has cost me most time in my life is Championship Manager.

Posted by Tasha on Wednesday 29th of October 2008 at 4:04pm

Does anybody else remember ORIC 1! It was pre spectrum and I played frogger for hours on it and a few other very old games.

When we retired the Oric and purchased a spectrum it was the range of Dizzy the egg games that keep me amused for hours.

These days I have to admit I don't have the attention span for gaming as I once did but the lego range of games always brings me out of my gaming retirement.

Posted by Melissa on Wednesday 29th of October 2008 at 5:16pm

I think the best game that I used to play on was Sonic on the Sega Megadrive.....fun times!

Posted by Sally on Wednesday 29th of October 2008 at 5:25pm

Sonic 2 was my favourite. Completed it an unlimited amount of times. You could unlock a super sonic character who was awesome if you completed it and then cheated. You had to get 50 rings to become him.

Posted by Tasha on Thursday 30th of October 2008 at 12:17pm

Hmmm. Very difficult being the 80s geek that I am.

I think I may have to say Jetpac on the ZX Spectrum although I played Manic Miner and Sabre Wulf A LOT.

On the BBC Micro it had to be ELITE - the best space shooter, trading adventure game ever.

In the arcade it was 4 Player Gauntlet with its inimitable lines 'Valkyrie is about to die' and 'Red Wizard needs food, bady!' or Paperboy.

GEEK FACT - the ENTIRE Manic Miner game was 13.7k in size. That's twenty levels and hours of gameplay. To put that into perspective, the logo at the top right of this site is about 5k.

Posted by Simon B5 on Thursday 30th of October 2008 at 6:43pm

Time to go hunting for Emulators on the internet!

I too lost hours of my life to Elite - a game way-ahead of it's time. Would be interesting to see what a remake would look like.
Ooh, and I'd totally forgotten Paperboy! That must go in the archive too!

Posted by Richard on Friday 31st of October 2008 at 8:37am

Paperboy was so addictive, but when you actually think about the concept its inconceivably boring. We're a bit spoilt now a days and don't appreciate how simple a game can be!

Posted by Tasha on Friday 31st of October 2008 at 9:40am

Wow... I lost my brother to Elite for a while. I loved MrE and Frogger, and my mum was a big fan of Snake. She was disturbingly good at it too.

In the early BBC days there were two games I adored - Granny's Garden and Dragon's World. They were real educational games, but they were huge - took weeks to complete. Possibly even months. And they were really good fun.

Posted by Siân on Friday 31st of October 2008 at 10:50am

Sensible World of Soccer for the Commodore Amiga - still never played a game as addictive as that, though Football Manager is coming close!

What ever happened to Joysticks?!

Posted by Neil W on Friday 31st of October 2008 at 12:58pm

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