1940's
The first Video game or earliest known interactive game was a missile simulator created by Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann, inspired by radar displays from World War II . Screen overlays were used for targets since Graphics could not be drawn at the time. This game took off hugely and was highly spoken off when it was released.
A few more game after this were released including the first ever tennis game, Chess, Tic Tac Toe and Space war.
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| Missile Simulator |
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| Digital Chess |
1970's
In 1972 we were introduced to a classical game Ping pong. It involved two remote controls to control sliding panels to rally a square boxed object. The aim of this game was to hit this square icon past the other players panel reach, you then score a point, it is just a computerized version of playing real Table Tennis.
A few more game after this were released including the first ever tennis game, Chess, Tic Tac Toe and Space war.
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| People playing the original Pong game |
1990's
The 1990's showed a completely different path in the gaming world, graphics became more 3 Dimensional and games that we still have today were just at the beginning of there era's. We were also introduced into house hold gaming consoles, The PlayStation and the Game Boy.
Graphics were beginning to improve at a vast rate in this time period. Examples of Games in the 90's would be such as Ace combat, Need for Speed, Tekken, Resident Evil, Tom Clancy's - Rainbow six and many many more. The 3D graphics impressed millions across the world.
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| Range of classic 90's gaming characters |
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| Tekken Game Graphics |
2000's - Present day
In the years between 2000 and the present a lot of games created from the 1990's were carried on because of there vast fan base and this made these companies create sequels to the games for example today we still have the games Call of duty, Grand Theft auto, FIFA and Medal of Honor, these games were a huge hit when they first came onto the scene and this is probably what made them stick around in today's games, They continue each year to release another version of there game with a few changes and improvement in graphics, If you look at the very first image to the image below you can see the huge huge improvement on the graphics in gaming today and how big this society has grown.
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| Grand Theft Auto |
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| Grand Theft Auto |
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| Grand Theft Auto |
The Future
Who knows what the future of game graphics holds but when we see Hollywood Actors like Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe appearing as actors captured through "performance capture" to literally embody the characters Nathan Hawkins and Jody Holmes in the recent game Beyond: Two Souls. While actors have lent their voices to games before – Liam Neeson appearing in Fallout 3, or Samuel L Jackson in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for instance – this is one of the first times a fully acted performance has been captured, using technology similar to Andy Serkis's turn as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. It is clear that it is onwards and upwards for the games industry. |
| Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page acting scenes for Beyond: Two Souls |
