Space invader war tic tac tennis.

During the 1950's kids didn't get to shriek expletives through the internet while gripping their favourite sniper rifle, infact most kids didn't get to play video games at all, Video games seemed pretty exclusive to scientists and Ph.D holders tucked away with their mammoth computers.
The very first electronic game was called OXO wich was basically naughts and crosses made by A.S douglas in 1952 and was only really played within cambridge university.
In 1958 a game called Tennis for Two was made by a man called William Higinbotham, it wasn't really a video game as it was made of an Oscilloscope (one of those machines that monitors sound waves and stuff) To keep people from getting bored at a nuclear power plant.
The coolest computer game at the time was Spacewar made in 1962 by some blokes from MIT wich had two players fighting against one another with small spaceships i feel its one of the most important video games as it opened the doors for later game developers to create the first arcade cabinets and home computers.
I think Pong should be mentioned as it was the first home video console as well as one of the first arcade coin ops.
Space invaders was very important for the popularity of video games and convinced companies and shareholders that computer games could be a very profitable business, along with Asteroids, Pac Man and breakout it seemed computer and video games where here to stay.

And they did.

The first video games i ever played were on the Atari 2600 when i was about 3, the Atari was a little grey box that used small catridges that you seemed to put in backwards, i remember it as a gift for my older brother who was playing the atari version of pac man, i had a go and kept dying so i hated it and went to play with army tanks and eat chomp bars.

Later i attempted it again with another game but the atari had some problem with getting games to work and instead of the title screen you got loud beeps and whines eventually i got a game to play wich was called IKARU WARRIORS.. or something like that where you had crazy music playing and controlled a little army man that could drive tanks and blow up helicopters i thought it was great even though i was crap at it and died all the time. I still have the Atari with most of the old games, it still works and is quite fun to play some Boxing or crystal castles on again.

OH man i found a picture of the cart. Why cant game developers make their cases as exciting as they used to. A Japanese man blowing up American tanks and helicopters looks super awesome to a 4 year old.
The reality doesn't quite look as exciting as the cart promised but i loved this game.










Although i had an atari and was quite contempt with it i didn't realize there where much newer consoles apart from arcade cabinets which i used to enjoy. The next console i had was a Sega Megadrive one christmas wich was to be shared between me and my brother. The first game i played on it was Streets of Rage and it was the best thing ever. I also loved sonic the hedgehog and ended up with all the sequels. i was quite sad when the megadrive died out and these rubbish looking 3d games started taking over, i kept my megadrive until we got our first PC.
We didnt get many ground breaking games on the PC but i still had some pretty cool ones, the one that influenced me the most was Half life and the mods that kept being produced (i also had a dreamcast and a gamecube within this time which i thought where fantastic).
In recent history i haven't bought many games. My PC is quite rubbish and needs a replacement video card although its quite new. Half life 2 and its mods remain a firm favourite of the time, i also enjoy tactical shooters (usually mods for HL2 or BF2) and mapping for source.
I have kept playing computer games all this time as its really been a big part of our lives as much as movies and music as entertainment mediums, although for me i never really watched movies and video games kinda took their place. Plus fragging the kid with the sniper rifle is always fun.