Many of you probably love to spend time playing video games, whether it’s classics like Heroes of Might and Magic III or more modern hits with multimillion-dollar budgets. In the late 50’s of the last century the first video game looked like a white dot jumping over the oscilloscope’s screen, leaving a trail behind it. But half a century later the visual component of these digital entertainment has changed so much that games can already compete with animated and feature films. We suggest you take a look at how graphics evolved in video games over the past 60 years.
If in the 70s Atari dominated the market, then in the early 80’s, after the game industry collapsed during the worst crisis, the whole world was conquered by the Japanese Nintendo. Its 8-bit console Famicom (in the US known as the Nintendo Entertainment System) was born in 1983 and quickly became a hit. Given the huge number of wonderful games, it was not surprising. Prior to Russia, the prefix reached only in the early 90’s in the form of a Taiwan clone Dendy, which was sold by Steepler on a full scale, issuing a fake for a licensed product. I think that many of you remember and love such games as Super Mario Bros., Battle City, Tetris (the game from our compatriot Alexei Pajitnov), The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Contra, Mega Man, Chip and Dale, Duck Tales and other 8-bit hits.
The 8-bit consoles were replaced by 16-bit Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). They offered users a whole new level of visual quality of games. Who does not remember such wonderful toys as Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, Aladdin, Donkey Cong Country, Earthworm Jim and others. In 1994, there was another important event for the industry – the Sony PlayStation console appeared, using CD-ROMs as a storage medium and offering projects with 3D graphics to users. I will never forget how I spent the evenings after school playing Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, Crash Bandicoot, Tekken and Tomb Raider games.
Of course, if you compare the games of those years with modern AAA-projects, whose budget sometimes exceeds $ 100 million, it becomes a little sad. After all, in our childhood, even a primitive at first glance, the picture carried in itself much more vivid emotions, rather than gaudy special effects, cool animation and virtually indistinguishable from real people characters. On the other hand, progress is inevitable, and sooner or later game developers will still be able to reach the level when, looking at the screen of a monitor or TV, a person can not with 100% confidence say: a movie before him or a game.
