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| The Playstation 2 |
After the success of the Playstation, I naturally wanted to upgrade to the
Playstation 2 when it came out, but I restrained myself until after I had finished my Ph.D studies and bought one with my first pay cheque from my first post-doctoral job in 2002. The PS2 was also a DVD player, and it saw alot of use. The highlight of the PS2 for me was
Gran Turismo 3, and subsequently GT4, as well as the (in)famous Grand Theft Auto games 'Vice City' and 'San Andreas'. Between these games, not much else got much of a look in.
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| The Playstation 3 |
It would be another 5 years until the release of the next generation consoles, and the advent of the Playstation 3, which would be the first (and only) console or computer that I bought on the day of release. Sporting wireless internet connectivity, Blu-ray technology, and a 60 GB hard disk drive, the PS3 was intended to be far more than merely a gaming device, and so it has transpired. I probably spend atleast 50% of my PS3 time watching Blu-ray films, and a fair amount of time using the PS3 player as a web browser, image storage device and music player. The rest of the time, however, is dedicated to playing games. Currently, my favourite title for the PS3 has been WipEout HD - a futuristic racing game from Studio Liverpool (funnily enough, the same people that made Formula One - the first PS1 game I played). Other titles include Motorstorm, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto IV and Final Fantasy XIII - all of these games have amazing graphics and promise many hours of playability, both online and offline.
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| The Xbox 360 |
Winter 2009, and there were a number of excellent deals on rival consoles to the PS3, and so I ended up getting an Xbox 360 as my birthday present from my family. Facing stiff competition for my time from the PS3, it was never likely to be the centre of attention, but it did have one distinct advantage, and that was the game Forza Motorsport 3. Forza is a Gran Turismo clone from Microsoft, but it is an excellent game in its own right. Given that the game came bundled with the console, it seemed like too good an offer to refuse. The offer was so good infact, that my sister bought one (complete with FM3!) as well! And that brings us to the end of the trip through my gaming machine history... almost....
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| Ghosts and Goblins (1985) |
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| Final Fantasy XIII (2010) |
.... I can't remember exactly when my parents first bought a Commodore 64 and gave it to me for my Xmas/birthday, but it must have been around 1983 or 1984. It is scarcely believable how much home gaming machines have changed in that 25 years or so period, coming from basic block graphics and programs of around 100 Kb that you would load on a tape deck in about 5 minutes, to the amazing photorealism of today's games, with tens of GBs of data per disc. But despite the tremendous gulf in technology, even those basic C64 games from the early-mid 1980's are still fun to play today, and there are C64 emulators available for the PC that allow you to do just that. In some ways, some of the giant, time-consuming behemoths of games that exist nowadays are too clever for their own good - demanding that you commit 30 hours of your time just to get anywhere with the story (like Final Fantasy 13, pictured on the left). Still, if this is the difference 25 years can make, I can't wait to see what the future holds for computer gaming.
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