Online Action Games - History

The early history of online action games began with the development of video games. Video games began its history with the introduction of a device called a Cathode-Ray Tube which was patented by Thomas Goldsmith and Estle Mann in 1947. This device used eight vacuum tubes to simulate a missile firing at a target and had knobs to adjust the curve and speed of the missile. Thus the means of having action computer games was born.

The earliest computer games ran on university mainframe computers, of course this was in the United States. These simple games included such subjects as mouse in a maze and tic tac toe. These games have tended to be forgotten in the events of time. In 1961 students including Steve Russell came up with a game called Spacewar. This game had two human players pitted against each other, both controlling a spacecraft. These spacecraft were able to fire missiles. There was also a black hole in the middle of the game which provided a hazard for the players. This game was provided throughout the primitive internet. Spacecraft was the first influential computer game and probably the first of online action games.

Nearly all the first video games distributed widely within the open community were action games. Such games as Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979) and the ever popular Pac-Man (1980) are included as the first action video games. One of the first shooter games was Robotron 2084 (1982). Doom was not the first shooter game but it became a worldwide phenomena for its ability to stimulate the excitement of players and breaking away from rectangular rooms and flat floors.

Doom is the landmark online action game with it 3d graphics and its networked multiplayer gaming platform.
Although Doom as been highly criticised for its level of violence it has not lost its attraction and is still considered to be the greatest game ever by a number of industry insiders.

Today action games have gone a very long way in providing great graphics and gameplays. Online action games are readily available throughout the internet. Many of these, for example World of Warcraft, enable role playing games and interaction with other online gamers. Other games are great fun to download and play as a solitary player. My favourite action games are those of the Diner Dash seriesw brought to us by Playfirst. In this series of games there is a challenge to perform a variety of duties as fast and as efficiently as possible.

Throughout the history of computer based action games and in particular online action games many have claimed that they are detrimental to a person's development. However modern research into the effects of action games has discovered that fast paced action games can actually increase the player's cognitive and attention skills. Researchers Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier visual scientist of the University of Rochester have concluded that even though playing action games may appear somewhat mindless that the reverse is probably true in that they alter visual attentional processing.

 
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