Answers to questions while watching "I, Videogame" episode 1

As you watch the documentary, write comments about the film based on the questions supplied for each. These will be used as the basis for a post-film class discussion.



1) Videogames emerged from the culture of the "Cold War" - what does Henry Jenkins from MIT compare the period to in terms of a famous board game?


Battleship

2) a) Who was the inventor of the first Video game according to the documentary?


William Higinbotham

b) What was the name of the game? 


Tennis For Two

3) Steve Russell is credited with the first true computer-based videogame (in terms of its use with the 1961 PDP1 mainframe computer) with SPACEWAR - what popular science fiction book series also influenced him? 


Edward E. Smith's Lesman and Skylark

4) What innovation did Steve Russell's SPACEWAR introduce in terms of input hardware?


Joystick

5) a) In the anti-war and counterculture period of the 1960s and 1970s, what new home entertainment system let consumers finally control what was being seen on the home television?


Magnavox Odyssey

b) b) Who was its inventor/developer? 


Ralph Baer

6) PONG emerged out of the counterculture spirit of the early 1970s - its natural home was what type of entertainment setting?


Bars

7) Who does Nolan Bushnell say were generally best at playing the game?


Women

8) "Space Invaders" emerged in the late 1970s as the first game from Japan.
How did the TAITO production team intensify the emotion of the game using the four-note in-game music theme?


Using tempo in tandem with the proximity of the invaders to provoke nervousness and a faster heartbeat.

9) Steve Moulder reflects that the first arcade games tended to result in the player's defeat. This he argues in turn reflected the view held by many designers during that time that war itself is defeatist. 

Has this view changed since that time? Do today's latest games still convey this sense? Why? Why not? (use your own words)


Yes. There are actual endings to games now compared to the coin machines of yesteryear. You can actually finish games in a way rather than reach a kill screen. In terms of war itself being defeatist there are a few modern games that still reflect this view. For example the game Fallout 3's tagline is, "war never changes". The game's setting is post-apocalyptic and there is very little life left on Earth but still war is present and people kill over ideology and limited resources. Another example I can think of is the ending of Halo: Reach. The Halo games are about elite space marines, and in that particular game the general audience knows ahead of time that things don't end well from reading the earlier book of the same name. Throughout playing that game you get the sense that everyone is going to die, because in the end the characters are inevitably  just cogs in the gears of war.

10) Have you ever played any of the games shown in this the first episode of "I, Videogame"? What was your memory of playing it? Where were you, when was it?


Yes, I have played Space Wars way after when first available in reaction to the game constantly being mentioned about every time a history of video game article comes out. I played a java based emulation online. I was at home on the computer and it was a few years ago. I have played Space Invaders similarly online.  Also I've played Pong on an Atari home compilation. I've played Tetris on the Game Boy. I own Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man as Live Arcade releases on the Xbox 360.