what ARE some of the oldest video games?

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Believe it or not the 1950’s is when gaming first started. As gaming became more popular many changes were made throughout the years to make them different.

It's not the first

Old video games are still kind of new to some people today because you can still find and play some form of them.

Many people think the classic tennis game known as Pong (1972) was the first ever game made in the whole world, but whoever said that well… you're wrong!

The first video game EVER made is called Bertie the Brain (1950) and it was basically the video game version of tic-tac-toe that you played against a robot named Bertie.

So to the people who said Pong was the first game ever made, you're going to have to retell them the correct answer next time you see them.

Probably thE. worsT. game ever

Okay to all the old parents or teachers and grown-ups out there, I'm sure you've heard of this one.

E.T (1982) stands for Extra-Terrestrial. And let me get this out of the way. E.T. was a VERY bad game based on a very popular movie.

The story goes like this: A kid meets an alien who they name E.T. and the boy and his siblings have to find a way to contact his family and get him back to outer space before he grows too weak. Also the movie is full of Reese's Pieces because E.T. the alien loves Reese's Pieces.

And for the video game version version of E.T? Well… it was nothing like the movie. You had to find pieces of a phone to make a whole phone and sometimes you would find Reese’s Pieces that looked like… I don't even know.

Nobody and I mean NOBODY knew what the story in the video game was about. And that's how a million unsold copies of E.T. (the worst game ever) were buried in a dump in New Mexico.

The Grues are coming…

If you think you know who Gru is from Despicable Me, well this is not a game about Minions. It's actually about words.

Yep, that's right. In Zork(1977) it was all about words. Wonderful amazing words. You didn’t just play Zork you READ Zork and Zork was not only hard but it was TRICKY. In fact, so tricky that it took 10 hours for someone to beat it. I know that might not seem like a lot to some people, but that's nearly half a day!

But to make Zork easier the creators made books called Invisiclues and they were hint books that were printed in invisible ink. You needed a special marker to reveal the hints. Then from there, when Zork II came out, the game was even more challenging so the popularity of Invisiclues went off the charts from zero to.. Um.. Hmm.. I can't think of anything that rhymes that makes sense.

Puckman? Jumpman? Who were they?

Okay the first time you see these video game names you're probably like, "Whaaaat????" Yes Puckman and Jumpman were video game names but notice how I said “were,” meaning not anymore.

The new name for Puckman is… Pac-Man! And Jumpman is… Mario!

I know these are insane names to what they are today. When Pac-Man was released Japan, it had a slow reaction from people. But in America, Pac Man shot up in popularity.

And what about Jumpman? This is quite crazy, I know, but originally Mario characters only had the option to run to get out of trouble. Mario made his first appearance in Donkey Kong. Mario was the first to jump onto the video game universe. So now can you see where the name “Jumpman” comes from?

But you're probably wondering about Pac-Man. Well if you're from Japan, you know the word Paku = Chomp, making Pac-Man's name originally Chompman.

Also, did you know that Mario’s full name is Mario Mario… yep just Mario x2. Same for Luigi, being Mario’s brother his full name is Luigi Mario.

This is what the Pong machine looked like. It's a pretty basic video game machine.

The movie E.T. was pretty good while the video game was so bad as you can see they dumped millions of copies in a landfill.

All Zork had was a giant black screen and white letters telling you what to do and where to go.

Japan's reaction to the game Pac Man was really, really slow, while in America the game's popularity shot up like crazy.

This is what the Jumpman video game looked like trying to scale up ladders to get to Peach.

Visit these sources to find more information:

Websites about early video games

Books about early video games

GAME ON! by Dustin Hansen

Fun fACTS:

Missing.No (See Fun Fact #3)

Playing action video games trains people to make the correct decision faster.
One of the most famous glitches of all time is the Minus World in Super Mario Brothers. The Minus World was found by tricking the game into sending Mario into a Minus World.
In one Pokemon game, there was a weird and bizarre Pokemon called MissingNo. (stands For “Missing Number”). Now could you catch it? Well yes, you could. But it was also risky. If you caught it or even saw the message “A wild MissingNo. Appeared," it forced you to not save and erase all of your progress. In order to catch MissingNo, the player must do a series of in-game events. First, they must go to Viridian City and watch the old man perform a Pokémon capture. Next, they should go to Cinnabar Island and Surf alongside it until they find MissingNo and capture it. MissingNo is a water type since you surf on water. Well that's what you would think but its actually a bird type which in normal Pokemon isn't a type.
Another weird thing you would never expect was in Pac-Man. The 256th level (also known as killscreen) was quite insane.Nobody got past it because it had a glitch and error in the code which made that level to be basically IMPOSSIBLE. Half of the side of the screen was covered in black with colorful letters and numbers mixed in.
There have been a lot of Super Mario power ups over the years. In fact there are some I bet you maybe you forgot or never even heard of such as Kuriboh's Shoe ( introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3) and P-Balloon (introduced in Super Mario World) there is Unstable Female Hormones (Super Princess Peach) Hammer Suit (Super Mario 3) Frog suit (Super Mario 3) Cape (Super Mario World) Carrot (Super Mario Land 2) Vanish Cap (Mario 64) Power Flower (Super Mario 64 DS) Blue Shell (New Super Mario Bros) Cloud Mushroom(Super Mario Galaxy 2)
Some forgotten Nintendo characters are Professor E Gadd, Mr. Game and Watch, Matt, and Mother Brain.
If you're a big Minecraft fan like me, there are some mobs (animals or monsters) in the game that were rejected and might never appear again. Some of these include Ostrich (Ability: Could stick head in the ground), T.M.O.D. or The Monster of the Ocean Depths (Ability: This monster will pull you deep into the ocean), Agent (Ability: Helps learn., TESTIFICATE (Ability: Evolving from Pigmen into human). And finally, there was Human (Ability: Just like a zombie except jumps really high and when spawned looks left for a half second then turns to attack the player even in Creative Mode.)
Now while I'm on the topic of Minecraft, I should probably bring up the famous Herobrine. A glitch? Maybe it is. He is basically the standard character but with white eyes. Lots of people think that Herobrine is Notch’s brother but some people think he meant to be a mob kind of like a Zombie Pigman or Piglin. However why people believe this is because in version 1.16, when Piglins came out every update until 1.16 said “Herobrine Removed” but in the update catalog in 1.16 that was changed. Everyone in the community including me kept refreshing the page over and over but there was no “Herobrine Removed” Then people went crazy and…Everybody got the update and The Hunt For The Eyeless One (Herobrine) Began.
Ashura is a fan name given to a glitched green and black coloring of Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The glitch can be made to occur by activating Debug Mode and placing waterfalls in a certain pattern/area.
Honey the Cat is the Sonic character mostly nobody knows about. Honey was originally a scrapped character from Sonic the Fighters, an arcade fighting game developed by Sega in 1996.
And finally.... Did you know that Minecraft’s original name was Cave Game?

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