Chuckie Egg to Call of Duty
I was clearing out some junk from a box a few weeks a go and discovered an old five and quarter inch disk on which was written ‘imogen’. I knew the disk was from my old BBC computer from the 1980s but I couldn’t remember just what Imogen was until today. Imogen was a game I used to love, a distraction from GCSE computer studies and BBC Basic.
I can remember considering Imogen as a game of it’s time, a dramatic increase in the quality of gameplay and graphics. 
It got me thinking about the games I played since my first computer a ZX81, not just the ZX81 but the ZX81 with the 16K RAM pack. I hated that RAM pack. I’d spend hours typing in the code for the latest game where an X has to make its way through a maze of – signs.
I’d get one game and the slightest wobble of that 16 RAM pack and the computer rebooted. Back then there was no storage mediums it was back to the typing.
The next upgrade was to the Oric and then the Oric Atmos. These allowed data to be stored on tape and better still I can remember some built in commands to create sounds : ZAP, Explode, shoot, type those in and the Oric would make those sounds.
The keyboard on the Oric was hard going and replaced with a full size keyboard with the Atmos was released with the colour change to black. The Oric offered a few good games, I am pretty sure Hunchback was on the Oric.
Next it was education time and the BBC was bought, not a BBC A but a B you understand. I can’t quite remember what the difference was though. This computer offered a floppy disk drive – at last direct data access, no more tapes, and bad blocks the IT generation had arrived. The BBC lasted until the first PC arrived at home costing about 5 times what a PC Costs now (or twice the cost of a Mac).
Chuckie Egg was a big favourite : 
I can remember the game ‘Elite’ being massive for a few years. I never got it, I would fly around on my geometrically shaped aircraft, try and dock and die. Perhaps there was a greater game in there but I never discovered it. If anyone was an Elite player it would be great if you could explain the game in the comments!
My favourite game for the BBC had to be Frak! I can still remember the little melody it played when Frak! fell off the platform. Frak! used a yoyo as a his main weapon of choice which is very different from those used in today’s games. 
To see Frak! as it was back then click on this YouTube link.
The point is back then these games had all the same excitement and appeal as the current generation of games offer now. I am sure it is hard for people who have grown up in the Xbox 360 generation to understand that Chuckie Egg was actually a great game when you compare it with Call of Duty.
Gamers played Elite, Harrier attack, and frogger for just as long periods as they play Gears of War. Really in 15 years games have changed at an amazing rate both in terms of gameplay, length, graphics and sound. I don’t think any mainstream actors had any involvement with Chuckie Egg not now we have voice overs from big names making the gaming industry as important as the film industry.
I just wonder what we will be playing in 15 years time. I doubt very much that this battered floppy disk will work and to be honest I think if I played Imogen now it would ruin the memories but no matter what I will always hate that 16K ram pack. Share your memories below :
Links:
http://www.beebgames.com/
Your comment about games being played for just as long 15 years ago as today has started me thinking. I remember my brother and I playing Dragontorc on the ZX Spectrum for 12 hours at a time, mainly because you couldn’t save your progress!
It seems then that the fundamentals of gaming haven’t changed much, we even had ‘mobile’ games back then (Game and Watch handhelds), and although what a game is will not change, I would expect how we play them to change. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and 3D displays are two exciting technologies starting to emerge into gaming, the next 15 years look fantastic for games players. I just hope I’m not too old to enjoy them!
I loved those early games, and they had something that most of the modern games don’t have. It’s called “fun and playability”. Most of todays games rely on blowing you away with a soundtrack that would not be out of place in a movie, or graphics that leave you wondering if its a game or real.
The goold old ’speccie’ didn’t have good sound or graphics and so the designers make the games enjoyable un-put-downable.
Manic Miner is the perfect example. An annoying one note at the time tune, graphics that colour bled into each other, but I was on it for months, trying to progress to the final level without any save game option.
The only console that makes me want to go back to it time and time again at the moment is the WII, and that’s because they have brought fun back into gaming.