The Evolution of Retro Video Game Graphics
Video game graphics are an integral part of any video game, and since the days of Pong and Space Invaders graphics have enabled us as gamers to enjoy and immerse ourselves in the whole gaming experience.
What we consider quirky, basic and simple now were, at the time, the height of technological advancements in global home computing and games like Mario Bros, Pac-Man and Frogger were the epitome of the best you could get.
As technology has improved so have the graphics. From two dimensional spaces to three, video gaming has become more than just a few blocks on the screen. Let’s talk about how those early pioneers of video games influenced modern gaming as we know it.
The first video game was created in 1958 by physicist William Higinbotham and was a simple tennis simulation using an analogue computer and an oscilloscope. Called “Tennis for Two” the game allowed players to control a ball using handheld controllers.
As technology advanced so did the ability to create better graphics, it wasn’t until the first commercially successful game “Pong” in 1972 that video gaming really took off. At the same time home video gaming was becoming popular but was expensive. The Magnavox Odyssey was incredibly basic, you had to manually place overlays on to the tv screen and had no sound. It cost approximately $99 (about $700 in 2024) and used cards inserted into the console to access the games.
Atari became a pioneer in those early days of home vide gaming and released several consoles such as the Pong Console and the Atari 2600, the 2600 featured joysticks, interchangeable cartridges and a wider variety of games. The 2600 was revolutionary in its graphics capability, it had resolution of 160 x 192 pixels and a supported palette of 128 colours but due to hardware limitations could only show a few colours on display at a time.
As was the standard in those early days of home video gaming, the displays were very basic. The backgrounds were usually of solid colours and the two-dimensional sprites were blocky and pixelated. Because of the tiny resolution and colours characters on screen often looked very odd and abstract, so would often need the user’s imagination to create a sense of realism. The movement of the sprites on screen moved in a very simple way. They moved up or down and left to right or flashed.
By the 1980s video game graphics were much more advanced. The market was becoming huge, and consoles and systems were being released almost every year. Nintendo released its own gaming system the NES in the early 80s and it became ground-breaking with it’s graphics, (using an 8-bit system (255 colours)), superior sound and iconic titles such as Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros and Metroid, it became the most influential and successful gaming systems in history.
The NES used a tile-based system to create environments and sprites, each tile was 8x8 or 8 x 16 pixels big and the console could handle more than 64 sprites on the screen at any given time. This allowed a much better experience for the player. The graphics of the NES allowed the games to be played in different ways, Metroid and Super Mario were side scrolling platforms while Zelda was used a top-down perspective allowing a much more immersive adventure.
As well as gaming consoles, home computer systems were being released, systems such as the Apple Mac, IBM and Commodore 64 and the Amiga were being released to not just compete with the gaming consoles but to offer a more diverse and broader range of applications.
These PCs offered a user not just the ability to play games but also write documents, digital illustrations, and later in the late 90s with the introduction of the World Wide Web, access the internet.
These PCs often gave the user a better gaming experience because of their advanced Graphics capability. The resolution of these systems was much higher than home consoles and the quality of the colours were much better. The graphics cards were capable of improved gaming experiences and as the development of technology advanced so did the video gaming industry, using 3 dimensional environments such as the ones in the early Tomb Raider games, gave the player a much better experience in the game.
Gaming consoles such as the Sega system and Nintendo 64 had to keep up with the advancements and Super Mario 64 was revolutionary in not just it’s graphics but in it’s playing as the first fully 3-dimensional Mario game, it has become a defining game and a pioneer in 3D game design.
As gaming console technology became much more advanced, so did graphics. PC computing couldn’t keep up and became less popular in the late 90s.
By this time Sony had released their own gaming system, the PlayStation, which revolutionised the gaming experience, with the of CDs allowing more complex games to be played.
For almost a decade the PlayStation and Nintendo systems reigned supreme until Microsoft launched their own console, the X-Box.
It was one of the first consoles to utilise a Hard Drive for storage rather than memory cards it was also the first console to offer online gaming.
Comparably the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube were more or less the same, offering similar graphics and gaming experiences, but it was the titles of games that players would gravitate towards. X-Box offered games such as Halo; PlayStation had games such as Final Fantasy, Ratchet and Clank; whilst the GameCube offered titles such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Super Smash Sunshine and Pikmin.
As the use of the internet for gaming become more popular, game developers had to consider other factors in creating their games, not only did the game have to run smoothly, look good and play well, it had to cope being on the internet.
The evolution of gaming graphics reflects the broader advancements in technology and creative vision. From the early days of simple pixel art to the cutting-edge realism of modern games, each generation of graphics technology has expanded the possibilities for game design, storytelling, and player immersion.
These key advancements in technology over the decades has allowed video gaming to become a huge global industry and allowed people from all over the world to experience new worlds and adventures that would never have been possible without that first initial 1 colour pixelated game back in 1958.
As we hurtle towards the further advancements in gaming and game development, where can we go next? From the modest beginnings of pixel art to the breath-taking photorealism of today’s games, each phase of graphical development has added new dimensions to the gaming experience. This progression not only reflects the strides made in hardware and software but also the imaginative potential of game developers. As we anticipate the next chapter in this ongoing evolution, one thing remains certain: the pursuit of increasingly immersive and visually stunning experiences will continue to drive innovation in the world of video games.
Please Note: I created the Video Game collection to celebrate the history of video games, and the latest adventure of Derek and Irene has lots of nods to retro video gaming. I grew up playing games such as Head over Heels and The Secret of Monkey Island and I wanted to honour those games that shaped my love of gaming.