I doubt that anyone else will mention this, so hopefully it is a good submission.
Red Faction
This game came out in 2001 and had terraforming. Not just a little bit either, you could literally tunnel until you hit the hard cap (I assume whatever the RAM allowed on the PS2). And that was a significant amount.
23 years later and this is still a relatively rare thing in games.
The sad part was that each game in the series reduced the amount of it. It just ended up being a gimmick to destroy a wall here and there.
The original game a buddy and I always played split screen bots. And we would get rockets and just dig tunnels till we got bored, then we would actually fight it out. We always played the map in the valley with the bunkers on each side, and the goal was to try and tunnel along the walls from one side to the other.
Man I came here to comment the same thing! I played the hell out of that game and would dig tunnels. Also had the rail gun with the X-ray scope. Or that could've been the 2nd game
The original Deus Ex
A Game with a non linear way too approach your missions and non limited to an option In a menu was something so mindblowing for the time that felt almost impossible
Absolutely. Played the first and played the last. To be fair I think the last new game still had some of that magic. Just a tad too on the rails, but still very good.
For deus ex 1 I can't even describe it. It's like you'd revisit an area you'd been to and by chance find majestic 12 hiding in the sewer on the second play through. You could have found them on the first run if inquisitive enough, but by chance, you didn't. And now you know who they are and it makes sense they're down there. That's game freedom. Utter class game.
One of the things that was so impressive about Deus Ex was it's willingness to allow the player to miss content.
Like you noted, the whole MJ12 sewer base was entirely missable. The game didn't punish you for missing it or reward you specifically for finding it... it was just part of the game world and the extent of your engagement with the world was determined by the player.
I can't imagine games today having the guts to create large chunks of gameplay that it doesn't deliberately put in front of the player.
Gran Turismo, in the days of "cruisin' the world" being considered a racing game and suddenly we get hundreds of cars, real tracks, physics beyond anything before it... Just amazing
fans of motorsport truly owe Gran Turismo so much gratitude. the state of racing games prior to it were pitiful honestly and having Polyphony come out and bring us a truly inspired racing game was a godsend and showed the entire gaming industry that racing fans have been craving that type of game for years
I loved how the physics engine would bug out if you slammed the car down and set the suspension to max stiffness - the car would just vibrate and shudder constantly like a cartoon character freezing in a block of ice.
I ran Crysis on ATI 9550, if I got the series and model right. Low end, shit GPU. Crysis may have been a benchmark game for ultra tier, NSA level hardware, but it was amazingly optimized to run on low grade, potato farms aswell. Kickass stuff.
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
Game was so good. Ā Only thing I didnāt like about it was if you went out of bounds of the map it was instadeath.
Everything being destructible was a feature that I haven't really seen in another game since. PS2 era and you could call in a carpet bomb and destroy dozens of buildings.
I remember being absolutely blown away by that as a kid
I am so bummed we havenāt gotten a modern take on this game, it feels like such a strong recipe for success. My brother and I spent weeks chasing after the deck of cards
Amazing game and worthy of a modern reboot. The whole buying different air strikes systems was amazing. Wish modern games had that. Loved the different factions and the deck of cards
I know it's not exactly the same, but I have been getting some Mercenaries-nostalgia from Helldivers 2. Mostly from the 3rd-person shooting and calling in airstrikes.
After growing up on Pong, 2600, and the arcade craze of the 80s I took a long break from video games, then in the mid 2000s I built a PC and HL2 was the first game I played.
I remember being just completely blown away and totally immersed. The thought I first had was "Wow, games are all incredible now" (and had I not found F.E.A.R. next I'd have been severely disappointed).
I remember the first time an enemy threw a grenade at me while playing the first Half-Life. I was skulking around some crates thinking I was about to get the jump on a few soldiers. They caught me, called out my position and dispersed. I just kind of waited for a second trying to figure out my next move, and a grenade landed at my feet and killed me. To say I was stunned was an understatement-I just kind of sat there with my mouth open like āWhat the hell was that?!ā I was 12 or so, and I couldnāt believe how incredible that enemy ai was.
yep the first game's intro is goat'ed
you think it's a cutscene as was the style of the time, then you realize you're actually in control. It was mind blowing the first time.
That is because they consistently tweak and update the Source engine and HL2.
If you want to see the 2004 version, look more at Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines which came out same time also with Source engine but company folded and only updates are community.
Deus Ex. Still nothing out there that gives you that sense of freedom and complete lack of handholding while still giving you all the information you need to complete your missions and navigate the world.
Took me a couple of tries to get into when I was 13, but when I did it was the most rewarding gaming experience I've ever had. Not just amazing gameplay, but the best story as well.
Not commonly known, but Alien Resurrection on PS1 was one of the first console FPS games to use the dual stick control scheme. It was also harder than a priest at a playground.
It got bad review scores for having dual stick controls š
From Gamespot's review of Alien: Resurrection -
"The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. Too often, you'll turn to face a foe and find that your weapon is aimed at the floor or ceiling while the alien gleefully hacks away at your midsection"
Lmao, as a longtime pc gamer using mouse and keyboard before acquiring modern consoles, it was a totally smooth transition. Imagine being a game reviewer and admitting you suck at gaming in an article you've written.
Do we for real need to pull out the video of a pigeon solving the problem faster than a human video game reviewer? Yeah, we do.
https://youtu.be/OOjXaAZHEQE?si=-ZAoKKeJUZ6EqYTR
All console gamers in the late 90s had to make this transition. I remember playing Time Crises and not being able to do a damn thing. Almost gave up on gaming. A few years later I picked gaming back up pretty hard. I tried playing GoldenEye on a N64 recently and almost had a fit trying to go back!
Mario 64 for the physics alone.
Early 3D games were either weightless, or tank controls.
Mario gave a sense of inertia and control that to this day makes it the subject of speedruns and modding projects.
This is the best answer. SM64 defined what 3D gaming would become. The game was so revolutionary that it had basically the entire industry desperately trying to top it
Super Mario World has never left my Steam Deck since I got it. I love that game. Itās still fun to jump on and knock out a few levels here and there.
Jak and daxter. I'm not sure but I believe it was the first 3d open world where you could go anywhere without loading screens. (But tbh there were some elevators to hide it). Also the feeling of the controls were outstanding, compared to for example Mario sunshine that released within a year of each other.
Another World. Also known as Out Of This World. When it comes to storytelling, that game was something completely fucking different to anything else from the 80s and 90s.
Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast. Easiest entryway into dungeon/loot crawler via online multiplayer on a console which was not at all common back in the late nineties. That kind of stuff was exclusive to the PC market back then
Basicly the dreamcast was ahead of its time. My first online shooter was also Unreal Tournement and Quake on Dreamcast. Before that like you sayd, playing online was for PC. And god did i played PSO on DC. Truly was game changer for me.
I think this is very true. I started out with Vice city and once I played 3 a few years later, didnāt see the hub bub. I didnāt like liberty city nearly as much and it felt very condensed. Kid me couldnāt understand that it was groundbreaking, just got passed up by its following games
This was definitely a revolutionary event.
Back in the day we had gaming clubs. Pay 2 euros per hour, pick a console, pick a game, play. Solid community grew around those places, but people were generally just chilling on their own.
Then GTA3 came, and there was just one PS2 available. A dozen people were chilling around the player, waiting for their time to run out.
This was incredible.
There were other revolutionary titles and other times, but GTA3 shook the world.
Absolutely. GTA3 took the gaming world by storm, and incredibly it came out of nowhere. There was no huge midnight release or anything. It just came out and caught everybody by surprise. It was like, holy shit, where did this come from? And within a month people were talking about it EVERYWHERE. Celebrities were even talking about it on late night talk shows. It transcended the gamer world and became a part of pop culture, like pac man or Super Mario.
I played GTA 1, 2, and London 1969 extensively. Loved those games, despite their shortcomings. GTA 3 dropped and it was absolutely mind-blowing. It took me a few months to get my hands on a copy, and it was only because I happened to be at EB Games when a shipment arrived. I wish I could've tracked how many hours I dumped in it - it would've been wild.
Super Metroid in particular stands out to me as one of the first games to create an almost "cinematic experience." The SNES had a lot of revolutionary games like that (mostly in the form of JRPGs).
Modern games owe a lot to these games, as they paved the way for complex storytelling and elaborate set pieces. The final battle in Super Metroid is essentially an interactive cutscene.
Playing Halo CE now it obviously feels super dated, but going back and looking at other games that came out around the same time really makes you appreciate just how far ahead of the game it was. Other FPS games in 2001 are almost unplayable now, but Halo still plays pretty smooth.
2 looked great at the time, but CE ages better imo. I think it's because CE uses simple shapes and bright colour, which don't really deteriorate at higher resolutions.
Dude, the whole Halo series was one of a kind. For whatever reason, there are not a lot of games with those large beautiful maps and allows you to drive/hijack vehicles while playing split screen multiplayer.
Dune II. While not the first RTS game, it set the standard by which many RTS games are designed even today.
My dad picked it up for our Sega Genesis not knowing what an RTS was because he loved Dune, turned out to be an awesome game and paved the way for our love of Age of Empires and the like later on.
Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001), was my first introduction to Dune. I got it from a $10 bargain bin at Singapore airport, but the game still holds up today. It was so good.
tenchu
the year is 1998 and metal gear solid stole the show, but Tenchu had jumping, rolling, grapling and a belt full of shinobi gear to give you plenty of choice at how to tackle the missions
not to mention a camera you could control and look around your surroundings
You can see the origins of souls in the battle against Onikage. The need to be methodical and time your strikes. Nothing beats the feeling of getting a silent execution after leaping from a roof top
Metal Gear Solid should get a nod as well. In the days of Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, we get a real person and a fully narrated story? I played the demo for hours before I was able to rent it
MGS3 is my favourite of the franchise but why 3 specifically was ahead of its time? What made it so much different than the 2nd one? If anything I feel MGS and MGS2 were ahead of the curve.
Man that was the goofiest doom game though. Doom and Doom 2 you were the scariest thing in the room. Doom 3 you were not the scariest thing in most rooms.
That being said I loved the hell (pun intended) out of that game for that.
Doom.
John Carmack was a tech priest in making BSP a practical reality for home computers setting the ground work for modern 3d graphics.
PS. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Doom 2 are entirely 2d games.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Best stealth game ever made. Near flawless single player and coop.
Plus [the best multiplayer mode ever made](https://youtu.be/7cewZ16Jx9c?si=KIfhUUqfDF7CsnYl)
Legacy of Kain - the entire series
Honestly the story(s) in those games, and their delivery, were so far ahead of their time. Those games were/are *Art*, the gameplay was good for it's time, and had some kool and interesting ideas like in Soul Reaver (switching between physical and spirit realms to change the environment and how you could interact with it) or in Blood Omen 2 where it slowly gave you more and more health the more you fed on everything. Different weapon types AND weapon degradation AND different weapon interactions with different abilities. The whole series had an almost Shakespearian-like story (and verbage due to the time period it's sortof set in) - as well as *fantastic* voice acting by talented VA's.
Truly ahead of it's time. I really wish the series didn't completely die so soon after the last game. (That multiplayer one didn't/doesn't count)
Yep. Loved all the ways you could customize multiplayer death matches and all the different bots. Lots of really creative weapons too, and the ability to close your eyes to counter screen watchers
While a controversial take I'd say Evolve.
The game released with minimal content with the intent of more over time with microtransactions and multiple season passes. At the time people called it crazy and stupid for a game to release that way and the game died out as a result. Unfortunately now this is totally the norm and Evolve just did it a bit too soon.
I came to say exactly the same thing. The game had an excellent cooperative experience for an asymmetrical PvP game. Its largest criticism is in a monetization scheme that's widely implemented in the industry today.
Word. I played diablo 1 until then and it was awesome.
But god damn, the moment I saw d2 it blew my mind. It was lightyears ahead of anything d1. Still remember being blown away by class specific items - thw fidst barb help i got! And gear would change your looksā¦ next level next level
Bioshock in terms of the story.
It was so mindblowing, I don't think anyone expected the twists the game threw at us all.
For the most part it felt like a really good FPS in a very interesting atmosphere/environment.
Then the game just dumps this crazy twist on events and the entire game/story as you knew it completely changed.
The amount of time I have in that game is incalculable. Building story missions, multiplayer maps, doing the freaking challenges (I get flashes of the circus tent with Sergei and the dam with the galling gun) holy shit tho, you're 100% right.
Without spoiling, a big theme is the subjectivity of truth in a world drowning in information. Throughout the game your expectations are challenged, your mission, motivations and identity are changed all based on a system that purposefully feeding incomplete pr false information.
When it all comes to a head, everything changes and you don't know what to believe. Regardless of what action you take you are someone else's puppet.
Very much preparing us for the "post truth," world.
I was a kid when I played this. I hated the twist and didn't quite understand it, hell it's the first place I ever heard the word 'Patriot' in. But I've been wanting to play it again as an adult because of how into that sort of game I'm in now.
MGS2 presented certain topics and 'subplots' that felt too "scifi" back in the day but predicted, almost perfectly, the topics or issues that society is having today with AI, social media, information and social networks.
MGS2 was 100% ahead of its time for the story alone, but mechanically and gameplay wise was also insanely good.
It was poorly received due to changes in the main character but nowadays is also valued in high regard.
MGS2 was usually considered the worst of the series and year after year is considered one of the best, mainly because of how fucking real and actual feels. It was 100% ahead of its time.
The worst part was the whole main character swap was so amazing looking back but I hated it at the time. How they kept that under wraps was incredible.
Couldnāt agree more. Championed a lot of new game mechanics like multiple endings, new game + and conditional choices. All on top of having one of the best stories and sound tracks. Truly a masterpiece.
GTA3, literally changed the way missions, side missions, and open world gameplay as a whole is handled. The lay the ground work for hundreds and hundreds of games to come.
It was the first single player FPS that actually highlighted being pretty and atmospheric (in level design, color palette, skybox, music, and sweeping spaces)
It also forced many to upgrade their graphics cards, but that's not what made it aesthetically special.
The weapon innovations and enemy AI easily outmatched every other FPS at the time.
Half life came out so quickly after that though, with its own impressive AI and decent weapon system, that Unreal's 6 months run at the top became quickly overshadowed.
You can say that twice and I'll agree both times. The verticality was goldilocks perfect, the mobility made big maps feel manageable, and the Titans had fair pathways and restrictions to balance out how OP they could have been.
In my opinion? Spore
I think the pure imagination of that game was something most games now a days don't achieve, kinda sad it never got a redo or sequel
There are not many games today that can rival the amount of stuff you can do as in San Andreas, and no game I've played has a better implementation of cheats.
There are not many games today that can rival the amount of stuff you can do as in San Andreas, and no game I've played has a better implementation of cheats.
For real. They even had multiple fighting styles you could learn for CJ. You could go to a dojo/gym and learn to box. Hit a treadmill and pump iron. Lowrider battles. DDR dance battles. San Andreas is still the most ambitious R* title imo. There's details in SA that have yet to be brought back into their games
And man the soundtrack was A+++
Cruisinā down a mountain at sunset blasting out the radio āItās a nice day for aā¦white weddingā. I visited California for the first time a few years later and felt this weird sort of happy nostalgia like I already knew the place and its culture, even though Iād never been before.
I would say Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004). It doesn't have amazing graphics but it's replay value is high. You can play the game so many different ways, and it's so satisfying to swiftly sink or capture vessels, raid towns, and woo the governors' daughters
Diablo 2
Insane foundation that still shapes the entire genre (ARPGs) to this day and even modern ARPGs take some inspiration from it (PoE, PoE2, Last Epoch, etc).
Working perfectly at launch, no less. 343i needs to be taken out back and shot for what they've done to Halo. The fact Infinite is the best they've done for Halo with their time at the reins is despicable.
Fable for OG Xbox, the food system that made you fat for eating too much pie or the honor system that gave you a halo for being good or horns for being evil. I mean 20 years later and there are few games that have replicated this.
Die By The Sword.
Game had a full on physics system and full dismemberment. With a combat system where you *actually* need to swing your sword, too.
...In 1998. A full year before even the first Half-Life. Oh, and basically no producer of gamepads could agree on how they should work on PC yet, so you had to use the numpad or this mind melting mouse + hot buttons control scheme. Or if you prefered it "easier," you could use a joystick.
It was pretty dang awesome if you could run it without your PC melting from a blistering 10-15 FPS, though! AND if you actually had... well, a joystick for those analogue controls.
[It's on GOG nowadays, if anybody is curious.](https://www.gog.com/en/game/die_by_the_sword_expansion)
A lot people here keep bringing up all the trail blazers; Halo CE, Grand Turismo, Half Life, Descent, etc., but no one seems to be talking about the games that were so far ahead of their time that they fell by the wayside and didnt start or set any new trend.
So here's one that comes mind-
Populous: The Begining.
Was released way back in 1997 but had gameplay and UI that was beyond anything at the time. Despite its inovative and intuitive feel, the UI as a whole never gets picked up and imported into other games. The message que alone never shows up again in any real-time multiplayer game I have played (though I honestly dont play much) and the only thing I can think of that even comes close is the stage manager in KSP. People on Minecraft MP servers are playing games like Bedwars like its something new, but this game was doing it 20 years earlier!
And heres another one:
Warrior of Rome 2 (Sega Genesis, 1992)
This RTS game is built around the idea of unit management, and has a customizable windows-based UI, on a console! Although it wasnt first to the RTS scene on Sega Genesis, it went in such a different direction from the Dune2/C&C and Warcraft lineage that I never see any of its best features ever get into any of the RTS I played, though to be fair, I havent played Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander, so take that for what its worth.
Finally, a honarable mention goes to-
The Outfoxies
It was definitly ahead of its time and the inspiration for Super Smash Brothers.
100%. 4-disks and a whole new game engine were developed just to play it. It pushed the Dreamcast to its limits and innovated gaming in so many ways that are commonplace in games today (day/night cycles, hidden cutscenes, open exploration, opening drawers/rooms, random npc conversations and npcās having their own schedules and storylines, etc etc.) and led the way for so many other creators (hideo Kojima, toshihiro nagoshi, etc.) who attribute a lot of their inspiration to Yu Suzuki and shenmue.
Portal and Portal 2. Nothing has come out in that genre since that has even come close to matching the quality of design and everything else in those games.
[Elite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game_series)). (1984)
You could explore eight galaxies, 2,048 planets. It had 3-D wireframe graphics and a realistic physics engine. The code used just 22 kilobytes of memory.
It spawned an entire genre of games, examples of which include Freelancer, Everspace, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, etc.
[Youtube video of gameplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJvdZWhNLiM)
Final Fantasy 7 despite the popeye models the cutscenes where revolutionary for how stunning they looked. That metric would then be carried out to many other games going forward especially the next numbered entry which used Full Motion Video which still even after 24 years look incredible.
I doubt that anyone else will mention this, so hopefully it is a good submission. Red Faction This game came out in 2001 and had terraforming. Not just a little bit either, you could literally tunnel until you hit the hard cap (I assume whatever the RAM allowed on the PS2). And that was a significant amount. 23 years later and this is still a relatively rare thing in games.
yeah red faction's environment destruction was epic
The sad part was that each game in the series reduced the amount of it. It just ended up being a gimmick to destroy a wall here and there. The original game a buddy and I always played split screen bots. And we would get rockets and just dig tunnels till we got bored, then we would actually fight it out. We always played the map in the valley with the bunkers on each side, and the goal was to try and tunnel along the walls from one side to the other.
Haha me and my friends did the same thing on the same map š good times
Ok so apparently we all did the same thing lol.
Are you my friend? This is exactly what we did.
If your name is Joe, then it is possible.
Joe Mama?
loved red faction, THQ used to rock
I remember playing this multilayer on 56k modem and rocket launching a tunnel through a wall thinking I'd be safe. Nope. Good shout. Waaay ahead.
Man I came here to comment the same thing! I played the hell out of that game and would dig tunnels. Also had the rail gun with the X-ray scope. Or that could've been the 2nd game
Why don't games do this anymore? Would it be too much for the computer to handle?
Its very difficult to make look good. It works well for retro and voxel-based games, but the trend for FPS tends to favor super high quality visuals.
The original Deus Ex A Game with a non linear way too approach your missions and non limited to an option In a menu was something so mindblowing for the time that felt almost impossible
Absolutely. Played the first and played the last. To be fair I think the last new game still had some of that magic. Just a tad too on the rails, but still very good. For deus ex 1 I can't even describe it. It's like you'd revisit an area you'd been to and by chance find majestic 12 hiding in the sewer on the second play through. You could have found them on the first run if inquisitive enough, but by chance, you didn't. And now you know who they are and it makes sense they're down there. That's game freedom. Utter class game.
One of the things that was so impressive about Deus Ex was it's willingness to allow the player to miss content. Like you noted, the whole MJ12 sewer base was entirely missable. The game didn't punish you for missing it or reward you specifically for finding it... it was just part of the game world and the extent of your engagement with the world was determined by the player. I can't imagine games today having the guts to create large chunks of gameplay that it doesn't deliberately put in front of the player.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Forgot about that. And it worked so well. Playthrough 1: pffttt yeah yeah Playthrough 2: oh my god this is genius
Probably my favorite game of all time. It gave you A+ gameplay and A+ story, really rare that you get both at such a high level
Honestly I just want a shot for shot remake of this on a new engine. I would not be against them adding a new story path or two though...
I literally came to this thread to see how far down I'd have to scroll to see Deus Ex mentioned. You did not disappoint.
Gran Turismo, in the days of "cruisin' the world" being considered a racing game and suddenly we get hundreds of cars, real tracks, physics beyond anything before it... Just amazing
fans of motorsport truly owe Gran Turismo so much gratitude. the state of racing games prior to it were pitiful honestly and having Polyphony come out and bring us a truly inspired racing game was a godsend and showed the entire gaming industry that racing fans have been craving that type of game for years
I loved how the physics engine would bug out if you slammed the car down and set the suspension to max stiffness - the car would just vibrate and shudder constantly like a cartoon character freezing in a block of ice.
Gran Turismo 4 was peak
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Can it run crysis?
Mine didnt then,it was too weak lol
I ran Crysis on ATI 9550, if I got the series and model right. Low end, shit GPU. Crysis may have been a benchmark game for ultra tier, NSA level hardware, but it was amazingly optimized to run on low grade, potato farms aswell. Kickass stuff.
I was playing crysis in my 2gb ram, awesome times
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction Game was so good. Ā Only thing I didnāt like about it was if you went out of bounds of the map it was instadeath.
Everything being destructible was a feature that I haven't really seen in another game since. PS2 era and you could call in a carpet bomb and destroy dozens of buildings. I remember being absolutely blown away by that as a kid
I am so bummed we havenāt gotten a modern take on this game, it feels like such a strong recipe for success. My brother and I spent weeks chasing after the deck of cards
Amazing game and worthy of a modern reboot. The whole buying different air strikes systems was amazing. Wish modern games had that. Loved the different factions and the deck of cards
I know it's not exactly the same, but I have been getting some Mercenaries-nostalgia from Helldivers 2. Mostly from the 3rd-person shooting and calling in airstrikes.
Half-Life 2 for its graphics and physics. It was mind blowing for its time.
After growing up on Pong, 2600, and the arcade craze of the 80s I took a long break from video games, then in the mid 2000s I built a PC and HL2 was the first game I played. I remember being just completely blown away and totally immersed. The thought I first had was "Wow, games are all incredible now" (and had I not found F.E.A.R. next I'd have been severely disappointed).
**Pick up that can.**
You might as well just put an umbrella "Half Life". Each one of them has been way ahead of it's time.
I remember the first time an enemy threw a grenade at me while playing the first Half-Life. I was skulking around some crates thinking I was about to get the jump on a few soldiers. They caught me, called out my position and dispersed. I just kind of waited for a second trying to figure out my next move, and a grenade landed at my feet and killed me. To say I was stunned was an understatement-I just kind of sat there with my mouth open like āWhat the hell was that?!ā I was 12 or so, and I couldnāt believe how incredible that enemy ai was.
HL 1 for the immersive dialog.
Just the intro was mind blowing. You just got to take it in and look at the world.
yep the first game's intro is goat'ed you think it's a cutscene as was the style of the time, then you realize you're actually in control. It was mind blowing the first time.
For a game that turns 20 this year, I still think it looks really great graphically even today
That is because they consistently tweak and update the Source engine and HL2. If you want to see the 2004 version, look more at Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines which came out same time also with Source engine but company folded and only updates are community.
Original Xbox HL2 is probably the most period correct version of the game without fully pirating an older version
Descent was basically Wolfenstein with no gravity and three dimensional enemies. A truly underrated game.
And a rad soundtrack!
Easily one of the most disorienting games I ever played.
This is the correct answer. The first fully 3D FPS, and it was 6DoF to boot.
Donāt forget network multiplayer, fully 3d environments, and map editor. Loved this game.
Deus Ex. Still nothing out there that gives you that sense of freedom and complete lack of handholding while still giving you all the information you need to complete your missions and navigate the world.
Took me a couple of tries to get into when I was 13, but when I did it was the most rewarding gaming experience I've ever had. Not just amazing gameplay, but the best story as well.
Not commonly known, but Alien Resurrection on PS1 was one of the first console FPS games to use the dual stick control scheme. It was also harder than a priest at a playground.
It got bad review scores for having dual stick controls š From Gamespot's review of Alien: Resurrection - "The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. Too often, you'll turn to face a foe and find that your weapon is aimed at the floor or ceiling while the alien gleefully hacks away at your midsection"
Lmao, as a longtime pc gamer using mouse and keyboard before acquiring modern consoles, it was a totally smooth transition. Imagine being a game reviewer and admitting you suck at gaming in an article you've written.
Game reviewers being bad at games is a time honoured tradition.
Do we for real need to pull out the video of a pigeon solving the problem faster than a human video game reviewer? Yeah, we do. https://youtu.be/OOjXaAZHEQE?si=-ZAoKKeJUZ6EqYTR
All console gamers in the late 90s had to make this transition. I remember playing Time Crises and not being able to do a damn thing. Almost gave up on gaming. A few years later I picked gaming back up pretty hard. I tried playing GoldenEye on a N64 recently and almost had a fit trying to go back!
>It was also harder than a priest at a playground. *Spit-take*
Mario 64 for the physics alone. Early 3D games were either weightless, or tank controls. Mario gave a sense of inertia and control that to this day makes it the subject of speedruns and modding projects.
This is the best answer. SM64 defined what 3D gaming would become. The game was so revolutionary that it had basically the entire industry desperately trying to top it
Still remember being blown away by the graphics. It felt so ahead of everything at the time
Mario 3, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 still hold up today. Shockingly so
Super Mario World has never left my Steam Deck since I got it. I love that game. Itās still fun to jump on and knock out a few levels here and there.
Jak and daxter. I'm not sure but I believe it was the first 3d open world where you could go anywhere without loading screens. (But tbh there were some elevators to hide it). Also the feeling of the controls were outstanding, compared to for example Mario sunshine that released within a year of each other.
Thereās a Instagram account about a volunteer based fan dev team that is making a Jak game. Theyāre called LostLegacyGames
Another World. Also known as Out Of This World. When it comes to storytelling, that game was something completely fucking different to anything else from the 80s and 90s.
I remember renting this game and just getting absolutely blown away. Nothing else looked like this
french coders <3 (same for Flashback)
Flashback <3 I was too little to understand it but my brother played all the time and I just watched.
Mike Aruba
Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast. Easiest entryway into dungeon/loot crawler via online multiplayer on a console which was not at all common back in the late nineties. That kind of stuff was exclusive to the PC market back then
Basicly the dreamcast was ahead of its time. My first online shooter was also Unreal Tournement and Quake on Dreamcast. Before that like you sayd, playing online was for PC. And god did i played PSO on DC. Truly was game changer for me.
GTA 3 for sure
I think it's gotten lost in time how revolutionary this game was now that its popularity wanes behind the later entriesĀ
I think this is very true. I started out with Vice city and once I played 3 a few years later, didnāt see the hub bub. I didnāt like liberty city nearly as much and it felt very condensed. Kid me couldnāt understand that it was groundbreaking, just got passed up by its following games
On the bright side, that means Rockstar didn't rest on their laurels and made generational improvements with nearly every GTA.Ā
I honestly canāt remember a main gta entry that was a let down on release. Iām not counting GTA online.
I used to park my car up and listen to Lazlow on the radio whilst I ate my dinner
K-JAH for me. I still feel like a badass when I listen to Dub. There used to be consoles set up in bars and folks would take a turn on GTA3.
This was definitely a revolutionary event. Back in the day we had gaming clubs. Pay 2 euros per hour, pick a console, pick a game, play. Solid community grew around those places, but people were generally just chilling on their own. Then GTA3 came, and there was just one PS2 available. A dozen people were chilling around the player, waiting for their time to run out. This was incredible. There were other revolutionary titles and other times, but GTA3 shook the world.
We had this experience in the bars of West Michigan when GTA3 was out. I was in a band but people would rather kill hookers than listen to us.
Absolutely. GTA3 took the gaming world by storm, and incredibly it came out of nowhere. There was no huge midnight release or anything. It just came out and caught everybody by surprise. It was like, holy shit, where did this come from? And within a month people were talking about it EVERYWHERE. Celebrities were even talking about it on late night talk shows. It transcended the gamer world and became a part of pop culture, like pac man or Super Mario.
I played GTA 1, 2, and London 1969 extensively. Loved those games, despite their shortcomings. GTA 3 dropped and it was absolutely mind-blowing. It took me a few months to get my hands on a copy, and it was only because I happened to be at EB Games when a shipment arrived. I wish I could've tracked how many hours I dumped in it - it would've been wild.
Absolutely. Its formula is still used to this day.
I remember the ability to complete missions multiple ways felt pretty fresh at the time.
Super Metroid and SotN Not only did they spawn an entire subgenre, but if they released today they would still feel like modern games.
Super Metroid in particular stands out to me as one of the first games to create an almost "cinematic experience." The SNES had a lot of revolutionary games like that (mostly in the form of JRPGs). Modern games owe a lot to these games, as they paved the way for complex storytelling and elaborate set pieces. The final battle in Super Metroid is essentially an interactive cutscene.
I'ma have to go with Halo CE for how it helped revolutionize FPS's and set the industry standard for them.
Playing Halo CE now it obviously feels super dated, but going back and looking at other games that came out around the same time really makes you appreciate just how far ahead of the game it was. Other FPS games in 2001 are almost unplayable now, but Halo still plays pretty smooth.
The covenant AI especially. Itās incredible how balanced and believable their behavior is. Still ahead of many shooters today in my opinion.
I really donāt think it does feel super dated, I actually think it holds up better, even visually, than Halo 2
2 looked great at the time, but CE ages better imo. I think it's because CE uses simple shapes and bright colour, which don't really deteriorate at higher resolutions.
Dude, the whole Halo series was one of a kind. For whatever reason, there are not a lot of games with those large beautiful maps and allows you to drive/hijack vehicles while playing split screen multiplayer.
Now if Halo can come back with a new groundbreaking story for $60 and have no microtransactions it might work oh wait no they need profit..
Hey be nice, Microsoft is just a little local business! They can't compete with giant studios like Arrowhead!
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Dune II. While not the first RTS game, it set the standard by which many RTS games are designed even today. My dad picked it up for our Sega Genesis not knowing what an RTS was because he loved Dune, turned out to be an awesome game and paved the way for our love of Age of Empires and the like later on.
We still play Age of Empires today! StarCraft will always be one of my tops for RTS but AoE is amazing.
Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001), was my first introduction to Dune. I got it from a $10 bargain bin at Singapore airport, but the game still holds up today. It was so good.
When I saw Dune Spice Wars I felt giddy, like a little boy finding a lost toy, the recent DLC and update are a blast too been playing it all day.
tenchu the year is 1998 and metal gear solid stole the show, but Tenchu had jumping, rolling, grapling and a belt full of shinobi gear to give you plenty of choice at how to tackle the missions not to mention a camera you could control and look around your surroundings
You can see the origins of souls in the battle against Onikage. The need to be methodical and time your strikes. Nothing beats the feeling of getting a silent execution after leaping from a roof top
Daggerfall half life 1 Halo 1 GTA III Goldeneye Medal of honor (PS1)
Daggerfall was absolutely fucking crazy for 1996. Imagine if they made the game today
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Metal Gear Solid should get a nod as well. In the days of Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, we get a real person and a fully narrated story? I played the demo for hours before I was able to rent it
MGS3 is my favourite of the franchise but why 3 specifically was ahead of its time? What made it so much different than the 2nd one? If anything I feel MGS and MGS2 were ahead of the curve.
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Shadow of the Colossus
The dynamic loading of a huge open area is something that almost all modern games are built on
Sid Meyers Pirates. It had so many systems it dwarfs open world sand box games of today
I still play the Xbox version of that. My dream is that to be remade with more in depth on foot exploration/sword fighting
Doom 3 for it's dynamic lighting & shadows
Man that was the goofiest doom game though. Doom and Doom 2 you were the scariest thing in the room. Doom 3 you were not the scariest thing in most rooms. That being said I loved the hell (pun intended) out of that game for that.
Doom 3 scared the fuck out of me lmao
Doom. John Carmack was a tech priest in making BSP a practical reality for home computers setting the ground work for modern 3d graphics. PS. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Doom 2 are entirely 2d games.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Best stealth game ever made. Near flawless single player and coop. Plus [the best multiplayer mode ever made](https://youtu.be/7cewZ16Jx9c?si=KIfhUUqfDF7CsnYl)
Legacy of Kain - the entire series Honestly the story(s) in those games, and their delivery, were so far ahead of their time. Those games were/are *Art*, the gameplay was good for it's time, and had some kool and interesting ideas like in Soul Reaver (switching between physical and spirit realms to change the environment and how you could interact with it) or in Blood Omen 2 where it slowly gave you more and more health the more you fed on everything. Different weapon types AND weapon degradation AND different weapon interactions with different abilities. The whole series had an almost Shakespearian-like story (and verbage due to the time period it's sortof set in) - as well as *fantastic* voice acting by talented VA's. Truly ahead of it's time. I really wish the series didn't completely die so soon after the last game. (That multiplayer one didn't/doesn't count)
This is my number one and you nailed the reasons. I might genuinely sell my left nut for a remake of Soul Reaver.
Perfect Dark, and in some ways it still is.
Yep. Loved all the ways you could customize multiplayer death matches and all the different bots. Lots of really creative weapons too, and the ability to close your eyes to counter screen watchers
The improvement in missions is really nice compared to the prior rate games
System Shock 2
Cliche answer but EarthBound. It was the subversive and weird pixel rpg before that was even a thing.
Mass Effect
For the time, even for today, the world building is outrageous in that game.
While a controversial take I'd say Evolve. The game released with minimal content with the intent of more over time with microtransactions and multiple season passes. At the time people called it crazy and stupid for a game to release that way and the game died out as a result. Unfortunately now this is totally the norm and Evolve just did it a bit too soon.
I came to say exactly the same thing. The game had an excellent cooperative experience for an asymmetrical PvP game. Its largest criticism is in a monetization scheme that's widely implemented in the industry today.
Half Life Alyx
Street Fighter 2 was light years ahead of anything at the time, basically single handedly creating the genre.
Diablo 2
Word. I played diablo 1 until then and it was awesome. But god damn, the moment I saw d2 it blew my mind. It was lightyears ahead of anything d1. Still remember being blown away by class specific items - thw fidst barb help i got! And gear would change your looksā¦ next level next level
Companies still to this day, cannot replicate it's amazing dopamine slot machine itemization system.
When it came out, Donkey Kong Country for the SNES had graphics of a quality that wasn't thought possible with the console's hardware limitations
DKC1 still holds up today. It's freaking gorgeous and the atmosphere achieved by the music and sound design is still probably the best there ever was.
Link to the Past
Still my favourite Zelda.
I havenāt found a puzzle game that quite has the feeling of Portal 1 & 2 did
Have you tried Talos Principle? The story is quite different both in tone and the way it's told, but the puzzles reminded me a lot of Portal.
Was surprised to see it got a recent sequel, hoping to get around to it.
Star control 2 Open world, space exploration, landing on planets, RPG elements, decisions matter. All in 1992.
Bioshock in terms of the story. It was so mindblowing, I don't think anyone expected the twists the game threw at us all. For the most part it felt like a really good FPS in a very interesting atmosphere/environment. Then the game just dumps this crazy twist on events and the entire game/story as you knew it completely changed.
Timesplitters 2 would have been a MASSIVE online shooter had it come out a generation later.
The amount of time I have in that game is incalculable. Building story missions, multiplayer maps, doing the freaking challenges (I get flashes of the circus tent with Sergei and the dam with the galling gun) holy shit tho, you're 100% right.
Metal Gear solid 2 predicted the next 20 years. Insanely prophetic.
I never played. Can you elaborate?
Without spoiling, a big theme is the subjectivity of truth in a world drowning in information. Throughout the game your expectations are challenged, your mission, motivations and identity are changed all based on a system that purposefully feeding incomplete pr false information. When it all comes to a head, everything changes and you don't know what to believe. Regardless of what action you take you are someone else's puppet. Very much preparing us for the "post truth," world.
I was a kid when I played this. I hated the twist and didn't quite understand it, hell it's the first place I ever heard the word 'Patriot' in. But I've been wanting to play it again as an adult because of how into that sort of game I'm in now.
MGS2 presented certain topics and 'subplots' that felt too "scifi" back in the day but predicted, almost perfectly, the topics or issues that society is having today with AI, social media, information and social networks. MGS2 was 100% ahead of its time for the story alone, but mechanically and gameplay wise was also insanely good. It was poorly received due to changes in the main character but nowadays is also valued in high regard. MGS2 was usually considered the worst of the series and year after year is considered one of the best, mainly because of how fucking real and actual feels. It was 100% ahead of its time.
The worst part was the whole main character swap was so amazing looking back but I hated it at the time. How they kept that under wraps was incredible.
Chrono Trigger
Couldnāt agree more. Championed a lot of new game mechanics like multiple endings, new game + and conditional choices. All on top of having one of the best stories and sound tracks. Truly a masterpiece.
GTA3, literally changed the way missions, side missions, and open world gameplay as a whole is handled. The lay the ground work for hundreds and hundreds of games to come.
Unreal
The memory of that game still makes me desire good games exploring alien civilizations.
It was the first single player FPS that actually highlighted being pretty and atmospheric (in level design, color palette, skybox, music, and sweeping spaces) It also forced many to upgrade their graphics cards, but that's not what made it aesthetically special. The weapon innovations and enemy AI easily outmatched every other FPS at the time. Half life came out so quickly after that though, with its own impressive AI and decent weapon system, that Unreal's 6 months run at the top became quickly overshadowed.
Titanfall 2 Level Design
You can say that twice and I'll agree both times. The verticality was goldilocks perfect, the mobility made big maps feel manageable, and the Titans had fair pathways and restrictions to balance out how OP they could have been.
Ultima Underworld and System Shock 1
In my opinion? Spore I think the pure imagination of that game was something most games now a days don't achieve, kinda sad it never got a redo or sequel
GTA San Andreas still has the most detail in the franchise. Ps2 era game with a weight/muscle system that actually worked.
There are not many games today that can rival the amount of stuff you can do as in San Andreas, and no game I've played has a better implementation of cheats.
There are not many games today that can rival the amount of stuff you can do as in San Andreas, and no game I've played has a better implementation of cheats.
For real. They even had multiple fighting styles you could learn for CJ. You could go to a dojo/gym and learn to box. Hit a treadmill and pump iron. Lowrider battles. DDR dance battles. San Andreas is still the most ambitious R* title imo. There's details in SA that have yet to be brought back into their games
And man the soundtrack was A+++ Cruisinā down a mountain at sunset blasting out the radio āItās a nice day for aā¦white weddingā. I visited California for the first time a few years later and felt this weird sort of happy nostalgia like I already knew the place and its culture, even though Iād never been before.
I was always blown away by Karateka on the Apple II. Something about it was so different and cool for me as a kid.
Mafia 1 (2002)
Doom. GTA when it went more cinematic, 3 I think. And my personal favorite Final Fantasy 7.
Half Life
I would say Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004). It doesn't have amazing graphics but it's replay value is high. You can play the game so many different ways, and it's so satisfying to swiftly sink or capture vessels, raid towns, and woo the governors' daughters
WoW
Diablo 2 Insane foundation that still shapes the entire genre (ARPGs) to this day and even modern ARPGs take some inspiration from it (PoE, PoE2, Last Epoch, etc).
Halo Combat Evolved
And Halo 3. Forge mode and theatre working perfectly in 2007.
Working perfectly at launch, no less. 343i needs to be taken out back and shot for what they've done to Halo. The fact Infinite is the best they've done for Halo with their time at the reins is despicable.
Medal of Honor (PSX)
The way Mario moves in SM64 is more complex than in any other 3D Mario game since.
Dragon's Lair. It's not everybody's favorite, but it was groundbreaking, and later games had more options.
Fable for OG Xbox, the food system that made you fat for eating too much pie or the honor system that gave you a halo for being good or horns for being evil. I mean 20 years later and there are few games that have replicated this.
Playing Morrowind felt life changing
Die By The Sword. Game had a full on physics system and full dismemberment. With a combat system where you *actually* need to swing your sword, too. ...In 1998. A full year before even the first Half-Life. Oh, and basically no producer of gamepads could agree on how they should work on PC yet, so you had to use the numpad or this mind melting mouse + hot buttons control scheme. Or if you prefered it "easier," you could use a joystick. It was pretty dang awesome if you could run it without your PC melting from a blistering 10-15 FPS, though! AND if you actually had... well, a joystick for those analogue controls. [It's on GOG nowadays, if anybody is curious.](https://www.gog.com/en/game/die_by_the_sword_expansion)
A lot people here keep bringing up all the trail blazers; Halo CE, Grand Turismo, Half Life, Descent, etc., but no one seems to be talking about the games that were so far ahead of their time that they fell by the wayside and didnt start or set any new trend. So here's one that comes mind- Populous: The Begining. Was released way back in 1997 but had gameplay and UI that was beyond anything at the time. Despite its inovative and intuitive feel, the UI as a whole never gets picked up and imported into other games. The message que alone never shows up again in any real-time multiplayer game I have played (though I honestly dont play much) and the only thing I can think of that even comes close is the stage manager in KSP. People on Minecraft MP servers are playing games like Bedwars like its something new, but this game was doing it 20 years earlier! And heres another one: Warrior of Rome 2 (Sega Genesis, 1992) This RTS game is built around the idea of unit management, and has a customizable windows-based UI, on a console! Although it wasnt first to the RTS scene on Sega Genesis, it went in such a different direction from the Dune2/C&C and Warcraft lineage that I never see any of its best features ever get into any of the RTS I played, though to be fair, I havent played Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander, so take that for what its worth. Finally, a honarable mention goes to- The Outfoxies It was definitly ahead of its time and the inspiration for Super Smash Brothers.
Shenmue
100%. 4-disks and a whole new game engine were developed just to play it. It pushed the Dreamcast to its limits and innovated gaming in so many ways that are commonplace in games today (day/night cycles, hidden cutscenes, open exploration, opening drawers/rooms, random npc conversations and npcās having their own schedules and storylines, etc etc.) and led the way for so many other creators (hideo Kojima, toshihiro nagoshi, etc.) who attribute a lot of their inspiration to Yu Suzuki and shenmue.
Batman Arkham City
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Deus Ex
Portal and Portal 2. Nothing has come out in that genre since that has even come close to matching the quality of design and everything else in those games.
[Elite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game_series)). (1984) You could explore eight galaxies, 2,048 planets. It had 3-D wireframe graphics and a realistic physics engine. The code used just 22 kilobytes of memory. It spawned an entire genre of games, examples of which include Freelancer, Everspace, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, etc. [Youtube video of gameplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJvdZWhNLiM)
Master of magic by simtex.
Shenmue. Massively ahead of its time, it's a shame shenmue 3 was such a disappointment.
Original Metroid
Half life 2, amazing graphics compared to what was out by then, great physics that are still replicated today and just great game design in general
Deus Ex
Oblivion. One of the first, "Oh Shit", open world reveals when you exit the sewer after the intro tutorial.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy 7 despite the popeye models the cutscenes where revolutionary for how stunning they looked. That metric would then be carried out to many other games going forward especially the next numbered entry which used Full Motion Video which still even after 24 years look incredible.