Games you thought were 'revolutionary' at the time.

czc

czc

Thread Killer Mk VIII
Which games did you think were revolutionary or cool if you prefer at the time?

I just thought of RON, Rise of Nations and the border/ influence system.

borders.jpg

It showed you how much land you controlled, you could only build on your land so no setting up a forward base to rush your opponents. There even attrition when an enemy entered you territory.


Name anything you like, whole games, features, art styles, etc...
 
Strike Commander.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander

First game to implement top-end flight simulator visuals on the PC via shading and texture mapping. As a result it was almost unplayable on the 386 I had at the time. But man alive, what a game.

Then also, Dune 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II

It basically fulfilled every boyhood dream of building armies and blowing up enemy bases. Before this game you had to make do with toy solders and a handful of plastic tanks.

I have to add though, I only though Dune was cool until I played Command & Conquer for the first time...
 
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Black and White was one of my first revolutionary games, or at least at the time I thought so.


And I have to be a bit controversial here and say No Man's Sky, they brought a lot of new stuff and thought patterns to the way to use procedural generation in gaming. Since NMS and lot of other titles have been branching out on the "what NMS should have been" bandwagon.
 
Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons - First smooth side-scroller I ever played
Prince of Persia - The animation of the main character was simply facinating
Doom - Smooth gory goodness that is
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom - I mean full motion video, alternate story lines and endings in 1996(?) unheard of
 
murfle said:
I found Doom 2 to be more revolutionary. You could look up and down!
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True, but compare it to the other FPS titles available before Doom. Two shining examples were Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Then Doom happened and it changed everything forever.
 
Everquest: first game that brought people together with 3D characters to kill giant monsters in large groups.

Good times.

200 people in one raid: 3 hours to take down one dragon

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Need for speed III hot pursuit (pc version), when it came out it looked photrealistic back then and , NFS II/Se that came out a year earlier looked ancient in comparison, almost like a previous gen title.

NFS II

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Compared to NFS III

282468-nfs3_005.jpg





Another Game changer of a title would be half life, it was immersive and realistic as F7*CK when it came out on 1998, it was literally the first intelligent shooter.

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Doom
First pc game I played that I can remember.

Heroes of might and magic 3 was my first turn based game and to me was so amazing


Oblivion was my first rpg open world game.
 
Emperor: Battle for Dune was very revolutionary at the time. Full 3D RTS, and a fairly complex campagne. Also C&C: Renegade, it was the first FPS I played with mouse and keyboard
 
I remember when F.E.A.R came out - it killed my pc with it's fancy lighting and shadows - but what really stood out was the great enemy AI. Still to this day it has one of the better AI's in terms of FPS's.

Also on the AI part - Republic Commando was one of the first games where AI team members actually felt useful. I really loved the banter between your fellow clone team members.
 
GTA SA - felt massive at the time

Farcry - was amazed at how good the dense vegetation looked. Loads of newer games are a lot more sparse.

Decent - loved the whole "3D with no direction being UP" weightless vibe

Thief II - the mechanics were miles ahead of its time

Ground control - was beautiful at the time
 
PsychoFish said:
Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons - First smooth side-scroller I ever played
Doom - Smooth gory goodness that is
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Few people realise that the overly cute, pogo-stick toting Commander Keen was also developed by John Carmack. I just love the fact that one mind could produce Keen, Doom, and Quake :D Although, his interest has always been with the engine, not the actual game content, and you could see how he would've been happy to work on (as you said) an early smooth scrolling side-scroller.

PsychoFish said:
True, but compare it to the other FPS titles available before Doom. Two shining examples were Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Then Doom happened and it changed everything forever.
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Agreed. Doom took massive strides in terms of feel, smoothness, using the engine to help with storytelling (think lighting used for jump scares), sound design and very intelligent map design.

Dohc-WP said:
Compared to NFS III

282468-nfs3_005.jpg


Another Game changer of a title would be half life, it was immersive and realistic as F7*CK when it came out on 1998, it was literally the first intelligent shooter.

2-24.jpg
Click to expand...

So many fond memories of Hot Pursuit mode! Either the direct follow up to NFS 3, or the next one after also introduced decent damage models, which was quite impressive for it's time, even if it wasn't implemented in a way that was very fun. One of the NFS's of that era also introduced Pink Slip racing, which I haven't really seen since..

I also consider HL to be hugely revolutionary, mostly for the fact that they managed to produce a story rich FPS with a silent protagonist. The scripted events, AI, and superlative mapping tools made for a massively fulfilling single player experience, and opened up the game for a plethora of amazing mods. It's still the best game made to date, IMO.

My submission to this thread is similar to [MENTION=1349]Tsar[/MENTION]'s: Morrowind. The first truly sandbox game I played, and with a rich world with interesting distractions. I should load it up again.
 
Another vote for Morrowind! I was astounded the first time I played it. My contribution is the original C&C. The game was fast, fun, easy to pick up and difficult to master. Warcraft (which was about the same era) felt slow and cumbersome by comparison.
 
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