Game Revolutions

As far as FPS goes, CoD4/5 is the at the apex of gameplay sophistication. But the most revolutionary FPS is simply the very 1st one. Wolfenstien 3D, there was no other game like that before it.

RTS. Company of Heroes takes alot from other Relic games like Dawn of War in that strategic point controll is the key to victory, but CoH takes it's one step further and brings into the most immersive RTS game there is, when you play it you feel almost like you're part of the battle. So it's a revolution in immersiveness which is hard to do in a RTS game.

Other Genres.

Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within with its free form fighting system creates a winderfull and fluid combat mechanic, one step above the ground work layed by the Sands of Time with its emphasis on using the environment, and than The Two Thrones that further refined it.

Portal. Need I say more?

Freelancer is also a type of game that had alot to offer but never caught on. The engine developed for the game is incredibly capable and the absolutely huge game world can bring near-infinite possibilities for the game.

Stronghold. Also a rather unique RTS game. It takes the emphasis of the RTS away from tedious build times and places it squarely on resource managment, creating a whole new type of challenge.
 
Elite back on the old BBC Micro in the early 80's pretty much launched space combat games as we know them, but the Wing Commander (man, I wish they'd make more of those) and Freelancer did a great job of building on that foundation, and the X series games are also really sophisticated with what you can do with them. X3 frustrated me beyond belief though, I couldn't get more than a few hours into it.

The original Sierra Quest games were groundbreaking too, the first examples of graphical adventure games I think, with the Quest for Glory series possibly being the first CRPG's to feature stat point allocation & character development.

As mentioned, GTA 3 was a huge step forward in terms of introducing an interactive "living" city and sandbox gameplay, and I think VC was one of the first to feature licensed music by popular musicians. Also, Wolfenstein 3D was the first FPS to be released, though I think Doom was the first genuine 3D shooter, with Quake 2 being possibly the first FPS to feature 3D graphics acceleration.

The original Sims was the first "god game" I believe.

So far as flight sims go, the MS flight sim series were probably the first to come close to accurately modelling what powered flight is like on a home PC, but the Janes series of sims - Longbow II in particular - really take the cake there, at least in terms of the first solid military aviation sims. Falcon 4 took that crown from them though - and still holds it I think - though I'm led to believe that the Blackshark Ka-50 sim is probably going to be the next king of the (currently much smaller) heap in terms of flight sims.
 
Max Payne made bullet-time look damn good. Every other game has seemed to have failed at executing it (including the failure that was "The Matrix: The Game").
Quake I with its mouselook (smoother than other FPS' at the time) and awesome networking capabilities.
Deus Ex for FPS|RPG.
World of Warcraft - MMO done right... Its a 6 year old game with 11.5 million subscribers... Love it or hate it, it has a winning recipe.
 
Tsar said:
Doom. For having 3d levels. Like stairs and multi floors.
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I'm not sure what you mean by multi-levels. Stairs up and down yes, and you could drop down into tunnels and so on, but you couldn't - for instance - have a tunnel that ran under another one. So it wasn't completely 3D in the same essence that Quake was, for instance.

I'm trying to remember which game actually got it right first - I think it was Duke Nukem 3D - could be wrong though.
 
Phatso said:
Max Payne made bullet-time look damn good. Every other game has seemed to have failed at executing it (including the failure that was "The Matrix: The Game").
Quake I with its mouselook (smoother than other FPS' at the time) and awesome networking capabilities.
Deus Ex for FPS|RPG.
World of Warcraft - MMO done right... Its a 6 year old game with 11.5 million subscribers... Love it or hate it, it has a winning recipe.
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Some good suggestions, didn't even think of max payne, although the bullet time phenomenon dissipated as quickly as it arrived, sad really.

Also most recently wii sports, the best selling video game of all time. It basically started the whole motion craze and made it popular. Other consoles are now trying develop their own motion controls following the success of the wii.
 
Sirf said:
What is so great about this game? Never played it...
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Can I recommend getting hold of an emulator and picking it up? It really is a masterpiece of game design. At the time there was nothing that came close to it. The PS had FFVII - but OoT put it to shame with the scope of its vision. I have some hi def texture packs for it as well. The graphics look grainy on a PC LCD.
 
What he means is that the stages had multiple levels, it wasn't 3D it was still bitmapped sprite based, but you had stairs, lifts, and various other things that would kind of exist on the Z axis, so making it a massive step up from Wolf 3D where everything was just flat. Also the first God game was Populous, Wolfenstein wasn't the first FPS to be released, it was just the most successful to be released, Quake 1 was the first true 3D FPS and one of the first to use 3D acceleration.
 
Lupus said:
What he means is that the stages had multiple levels, it wasn't 3D it was still bitmapped sprite based, but you had stairs, lifts, and various other things that would kind of exist on the Z axis, so making it a massive step up from Wolf 3D where everything was just flat. Also the first God game was Populous, Wolfenstein wasn't the first FPS to be released, it was just the most successful to be released, Quake 1 was the first true 3D FPS and one of the first to use 3D acceleration.
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Thanks for the additional info Lupus.

Just the point I was making is that you couldn't have two co-ordinates for Z, say at the same point on the map at X, Y - so you couldn't run down some stairs and a tunnel and then stand exactly under the same point you were occupying before. So, yes, you could move up and down, but there were still limitations.
 
Baldur's Gate 2: The party banter no other game except DAO has anything close to it.
Planescape Torment: Still the best story telling .
 
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