Influential Games?

Pong, Pacman, Mario Brothers, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy.

Pong - was the first game i believe
Wolfenstein or Doom - first '2.5 d shooter game'
Quake - first real 3d shooter game
(soon to be) Doom 3 - first game that only the 5 richest kings in Europe will be able to afford to run.

half-life was supposedly 'revolutionary' but to someone who is not an avid gamer (ie perhaps most of your classmates), it may seem not so different than quake.

By the way, dont try searching for "revolutionary computer game" or anything similar under google. Almost any game thats ever came out has probably been called 'revolutionary' by its creators or advertisors at one point.

Almost forgot to mention Black and White. They say its revolutionary

[edited by - AndreTheGiant on February 16, 2003 10:41:59 PM]

I''d agree with all of vtwin''s.

Also, I would add Myst, SimCity, and Everquest.

I think that the Baldur''s Gate series SHOULD have been a milestone and turning point in gaming, but unfortunately it didn''t have that revolutionary effect. I would have loved for developers to shift their focus to character development and story-telling, but I don''t think that''s happened.

Elite.

Why EverQuest? I would say Ultima Online before EverQuest. I know that it wasn''t the first online game, but UO was the first really popular online game, and the first to show that massively-multiplayer gaming could work over the Internet.

|.dev-c++.|.the gimp.|.seti@home.|.dbpoweramp.|.torn.|.=w=.|

quote:

---

Original post by Erunama
Why EverQuest? I would say Ultima Online before EverQuest. I know that it wasn''t the first online game, but UO was the first really popular online game, and the first to show that massively-multiplayer gaming could work over the Internet.

|.dev-c++.|.the gimp.|.seti@home.|.dbpoweramp.|.torn.|.=w=.|

---

Good call. I''m not very familiar with massively-multiplayer games, and Everquest was just the first one that came to mind. If Ultima Online was released before Everquest, then I change my vote.

To my knowledge, Pong wasn''t the first video game. But it was the first important one.

I''d have to say for importance, these games are often overlooked:

Adventure. One of the key pioneers for Text Adventures.

King''s Quest 1. One of the first animated computer games.

King''s Quest IV. The first game to my knowledge that introduced the sound card for the PC. Commodores & Apples have already had sound cards before this).

Ultima Underworld. This was a milestone for 2.5D, and came out before Wolfenstein. The interface was way beyond that of Wolfenstein, and even the Doom. FPS wouldn''t catch up for a long time to this engine.

System Shock. An advanced 2.5D engine, it even let you play at 640x480, even though it was slow and unplayable for years to come. Although this wasn''t a high seller, it was one of the first really big genre blending games, long before Half Life.
Betrayel At Krondor. This to my knowledge is the first true 3D engine for a computer game.

Populous (or possibly Megalomania) for first God game...

Dune II (I think) as first C&C style game

Commander Keen (I think he was first) for changing marketing - Apogee introduced the concept of a shareware episode being freely available then pay for the other 2/3 or 3/4 of the game. Some of the same people went on to form Id who released DOOM under the same system.

quote:

---

Original post by Nytegard
This to my knowledge is the first true 3D engine for a computer game.

---

Note quite. Elite was 1982.

Note the Sims. It''s massive popularity shook up a few opinions about video game demographic and probably has a lot of people scratching their heads as to why a blood and guts shooter was not the number one selling game for so long. (Good direction to aim this one in: The long sought-after female market finally being realized.)

You learn something new every day. Doing a little search, stating what the first true 3d game could be a book within itself.

I''ve seen claims now of Elite, and GOLF (1982) being the first 3D game ever on the IBM PC. Although, I can''t even find any information on it through google.

And you can go back even further to the Atari 400 in 1979. The more and more I look, the more I think that a couple paragraphs won''t do justice at all, as there will always be consenting opinions.

quote:

---

Original post by Nytegard
And you can go back even further to the Atari 400 in 1979. The more and more I look, the more I think that a couple paragraphs won''t do justice at all, as there will always be consenting opinions.

---

Sorry if I didn''t make myself clear... I''m doing a couple paragraphs *per* game. And thanks for all the input so far guys.. I had most of the more obvious ones, but some I hadn''t even thought of. Keep it coming

Ah, but Elite''s 3D was real-time and animated. From what I remember of early golf games, the frames took 20 seconds to render.

Some info.
(Apparently elite was actually released 1984, not ''82)

Space Invaders, Pole Position.
The Last Ninja for MIND BLOWING graphics and music on a C64

''Your theory of a donut shaped universe is intriguing Homer'' - Stephen Hawking

Yeah, sorry, I misread.

OK, forget all the junk about what came first then, as the more I am looking, the more I'm finding out every one of my answers (and the answers on this board), are wrong. The first person to do something is usually not the one credited from what I'm finding out.

Anyways, a series of influential games (not the first, but the ones with many clones):

Pong
Pacman
Space Invaders
Adventure
King's Quest
Super Mario Bros.
Wizardry
Ultima
Double Dragon
Dragon Quest
Doom
Ultima Underworld
System Shock
Myst
Dune 2
Sim City
Street Fighter 2
NetHack

Now, these aren't necearrily the first for their respective genres, nor are they the most popular, but all of the above were popular, and did have influence of clones (ie: Wizardry was the basis for Dragon Quest by Enix, which was borrowed by Square for Final Fantasy).

[edited by - Nytegard on February 16, 2003 12:56:09 AM]

UFO: Enemy Unknown (European version) AKA XCOM: UFO Defence (US)

Keeps turning up in lists of "Top 5 classic games everyone should have played" - alongside Civilisation, DOOM, Dune 2...

If you''re mentioning NetHack, you should probably look into Rogue - after all, the genre is known as "Rogue-like games"...

On the freeware side, Curses (1995) spawned a renaissance in interactive fiction/text adventures

quote:

---

Original post by Nytegard
To my knowledge, Pong wasn''t the first video game.

---

Right, the first video game was called Space Wars. It was developed as a research project, and was actually a two player game (multiplay before singleplay, interesting ourse of development). An opensource remake can be found here.

---

#Old Steve, he said to Xerox "Boys, turn your heads and cough"
And when no-one was looking he ripped their interfaces off#
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie on the truth behind MacOS 1

SketchSoft | SketchNews

---