POLL: Most revolutionary game

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I think it was Killer Instinct that I was thinking about. I remember it in the arcade now I think. It was fun, but I hated the intoduction of combos. Ruined Mortal Kombat

 

Soul here. Bonzo - I played that game eons ago, and it was called 'Catacombs Abyss.' Well, the first episode was. It was one of those old programs like Duke Nukem I where each separate episode was a separate program. One of the other two was 'Catacombs Armageddon' and I don't remember the third name.

 

Whow where's fallout

that game rocked when it came out, I mean i'm still discovering stuff in that game this day.

 

Fallout was actually the third game in the wasteland series.

 

Yeah! I had the original Wateland for the Commodore 64, and completely forgot about it until Jekknol's post! That was a cool game!

I'm going to nominate Wizardry, because it was one of the earliest RPG's, spawned tons of similar games, and introduced some RPG features that are still in use today. If it wasn't for Wizardry, RPG's as we know them today would not exist! Bust out the graph paper!

Honorable mentions:
Ultima - showcased how plot and character interaction could make a game truly immersive.

Pool of Radiance (the original) - The first of many AD&D RPGs. At a time when most games had combat in a small window with a first person view, PoR was giving you full screen battles where you could see everthing, rather than text descriptions of battles.

Ultima Underworld - I believe this was the very first first-person game ever (it came out before Castle Wolfenstien 3d). Complete freedom of movement in a 3-d environment was a brave new world.

The Bard's Tale - The first game that gave you Bards as a party member.

 

Was wizardry a really old game on the commodore64?? I seem to recall a game called wizardy that i had but it never worked.
IIRC it was like a platformer but with a fixed 3d perspective.

That the one??

 

the first wizardry (proving grounds of the mad overlord) was released in 1981, i think primary on apple II. there were later versions on ibm pc, spectrum zx and cbm, too. it was not a platform game, but already a 3d (well, vectors of course *g*) rpg...and a pretty complex one for its days.

wolfenstein was released imo 2 years before underworld, but underworld was the first 3d-rpg with free movement.

 

Intentioner, to the best of my (sometimes faulty) recollection, no Wizardry games were available for the C64. The C64 had all of the Bard's Tale games, Might and Magic 1 (not sure about 2), Dragon Wars, Wasteland, some of the Early Ultimas, Auto Duel (anyone remember this one?), a bunch of AD&D gold box games, and a terrible Lord of the Rings game, but no Wizardrys. You may be thinking of something else with "wizard" in the title.

In fact, I remember one "platform" style game with wizard in the title, which may be the one you are thinking of (can't remember the exact name though). You had to navigate a wizard through a trap filled level, collect bits of gold, and avoid monsters. It had an editor so you could make your own levels.

Ettercap: Are you sure Wolfenstien 3d came out before Ultima Underworld? There were 2 overhead perspective Wolfenstien games before it went 3d. I seem to remember UO being first, but I could be wrong. In any case, UO was the first game to have first person view and complete freedom of movement (including looking up and down).

 

The original Final Fantasy.

 

I like that someone voted for Delta Force. I'm too new to gaming (3 yrs or so), but DF1 seemed to put a lot together, plus the fact that the areas were so big and you could really move around at think about your approach.

As for Echelon, if the poster meant the one from like two or so years ago, that game is awesome. It looks awesome, but man is it hard to master.

 

FF1 is a good call.

I tell you right now, I'm leaning toward Thief 1. I can't really say any other games have mimicked it, so I'm not sure it's really revolutionary. I guess in the end, it's probably just a really, really awesome game. I deleted the game, but the movies are still on my hard disk. =)

Hmmmm.

Anyone else remember "Dragon's Lair"?

I think it was just about the first one that used a laser disk to store actual video. Cutscenes were abound. The levels were "random", in the sense that there were 5 to choose from in that tier, and you played through the 3 that the computer picked.

The chick at the end was pulling down some fairly decent nipplage too. I'm going to have to give it the "Errect Nipple", and "Butt Floss" revolutionary awards strictly as a matter of timing. How many other ads on the internet and gaming magazines do you see with that combo nowadays?

Errrrrrrrr.

Maybe to narrow down the list; how many non-rogue/thief characters do you see that have that combo?

 

I think a revolution in gaming is a game that you personally played, and discovered something awesome from. For me these games were Bards Tale 3 (so much better than the other two), Barbarian (C64), Curse of the Azure Bonds (a cool story with dnd rules!!), Betrayal at Krondor (I still splay this game today), TES: Arena (A whole world of unlimited possibilites!!), Doom (Stafing, yeah baby, avoid those fireballs), Half-Life (Took the first person shooter and made it meaningful), Baldurs Gate (Though the first time I played it I thought it sucked), Deus-Ex (Because a combination of everything leads to an awesome game. Oh I also think elements of this were copied from thief), Neverwinter Nights (Because now we can make our own games and they don't all suck)...
A game that deserves a mention, not as a revolution but just a an awesome game, Undying by Clive Barker. Man if you haven't tried this game, buy it, wait til midnight, play it in the dark with headphones on. What atmosphere!!
But lets talk Diablo for a second. Man I hate that game (of course this is just my opinion). It was sooo repetitive. You can always argue that games like BG are just a lot of fighting too, but man. Diablo is like playing minesweeper, without the mines. Click, click, click...
My roomate had diablo 2 and he loved both of them, but by the end of D2 he was sick of it, and only playing so he could see the end movies.
Diablo was not a revolution. It was not even a very good storyline.
Oh and I believe Shadow Sorcerer by SSI introduce the isometric view, and the real time with pause option back in '88. That was a fun game, but the time limit made it way too hard.
Thats my rant, signing off.

 

DUNE
no more word needed

 

The problem with the Diablos was the in-game story.

If you read the back of the manual of Diablo1, you picked up on the story completely. The story was VERY intense, and very well thought out. It covered only about 1500 words, but it was a very good 1500 words.

But they didn't put it into the game. They just threw in a few tomes. But that's like using using a pony to pull a plow.

It's not even done half-assed.

The game itself has been mimicked by so many other games, it's revolutionary for that reason alone. Just like Command and Conquer and Dune are mimicked by a whole *slew* of RTS games.

It's like when Stalin came to power and used the chance to completely wipe out his opposition, so too does every other *successful* dictator. By defination, you are only a successful dictator if you completely crush your opposition. Otherwise, they crush you, and you aren't a successful dictator.

Errr.

Maybe Stalin just mimicked someone else. Like Ceasar or Ramses.

My bad.

 

maybe diablo just mimicked "gauntlet"? or "barbarian"? or "druid"? or "(net) hack"?

no, make that "definitly"!

it´s no way a revolutionary shot, coz it´s nothing more than a (though graphically enhanced) adaption of a mid 80ies gamedesign, that changed from the birds eye view of the originals into the isometric perspective.

there were only a handful of playtesters in the magazines who pointed that out, when diablo was released, but this sure seperated the rookies from the veterans

@nutrimat

yup, i´m absolutely sure...though i´d still have to dig out the correct release dates for evidence

[ November 01, 2002, 11:23: Message edited by: ettercap ]

 

ettercap,
I played both Wolfenstein 3D and Ultima Underworld in the early 90's. I new you were wrong about the release dates, but I didn't feel like taking the time to check.
Since it came up again, I checked. They both came out in 1992.
Ultima Underworld: ultima underworld release date

Castle Wolfenstein 3D: wolfenstein release date

It stuck in my head that they came out at the same time, because I played Underworld first and when I played Wolfenstein (a much bigger hit), I didn't see what the big deal was. The 3d world of The Stygian Abyss was so much better. You could look up/down, jump, run, swim. etc.

 

ok, i mixed it up. wolfenstein was released on may 05th of 1992. maybe i still can proof that uu was released two months later or so

nah, you won, uu was due 3 months earlier, though i even found sources claiming it released in 1991, which i consider nonsense or promo copies *g*

http://www.3dgamers.com/games/Year1992/

though i must say that this guy made a capital fauxpas by putting comanche in the year 1992, at least here in europe it got released two years later, shortly before new year´s eve of 1993.

[ November 01, 2002, 15:48: Message edited by: ettercap ]

 

hey, I forgot alone in the dark! the father of all modern survival horror games!