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History is made of this...
Posted by jeffpk on April 27, 2004 at 04:44 PM | Comments (23)
History is made of this...
Another week, another games ramble.
The history of computer games can be viewed a myriad of different ways. For me, the big “historical events” have been the growth of new genres.
Once a genre is established it will get worked in every possible manner but to me those have always been the boring details. I find DOOM far more interesting a phenomenon then Quake4 or DOOM2 because all these games add is technical refinements to a fundamental formula that was established by DOOM. At the end, the experience may be refined and enhanced but its still an experience I've had before (running around with a gun in my hand trembling at whats around the next corner) and that bores me.
To me games that were really historical landmarks are relatively few and far between. Just to illustrate, I have below a short list of games I feel fit into this category and why. It is of course a subjective and personal list and it is biased to some degree by the kinds of games I like to play and thus knew best. These are all computer games or arcade games that I believe directly influenced computer games. I've also left out education which again is a separate category for another time.
(1)Pong, Atari. The first game to recognize that moving dots on a TV screen inert actively could be fun.
(2)Tanks, Atari. The first (very privative) combat vehicle sim.
(3)Adventure, (student at MIT whose name escapes me). The genre setter for interactive novels and the root of all adventure games.
(4)Code Wars. The first programming combat game and the granddaddy of all the programmable robo-sim games of today.
(5)Riddle of the Sphinx, Activision. The first graphic adventure game.
(6)Wizardry. The first CRPG and the fundamental genre setter for all CRPGs to follow.
(7)Pool of Radiance, SSI. The first CRPG with a third person combat mode.
(8)Hack (later Rouge). The first all third person RPG.
(9)Donkey Kong, Nintendo. The first platform game.
(10)Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set, Electronic Arts. The first “game” that was a toy to build your own games with. (Ignoring BASIC and other languages.)
(11)The Sub-Logic Flight Simulator, Sub-logic (later acquired by Microsoft). The first flight sim for a mass market micro-computer.
(12)???, Electronic Arts. I can't remember the name of this but it was the first submarine-simulator game.
(13)Need For Speed, Electronic Arts. Set the standard for driving simulations.
(14)Crush Crumble and Chomp, Automated Simulations. The first “you play the monster and destroy things” game.
(15)Whatever the first SSI hex war-game was. (I can't remember they had so many and they were all so much alike.)
(16)The first sailing simulator, whose name again escapes me.
(17)Warlords. Arguably the first strategic level battle simulator and the granddaddy of the RTS category today.
(18)Balance of Power, EA (Chris Crawford). Set the standard in grand-strategic political games.
(19)Trust and Betrayal: The legacy of Siboot, EA (Chris Crawford). The first experiment in real machine opponent personality and AI. Arguably the granddaddy of games like “Good and Evil.” (Also one of the only games ever to be released first on Macintosh ;) )
(20)Maze Wars, (freeware, many versions). The first multi-terminal real time game and one could argue the granddaddy of all FPSs.
(21)Xtrek, (freeware). The first multi-terminal third person shooter.
(22)DOOM, ID software. The first environmental horror survival game. Yes I know most people consider it the granddaddy of FPSs but I'd actually disagree slightly. Maze Wars had already established the “run around the maze and shoot things” genre. What was really new about the DOOM experience, I'd argue, was that it made you AFRAID to turn the next corner. Genre wise I'd argue that DOOM has more in common with House of the Dead then with Max Payne.
(23)Summer Games, Electronic Arts. The first sports game.
(24)Impossible Mission, Electronic Arts. The first sneaking game.
(25)Hitman: Code Name 57. The first “sneak up and kill someone” game ;) Okay its really a mix of pre-existing genres but I couldn't resist it. This game DID gie me a fundamentally different experience playing it then any game I had played before.
(26)Neverwinter Nights (the original), SSI. The first “massively” multiplayer on-line RPG. (After multiple enhancements, massive topped out at about 500 simultaneous players as I recall
(27)MechWarrior. The first giant robot sim.
I'm sure there are others but I'm going to stop here and ask all of you to add your own. Keep in mind that to be part of this list the game should have defined a truly new genre with a genre being defined as a fundamentally new experience and not just a twist on an old one. Just better graphcis (or graphcis v. text) shouldn't be enough to qualify it. Thats an incremental imrpovement. Adventure for instance made me think I was physically somwhere else doing something else and thus no other game can lay claim to originallity just on that score. This is all of course subjective but I think its interesting to think about.
Now what I really wanted to get to is... what next? We haven't had a real genre burster for a long time. I think one might argue that City of Heroes for instance is at least partly a genre buster being the first massively multiplayer supers game. Doing a world of Supers is a whole different problem then doing a game where there is only one super hero-- the player. How they've approached it is interesting. While large parts of it are derivative of previous RPGs, they've come up with what might be considered a new synthesis that gives a fundamentally new play experience.
I contend that there is huge untapped potential in the online space and the next big leaps are likely to occur there. Online games are fundamentally different from single player games .In single player games, you primary job as game designer is to craft an interesting and engaging experience. In online games though arguably more important then the challenges are designing an environment that creates a functioning and engaging community.
A friend of mine in high-tech policy (he was a senior high-tech ad visor to the Clinton administration) once said to me: “The killer app of the Internet is each other.” In retrospect think he was right and it will be interesting to see what new genres of games emerge as game designers Grok this.
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Comments
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the missing ones
12) I think you mean GATO.
22) Doom isn't the granddaddy of FPS games. That dubious honour (I hate the entire genre with a vengeance) goes (I think, there may be something older) to Wolfenstein 3D (also by ID) which predates it by several years.
Add Command and Conquer (the first one, all followups are cheap attempts to reproduce the success) as the standard to which all RTS games are judged, or maybe Dune 2 as the first true RTS game.
Neither is personally my favourite in the genre (the honour of best ever RTS and possibly one of the first highly moddable games as well, a category you miss) must go to Total Annihillation (Chris Taylor, Cavedog Entertainment 1997).
Posted by: jwenting on April 27, 2004 at 11:16 PM
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other beginnings
My short added list:
Dune2
Relentless (LBA)
Syndicate
Alone In The Dark
GTA3
Frankly don't know if they were the first..they sure were the ones that made a difference...
Posted by: cavey_iq on April 28, 2004 at 12:11 AM
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omission impossible
25)Hitman: Code Name 57. The first “sneak up and kill someone” game ;)
That would be Code Name 47 (you must have the rare Heinz Beans sponsored version!), and it was released 2 years after Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, surely an older contender in this genre?
(22)DOOM, ID software. The first environmental horror survival game.
Well Resident Evil is basically Robotron with better graphics, isn't it ;) . I'd point at the Aliens mod of DOOM. Unlike DOOM's kill frenzy, it was played for suspense, only when you reached the end of the spooky dankness of level 1 did you realize there were /no/ aliens on level 1...but by then you were a gibbering wreck.
Its commonly held that Herzog Zwei was the first RTS (Sega Genesis).
In terms of genre creation, I'm surprised Tetris hasn't been mentioned yet! But then Space Invaders (which spawned legions of shmups) and Scramble (sidescrollers) don't get a mention either - I guess because those are now genres of the bygone era of 2d.
Posted by: ba22a on April 28, 2004 at 02:13 AM
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God Games genre?
Was populous the first "god" game?
Personally, I'm surprised that Sid Meier's games aren't in the list. But maybe they're not original genre games, just really addictive.
Posted by: luggypm on April 28, 2004 at 03:01 AM
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dates?
I'd be interested in seeing dates attached to these milestone games.
This site, which tells you much more about pong than you would ever want to know, dates the commercial release of Atari Pong at Christmas, 1975. So your list gives roughly one milestone per year.
Posted by: mikel on April 28, 2004 at 05:25 AM
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RPG landmarks
- Dungeon Master, many cloned this one
- Ultima Underworld, first RPG with real 3D graphics
Posted by: mayhem on April 28, 2004 at 05:59 AM
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Tribes
Tribes made a very large breakthrough in team based warfare. Sure there have been other fps where you can play team vs team. But Tribes was built from the ground up to BE a team vs team game with LARGE teams, a chain of command, league play, huge maps, and tools to coordinate offense and defense (sensor networks, chat, vehicles, laser guided mortaring...). Death match was more of an afterthought mod than a primary design goal. Oh yeah, don't forget your jet packs and skiing ;)
Posted by: ekartzma on April 28, 2004 at 07:24 AM
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Correction
I believe by Tanks you mean Combat. Still fun with 50+ variations! My brother has 100+ Atari 2600 and 5600 games. Over the summer last year, he let our three cousins all Middle School or younger play the Atari classics. They kept saying "this is so weird" and "what are these three blocks supposed to be?" It was definately a "back in my days " moment.
Posted by: john_watts on April 28, 2004 at 09:07 AM
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What About Pac Man?
The first game which launched massive third party consumerism (Pac Man Fever, Pac Man Ceral, Pac Man TV show...)
Posted by: john_watts on April 28, 2004 at 09:12 AM
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Others...
Mule (really old game for the C64) was a multi-player free-market supply-demand game.
Elite (another really old game for BBC model B and others) was a superlative flight-sim space combat-dogfighting game, which also had trading (again, supply and demand with the addition of the problem of distribution).
Seriously, Elite ruined me for all other flight sim/dogfighting games.
Oh yeah, Elite was also one of the first games (I can think of) to keep a running tally of how good/bad you were... hence the precursor of GTA and Black White.
Contrast that with Pool of Radiance (the original, an absolutely brilliant game with lots of replayability, hidden missions, a story tree (well, more a graph I suppose) as compared to the linear or near linear story lines offered by many (most) other crpgs) in which your actions never (or hardly ever) changed your alignment...
I'm surprised that Civilization didn't make your list. Of course, it was simply an incremental improvement over what had gone before, but it was quite immersive. I'm not sure if people overrate its importance because of that.
Posted by: rickcarson on April 28, 2004 at 05:01 PM
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How about Will Wright and Bill Roper?
How about games like SimCity and The Sims by Will Wright? The Sims is definitely the first game that is attracted a lot of non-gaming females into gaming... And how about Diablo, which I believe is the first action CRPG and the ONE crpg to single-handedly revived the crpg genre? And why isn't StarCraft in the list as well?
Posted by: shaolang on April 28, 2004 at 11:19 PM
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How about Will Wright and Bill Roper?
Starcraft isn't in any way revolutionary or even evolutionary.
It's just Warcraft 2 in space after all :)
Diablo was something completely different. AFAIK the first to have random dungeon generation on the fly rather than a fixed dungeon.
SimCity is good too, probably started the genre of business simulations.
Tetris certainly.
Lemmings?
Posted by: jwenting on April 29, 2004 at 02:54 AM
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How about Will Wright and Bill Roper?
Well, random dumgeons go all the way back to Hack actually.
But these are interesting candidates nonetheless. tetris and lemmings Id definitely agree with.
Diablo alway struck me really as "Gauntlet at home." But maybe Gauntlet should be on the list?
Anyway its fun to thin kabout :)
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:46 PM
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Others...
I had ehard of Mule but never played it so I couldn't comment. I was hoping osmeone else would!
I agre on Elite and am embaressed I missed it :)
Again I really don't know Civ well enough to have an opinion there.
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:48 PM
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Tribes
Intersting. i may have to put the next Tribes on my list of games to play. (There is going to be a Tribes3, yes?)
Thanks!
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:49 PM
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God Games genre?
Im not sure what the first God Game was as again its nto agenre I happend to get into. I woudl guess though youa re right that Populous is the milestone there.
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:50 PM
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omission impossible
Okay Ill give you MGS. Again I didnt play it so I missed that one :)
Scramble defintiely! Thanks.
I didnt originally see the genre Space Invaders spawne dbut then I strated thinking abotu Galaxians and its derivatives and that Galaxians really was an incremental advance on SI (a big one but incremental nonetheless) So I'd say your dead on :)
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:54 PM
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other beginnings
You are right on Dune 2, that predates Warcraft as really the first RTS. I had forgotten :)
I guess Id agreeon ALD. I was originally thinking of it as "horror survival" but its game play, the fixed camera 3rd person 3d, was fundementally different from the first person games.
Is GTA3 fudnemntally different from one or two? I dont know much about that series.
The rest Im afraid Ill have to plead total ignorance on :)
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:56 PM
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the missing ones
I knew someone was gonan brign up Woilf3D.
Actually i think if you loo k I called DOOM the granddaddy of survival/horror. Which W3D wasn't. I can't really call w3D the progenitor of FPS in my book because I see it as an incrmental improvement on MazeWars, which is much older.
YMMV :)
Posted by: jeffpk on April 30, 2004 at 04:58 PM
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Two Lists?
It seems like you could have two lists here.
First: The game that broke into the genre
Second: The game that defined the genre
example: FPS DOOM defined it, though it wasn't the first.
RTS: You could claim CnC defined this although it wasn't the first.
Finally, as for the scarethecrapoutofyou suspense game play Aliens vs Preditor 2 as the marine at night with the lights out :)
Posted by: smbell on May 03, 2004 at 03:47 PM
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omission impossible
25)Hitman: Code Name 57. The first “sneak up and kill someone” game ;)
That would be Code Name 47 (you must have the rare Heinz Beans sponsored version!), and it was released 2 years after Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, surely an older contender in this genre?
And what about Thief: The Dark Project by Looking Glass Studios? It was advertised as an FPS - First Person 'Sneaker' :) I know it came out before Hitman... not sure about Metal Gear Solid, though.
Posted by: ntpruett on June 03, 2004 at 08:02 AM
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First of MMORPG?
Jeff, I'm not impressed ;), you a hard core roleplayer claiming that NWN was the first massively multiplayer online RPG? Wow, with a whole 500 players at a time!
What about Everquest? Out before NWN.
What about Camelot? Out before NWN.
What about Anarchy? Out before NWN.
But most importantly (at least for me), what about Ultima Online! With several thousand players a server and classic role play action.
Tut tut! :)
Kev
Posted by: kevglass on June 24, 2004 at 12:21 AM
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First of MMORPG?
Doh, you referinng the evil original NWN arn't you! Doh doh doh doh!
Kev
Posted by: kevglass on June 24, 2004 at 12:22 AM
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