Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but seeing this thread made me instantly think of 1991's "The Terminator" on PC.

Adaptation of the movie that features:
* 3D first-person shooter mechanics (in 1991)
* Open world where you can hijack cars, buy from shops, rob shops, shoot random civilians (sound familiar?)
* Player-vs-player internet gameplay (over serial link, if I recall, but might have been modem!)

Made by Bethesda in 1991, it's probably the most "ahead of its time" game I know of. It pretty much overreaches and is thus not a lot of fun to play (sluggish controls, poor graphics, lifeless open world) but the fact it tries to do all these things in a pre-Wolfenstein3D and pre-GTA3 industry is just staggering to me. I owned it when it was first released and still marvel at what it was trying to achieve. Not to mention, it's one of the few movie tie-in titles to try and do something interesting with the license (let you tell your "own version" of the movie) rather than just follow the plot in a throwaway platformer as was the norm back then.

Woah didn't realize that feature existed that long ago. thanks.

Good post. Would you say this applies well to all the QfG games? I have them in the lists I've linked to but I could update the info a bit.

It was almost standard for RPGs of that era to allow for crossing over of characters. Probably a reflection of how they were still trying to hew closely to their pen-and-paper roots.

I think it can applies to 1, 2, 3 (even though overall the fighter feels like has more to do in general than the other classes in that game) , and 4. 5 I didn't like as much, even though still has different ways of doing things depending on the class, the game was way more combat centric and I think it is the one i played least. So unsure about 5. Also, this maybe viewed with nostalgia on my part.


The past was ahead of the future. ;)

Thanks, updated the first post so it's easier to see that we have two huge lists (80s and 90s) already.

Which was the first RPG with activity-based progression? I know of FF2 and Ultima 8.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_point#Activity-based_progression

Did you just necro your own thread with a double post? I like your style sir!

And for those who are interested in answering the question: of the games in the wiki article Final Fantasy II is the oldest with an original release Dec. 17 1988, so Leever is looking for one older than that.

Several good answers already, but there are two games I want to focus on that were not mentioned so far:

Rogue was so ahead of its time it defined... it's not exactly a genre but a set of characteristics that games from several distinct genres apply to claim they're inspired by it. I never played it, but I can't ignore it was absurdly influential.

Maniac Mansion 1 was absurdly ahead of its time too. Not when it comes to graphics or sound; those were just fine (as far as games from that age could be). It isn't even my favorite adventure, but when was the first time you saw a puzzle-heavy game where you could choose any 3 out of 6 characters and you had different puzzle solutions based on who you chose and all combinations were winnable?

The LucasArts guys invented the first adventure where the replayability of your second playthrough isn't just based on your willingness to overlook that you already know how to solve every puzzle.

To me that would, probably above all, be Outcast and Gothic, both for very similar reasons. Both went for immersive solutions and living worlds and they were so ambitious about it that there's still comparably few games that can compete with them in some regards. And both of them were released at kinda exactly the wrong time for their true genius to be fully recognised. They were released before gamers, reviewers and developers had quite become sensitive to certain things and by the time buzzwords like "immersion" and "emergence" became a thing, their strengths were to some degree overshadowed by flaws caused by their age and troublesome development (in turn caused by too large ambitions). They both do of course have their legacy but the fact that much of the stuff in these games still hasn't been built upon by other developers, even in somewhat similar games, is kinda shocking.

PC Games that were behind their time:

DukeNukem Forever :D

Heroes o Might & Magic IV

No, I'm dead serious. I'm not saying it was perfect, but it took the strategy game and RPG merge that the series always was to a whole new level that I don't think was ever replicated, not to mention perfected, to this day (except for maybe the Sepllforce series, but that real time not turn based so very very different). The series itself under Ubisoft only took a huge step back and retreated into safe mediocrity.

The term "cutscene" was coined by Ron Gilbert, the creator of Maniac Mansion.
(But no, Maniac Mansion is not the first game to implant "cutscene".)

Maniac Mansion is also my favorite game all-time.
It is still so fun even in year 2018.
(I prefer the original look and feel, the 1987 version.)

Outlaws was pretty revolutionary for its time, even though it doesn't have the same fame as old titles like doom, quake, etc.
If I'm not mistaken, it was the first PC game to feature a scope for rifles, or so I remember from an article I read some time ago.