Most “ahead of its time” game

[Kid Ice]

Most “ahead of its time” game; the game by, whatever virtue, would seem to be more at home in a later time/era than in the format in which it originally appeared.

1. Soul Calibur (DC, 1999) – Not a big fan of the game play, but I can’t think of anything that looks better than this five-year-old launch title.

2. I, Robot (arcade, 1983) – A bad Playstation game released more than 10 years before there was such a thing.

3. Karateka (C64, Apple II, 1984) – You wouldn’t more lifelike physical movement in a game until Mortal Kombat. A lot of today’s Flash animations aren’t as successful in telling a story visually.

4. Pitfall II (Atari VCS, 1984) – A big black hole of a game that seems to take over your life, like SMB 3 or Gran Turismo 2 or GTA: San Andreas. So deep they had to introduce the checkpoint system to make it playable.

5. Zaxxon (arcade, 1982) – We had already seen a few black (or green) and white vector 3-D games, but nothing like this in glorious, living color. Nice controller too.

6. Adventure (Atari VCS, 1980) – Most VCS games up to this point had either been variations on pong, or straight-up action games. Almost totally unique in the entire VCS catalog, and by far the most influential game on this list.

7. Street Fighter II (SNES, 1992) – Arguably the first nearly arcade-perfect release of a game that was still relevant in arcades at the time. The zillion or so console SF games since have barely improved on it.

8. Guardian War (3DO, 1995) – OK, there may have been a couple of RTS style SNES games, but did they do it in 3D?

9. Time Traveler (arcade, 1991) – There was just something about that game that was so Star Trek. Can’t say much for the gameplay, but I’ve certainly never seen anything like it since.

10. Wipeout XL (Playstation, 1996) – The original was ahead of its time, then Psygnosis seemingly instantly upped the ante in a big way. Aesthetics, personality, and mood rarely seen since.

[crazyjackcsa]

The original Virtua Fighter, far beyond the fighters of the day. In a world full of fireballs and fatalities, it was a great realistic fighter.

[NintendoMan]

I would say Soul Calibur for DC and SMB 3 for NES.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Tetris
Super Mario 64 (First true Adventure 3D Game with solid controls)

[soniko_karuto]

shenmue. C'mon, we all know it, you can't argue at this one. ;)

[CartCollector]

The Gameline Master Module for the 2600. WAAAY ahead of it's time. Gameline (the company that made it) eventually evolved into AOL.

[tony_good]

Dragon's Lair.

After over 20 years, it's STILL ahead of its time!

[PDorr3]

Gran tourismo 4. I havent played it yet but the visuals look life like, seriously one time I saw a screen shot and thought it was a real photograph.

[Berserker]

Rogue - Before Diablo made the practice well known, this game broke new ground by presenting you with a completely different dungeon each time you played.

Daggerfall - When most RPG games seemed content to shuffle you along a carefully planned linear storyline, Daggerfall defied this convention by immersing players into a nonlinear world so unfathomably huge, that even today has yet to be reproduced.

Ultima Underworld - Around the same time Wolfenstein 3D was breaking ground in its own right with its single-plane first person shooter experience, Ultima Underworld gave us a glimpse into a fully textured, truely three dimensional world, putting it ahead of its time technically for many years.

[WiseSalesman]

If Shenmue is ahead of it's time, I shudder to think what video games will be like in the future.

[soniko_karuto]

If Shenmue is ahead of it's time, I shudder to think what video games will be like in the future.

5/11/2000

show me something from that era that can top it?

[shoes23]

I have to second Bezerker and say Rogue...way more to offer than any Diablo or dungeon hack game...this game is still ambitious by todays standards.

[DynastyLawyer]

Jumping Flash. Mutant League Football. Xenogears.

[Sosage]

7. Street Fighter II (SNES, 1992) – Arguably the first nearly arcade-perfect release of a game that was still relevant in arcades at the time. The zillion or so console SF games since have barely improved on it.

Someone was gonna say it, so I guess it is gonna be me...but the arcade version was pretty ahead of its time even if the SNES port never happened. I agree that the SNES port was significant (everyone I bullshit with mentions picking up a SNES just for that game...I had a Genesis when it came out...damn was I jealous :angry: ), but it doesn't overshadow the leap that the arcade release made. IMO of course. ;)

When I saw the thread, I immediately thought of Out of this World...then I thought of Prince of Persia...then Karateka...and there it is! =)

I think Gain Ground is still fairly ahead of its time, although it has yet to land the love of the masses the others in your list have. I still haven't seen anything like it.

[lurpak]

bomb jack


I imagine the next game generation will be something along the lines of sims meets san andreas, over the net in a virtual world, everyone interacting, in a real time world, where you have to eat, work, sleep, and creat an entire virtual world, profits, business, buying, selling, even applying for mundane jobs.

[sabre2922]

Shenmue was ahead of its time just look at all the games that now have many of the same gameplay elements that were first fully realized in the original Shenmue like RE4.
Shenmue was and still is one of the most INNOVATIVE games released within the last decade and questionably one of the most REVOLUTIONARY.

just because you cant go around killing hookers or pimping your ride like everyother freakin game released these days :roll:
Oh well why bother?

[Pedro Lambrini]

Body Harvest on the N64. GTA without the whores and way before GTA III. If the DS falls prey to lots of N64 ports (and I dearly hope not!) then the one game I would love would be Body Harvest. :)

[RockyRaccoon]

I need to agree with the entry of Pitfall II , I recently bought this at the NECG meet....upon plugging it in, I was found with my Jaw agape going:

"This is an Atari *2600* Game, right?.."

The Huge world and scrooling playfield, aswell with constant music of some kinda must of been a treat for 2600 users at the time.

~Rocky

[Graham Mitchell]

Metroid was the first game I played that was a platformer in which pretty much the whole game (with the exceptions of locked doors/necessary items) was open to you from the getgo, and the concept of "levels" was obscured--the game ran in a constant flow. There are many games like that now, but I think Metroid may have been the first.

[dreamcaster]

Soul Calibur (DC) - It's only just now starting to age...slightly

Shenmue (DC) - An amazing experience, and a mind-blowing consider it's age.

Daytona USA 2001 (DC) - This could easily be passed off as a current release.

The New Zealand Story (SMS) - This looks like a 16-bit title. I'm serious. This game shows how great the Master System truly was, and how much better it was than the NES.

Perfect Dark (N64) - The gameplay still holds together by todays standards, and I play this a lot more than Halo.

World Driver Championship (N64) - Graphically, it's hard to believe it's an N64 game.

NiGHTS into Dreams (SS) - Looks like a high-end N64 title.

Donkey Kong Country (SNES) - When first demonstrated at E3, people thought this was a Saturn/PSX title.

Stunt Race FX (SNES) - 3D graphics combined with 3D gameplay. Set the standards for 3D racing, and when racing games started to become good.

Super Metroid (SNES) - The atmosphere that this game was able to establish was amazing considering it was nothing more than a 2D, 16-bit game.

[GobopopRevisited]

The Wind Waker is incredible. Visually, the only game that can compare to how seemless this game is would be Dragon's Lair (and the rest of the Don Bluth games.) But they cheated! While it isn't exactly the most technologically advanced use of 3D graphics (its damn close...) it is easilly the best example of visual art in a 3D video game.

[Vroomfunkel]

Eliite for the BBC Micro


No arguments please. This game blew everything that had happened in gaming to date out of the window, and did things that simply weren't believed to be possible with a 32K machine. Utterly mind-blowing ...

Vroomfunkel

[rxd]

Dragon's Lair.

After over 20 years, it's STILL ahead of its time!

That's the first thing that came to my mind also. It blew us all away when it came out...

[Crazycarl]

suprise3d Pdor didnt put this but ico. My god that game was beutiful. way way way ahead of its time.

[k8track]

I think the most obvious answer would be Computer Space, the very first video arcade game, in 1971. Sure, it had existed in the form of Spacewar on mainframes since 1962, but that was played by academics and computer programmers. It was too advanced for the general public in 1971 as the first video arcade game; they needed to be weaned on something much simpler (ergo, Pong) before they were ready for something like that.


Pitfall II... The Huge world and scrooling playfield, aswell with constant music of some kinda must of been a treat for 2600 users at the time.

Yes, yes it certainly was a huge treat for those of us who played it when it first came out. My friend (at whose house I played it) and I were absolutely blown away, and were obsessed with it for a very long time. I miss that feeling of awe and wonder.

[NeoZeedeater]

Besides Higinbotham's Tennis game I think I, Robot, which was already mentioned, wins this.


There are many games like that now, but I think Metroid may have been the first.

Impossible Mission did that a couple years earlier. Metroid's still a good choice though.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Totally agree with Shenmue and would like to nominate Another World...................... :D

[it290]

I agree with Elite. That game was vast.

How about Defender of the Crown? Simply incredible and beautiful when it came out. Another one would be Marble Madness... truly amazing for the time it was released.

[k8track]

Besides Higinbotham's Tennis game I think I, Robot, which was already mentioned, wins this.
Ah! I forgot about Willy Higginbotham and "Tennis for Two", which, by virtue of being THE first "video game" (a bit of a murky, grey area, depending on the criteria one uses to define video game, but I'm personally inclined to accept it as such), was indeed ahead of its time, even if it wasn't recognized as such at the time. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back in time to 1958 and visit Brookhaven Labs (did I get that right?) and play a round or two of that on visitors' day.

And yeah, I think I, Robot definitely qualifies to be in the top five for sure--quite ahead of its time indeed!

[Kid Ice]

7. Street Fighter II (SNES, 1992) – Arguably the first nearly arcade-perfect release of a game that was still relevant in arcades at the time. The zillion or so console SF games since have barely improved on it.

Someone was gonna say it, so I guess it is gonna be me...but the arcade version was pretty ahead of its time even if the SNES port never happened. I agree that the SNES port was significant (everyone I bullshit with mentions picking up a SNES just for that game...I had a Genesis when it came out...damn was I jealous :angry: ), but it doesn't overshadow the leap that the arcade release made. IMO of course. ;)


I hadn't thought of it in terms of the game itself, but rather the technology leap in porting a recently introduced arcade game so closely. As for the game, SF2 was hugely influential, but I don't know if I'd say it was ahead of its time...there were a number of games like Karate Champ, World Karate Champion, and Pit Fighter that laid the groundwork for it. It was certainly a huge leap over those games though.

Great responses, I probably should have included Donkey Kong Country on my list, it just didn't come to mind. I guess Body Harvest could have been there too...that was supposed to be an N64 launch title which would have made it waayy ahead of its time. Elite is a good choice too.

[Bluteg]

Starfox for SNES was a GOOD 3D game in an era of notoriously shitty 3D games.

[IntvGene]

I was wondering how much bigger is Pitfall 2? I mean, the first Pitfall has 256 screens. I know that the second one feels much bigger, that's for sure. But, is it really?

I'd like to add World Series Major League Baseball for the Intellivision. It has commentary through the Intellivoice, multiple camera angles, the ability to load and save games, picture in picture view for your baserunners, and even sort of broke the racial barrier. All of this in 1982!

I like some of the other suggestions, especially Elite, Out of this World and Karateka.

[crazyjackcsa]

How about World Series Baseball on the Genny? First game to give you a behind the batter view.

[Aswald]

Not so much a game, as a console:

The Coleco Telstar Arcade.

This was shaped like a 3-sided pyramid, with a flattened top for the game cartridges.

One side had a steering wheel and gear shift; the second had paddles for Pong-games; and the third, a gun for gun games.

The 1990s arcade scene was dominated by 3 kinds of games: One-On-One Fighters (e.g. Mortal Kombat), Gun games (e.g. House of the Dead), and Racing games.

Therefore, that primitive, 1970s console was designed to play 2 out of the 3 types of games found in arcades over a decade later.

[Gapporin]

How about World Series Baseball on the Genny? First game to give you a behind the batter view.

A lot of baseball games did this before the Genesis was around. RBI Baseball, Baseball Stars, etc.

[slurpeepoop]

Ys Book 1 and 2 on the TG-16.

Nothing can explain how advanced that game was back in 1988-1989.

From playing your average NES game where there was little to no speech, and whatever speech there was is garbled, and the famous orange stills and text to Ys is a leap that wasn't even touched on until the days of the Saturn and PSX.

This game blew my mind, and I remember when I got it for Christmas, I loaded it up, and the game started TALKING to me.

"Y's, the ideal utopia..."

I sat there, flabberghasted, that the speech was crystal clear, and there was more than a one second sample. There were full speeches.

To further my amazement, there were full color animated cinema screens. These weren't half-assed single color screens, either. This was like an interactive cartoon!

After watching the intro, I yelled for my parents to come watch it, then called all of my friends, ON CHRISTMAS EVE, and told them they HAD to come over RIGHT NOW.

Nothing has ever transcended its time and place like Ys. It was two full generations ahead of Nintendo and Sega, and I have never been absolutely floored by any game like I was for Ys.

[soniko_karuto]

aw crap, oh well.

I would like to nominate zaxxon.

[slurpeepoop]

Has anyone mentioned Out of This World? Didn't that initiate the "rotoscoping" graphics fad?

Also, how about Ninja Gaiden and Golgo 13 on the NES? They pioneered the concept of "cinema screens" to push the plot along.