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Absolute firsts in video games
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
MrCunningham
Member
The first actual stealth game is 005, which was an arcade game made by Sega in 1981: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18kn6_X1oEM
This game features actual enemy line of sight that the player has to avoid. The original Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple ][ came out only a few months after Sega's game and featured stealth elements as well.
id Software's Wolfenstein 3D does have some stealth elements, but it is not a stealth game. The original design for Wolfenstein 3D was going to be like the original Castle Wolfenstein and was going to be completely stealth based. But id decided to remove those features to make the game straight forward and faster paced. Though, the enemy AI does feature a few elements left in the code that lets the player sneak up behind them if they don't catch you in their line of sight first. Enemies in Wolf 3D would also respond if you fired a gun in their general vicinity, they will even try to find you. Sneaking up on enemies was a feature that was removed from Doom's AI for performance reasons. In Doom, the AI knows where you are at all times if they occupy the same area as you.
Charles Alan Ratliff
Member
Here's a question I had when streaming Medal of Honor: Frontline earlier tonight:
What was the first game featuring firearms where a melee kill is always a one-hit kill when bullets aren't? Like what you see in many first-person shooters.
What was the first game featuring firearms where a melee kill is always a one-hit kill when bullets aren't? Like what you see in many first-person shooters.
Dragonseeker
Neo Member
Primal Rage was the first fighting game to show the damage percent after a combo was done
Was Primal Rage also the first fighting game with no usable human characters?
Was Primal Rage also the first fighting game with no usable human characters?
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
The reply about Choplifter is correct, the copyright dates on these materials confirm it.
As computer game to arcade game ports go, Choplifter definitelly trumps Tetris, by around 3 years.
Also, who did make the first arcade version of Tetris and who's arcade board did it run on?
Oh yeah THAT company. It's them again.
As I've said above, the first ever game (home console in this case) to be ported TO the arcades was Cosmic Chasm in 1984
Dash Kappei said:Oh, btw Cosmic Chasm on the Vectrex for the first home console game to be ported to the arcades in 1984
Does combat have to involve weapons, and does racing have to involve passing a finish line?
Otherwise Head-on for sega in 1979 has you trying to avoid an aggressive AI trying to crash into you, or Rally X in 1980 has several cars chasing you, and you have smoke as a defensive 'weapon'
ichtyander
Member
Dino Rex (1992, Arcade) precedes Primal Rage by a couple of years and has only dinosaur characters. Not sure if there's some earlier game as well.
Btw, regarding the first game with an accompanying vocal soundtrack, Deus Ex Machina (1984) had an additional cassette tape with the soundtrack which was synchronized with the gameplay, with instructions when to pause and resume depending on where you are in the game.
I was thinking more about using items/weapons to impede other racers that are also trying to win the race, basically the umbrella games like Mario Kart and Wipeout fall under (and not games like Spy Hunter, for example).
No, unless you're using a very narrow definition of "boss fight".
Well, there's Spy Hunter (arcade, 1983), though that' not strictly a racing game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpgZLg7zp3A
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Mach Rider predated it
Off the top of my head I can think of Yie At Kung Fu, about 20 years beforehand.
Was MUD1 (mainframe, 1978) the first game with online functionality incorporated directly into gameplay?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1
May also be considered the first MMORPG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1
May also be considered the first MMORPG.
I believe Phoenix had the first boss fight in real time, though.
I wouldn't call Mach Rider a racing game, or games like Space Harrier would be as well!
Edit: At least Yu Suzuki agrees with me, ha! The clock racing thing (endurance mode in Mach Rider) is sort of a grey area in my mind, since we really could call any game with a timer a racing game in that case. The enemies in Mach Rider are basically just obstacles like the goomba's in Mario, and not opponents you are trying to win a race against.
Here's a neat looking one from 89, Deathtrack -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6QFV_2BY6w
MrCunningham
Member
I'm going to say the Dragon's Lair arcade game from 1983, the entire game was just a collection of QTE's. Though Shenmue was the game to coin the phrase "QTE".
Strange that they went that far for subtle historical accuracy but then left in blatant anachronisms everywhere.
Oh wait, I can answer the password save question now: it looks like Return of Ishtar (1986) was, at least, the first arcade game to feature one, and preceded all console uses as far as I know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Ishtar
Edit: wait, scratch that. Hydlide (Famicom, March 1986) also uses a password save, as Dragon Quest, released in May of the same year.
Another edit: Okay, looks like PC-88 version of Hydlide (1984) also uses a password save. I believe that may be the first, then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Ishtar
Edit: wait, scratch that. Hydlide (Famicom, March 1986) also uses a password save, as Dragon Quest, released in May of the same year.
Another edit: Okay, looks like PC-88 version of Hydlide (1984) also uses a password save. I believe that may be the first, then.
MrCunningham
Member
I'd guess that the first game to use a password save would have came from the NES console... Atari 2600 games were just to primitive for such a feature and early home computers like the Commodore 64 and Apple ][ could save to disk. The Japanese version of Metroid was released on the Famicom Disk System and could save directly to disk as well. Legend of Zelda on the NES was the first game to use a battery in the cartridge for saving and I think that was released in the same month as Metroid in North America on the NES.
So Metroid might be the first.... or not, as Phediuk answered this question.
Also, here's another one to add:
The Neo-Geo AES was the first game console to use removable memory cards. The cards could also be used to interface with the Neo Geo MVS for saving high scores.
Very true. I would rather have had Ryo own a Master System instead of a Saturn.
Eamon (Apple II, 1980) is another possible game for first expansion pack, as it encouraged users to make their own adventure modules for it. It' not clear when the first modules appeared, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_(video_game)
ichtyander
Member
Interesting fact, apparently John Carmack coded Quake on a 28" CRT monitor @ 1920x1080, although that doesn't count.
Cyberbykes: Shadow Racer VR (1995) had an unusual resolution support, up to 1280x1024.
Just searched the widescreen gaming forums and found a pretty useful topic about early games with widescreen support etc. Apparently the oldest 3D game with a wide range of resolutions and ratios is Enclave (July 19, 2002 on Xbox and March 10, 2003 on PC). Just downloaded the Enclave demo from gamershell, installed it and I can confirm that it supports 1920x1080:
MrCunningham
Member
Good work!
Would Cyberbykes also be the first game with a per-frame resolution over 1 million pixels?
First game with ragdoll physics?
First game with bloom lighting?
First game with bump-mapping?
First game with real-time shadows? Virtua Fighter (arcade, 1993), perhaps? Virtua Racing (1992) has a shadow underneath the car, but nothing else has a shadow.
Edit: the consensus for ragdoll physics appears to be Jurassic Park: Trespasser (PC, 1998).
Another edit: Unreal (PC, 1998) appears to be the first game with bump-mapping.
First game with bloom lighting?
First game with bump-mapping?
First game with real-time shadows? Virtua Fighter (arcade, 1993), perhaps? Virtua Racing (1992) has a shadow underneath the car, but nothing else has a shadow.
Edit: the consensus for ragdoll physics appears to be Jurassic Park: Trespasser (PC, 1998).
Another edit: Unreal (PC, 1998) appears to be the first game with bump-mapping.
Circuit Breakers on PSOne was I think the first disc based console game that had an add-on disc released, bringing 16 extra tracks fully playable in both single and multiplayer.
It was published for free in the official playstation magazine disc #37 in October 1998 in the UK. Checking google suggests GTA: London 1969 but that was released in 1999. Maybe it is counted as it was a paid-for add-on disc?
It was published for free in the official playstation magazine disc #37 in October 1998 in the UK. Checking google suggests GTA: London 1969 but that was released in 1999. Maybe it is counted as it was a paid-for add-on disc?
ichtyander
Member
Apparently Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (September 30, 1997) could go as high as 1680x1050.
EDIT: Whoops, forgot that Cyberbykes' from 1995.
I suppose the lowest standard resolution with over 1 million pixels would be something like 1280x800 so there might be an earlier example. I wonder if there are some arcade examples with very high resolutions, maybe some games with vector graphics?
According to wikipedia, it's Ico (September 24, 2001).
As for ragdoll physics, there might've been some older, simpler 2D example? Makai mentioned Ernest Evans (December 20, 1991).
Earnest Evans does not have ragdoll physics; its main character is a multi-jointed sprite that animates awkwardly. The limbs do not move dynamically.
MrCunningham
Member
There were ragdoll physic demos being developed back in the mid-early 90's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA1-6eu7QlI
But Jurassic Park : Trespasser probably was the first retail game to feature them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6cWEbkBeZQ
Trespasser was a groundbreaking game on a technical level, but it was a huge failure in other ways.
I can't think of anything predating Banjo-Kazooie.
Burning rubber predates mach rider.
ichtyander
Member
Mobygames states that Montezuma's Return's German release date is December 1997, predating Unreal by almost half a year but all other release dates point to October 30 1998. You can see the German back cover showing "1997" but I'm not sure how accurate this is.
According to wikipedia it had bump mapping:
Btw, found a GAF topic about bump mapping in games from 2007, people have mentioned lots of early games (Montezuma being one of them) but they're mostly '98-'99 onward.
Oh, also ran into this website, it could be useful just for listing all of the various graphics options for a lot of older PC games. PCgamingwiki also has video options screenshots for a lot of titles.
Ah, well I've never played it so I wasn't really sure either way.
Thanks, nice video, love this kind of early tech footage.
Nice!
Dr Zhivago
Member
On the subject of day/night cycles, Terror-Daktil 4D came out on the Spectrum in 1983 and had this:
Night
Day
You had to survive for 7 days until rescued.
Night
Day
You had to survive for 7 days until rescued.
I knew 1984 sounded too late for a game with a health bar.
Trawled though the arcade games but couldn't find anything but then it hit me:
Attic attack.1983
Had a chicken which turned to bones over time but dropped quicker on contact with an enemy.
Might be something earlier but that's the only one I can think of at the moment.
Trawled though the arcade games but couldn't find anything but then it hit me:
Attic attack.1983
Had a chicken which turned to bones over time but dropped quicker on contact with an enemy.
Might be something earlier but that's the only one I can think of at the moment.