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Absolute firsts in video games

braderz

Neo Member
Fifa current gen series was the first game to make me rage so much that I threw my disk out of my window. Luckily it was still in my garden the next day and worked ok.
 

Jachaos

Member
I dream that you guys will put together all of these firsts, and then dissect modern games, showing where their gameplay originally comes from. So, something like CoD would include, first FPS, first jumping, first health pack, first deployable health pack, etc. Like DNA or a family tree of some kind. Surely someone could visualize this well.

Once all the heavy lifting was done, you could produce the entire genome of each game that comes out, based entirely on various game play elements.

In that line of thinking, one of the most popular gameplay elements, even more so than Collecting (Pac-Man ?) or Exploring (Zelda ? Edit: To be clear, I mean it in the sense of exploring a map, finding secrets, not in the sense of E.T. for example. But I'm sure there are much older ones than Zelda), is Eliminating. I think that came with Breakout (1976) from which Space Invaders was largely influenced. People loved eliminating things back then and still do today - it's at the core of lots of games.

breakout.png

I think Tennis for Two (1958) is also the first game to use controllers and have multiplayer gameplay.


Other gameplay mechanics to research the origins of :

Evading (Was there one before Pac-man ?)
Means acquisition (acquiring a power-up, temporary like in Pac-Man, Mario or permanent like in Metroid for example)
Ressource acquisition and management (I've no idea of the first one, not even a guess, would really appreciate someone guessing)
Alignment (Aligning objects. I think Tetris is the first one)
Platforming (Donkey-Kong ?)
 

EGM1966

Member
Great thread. Makes me realize im an old gamer at how many of these i remember playing.

Nice to feel the love of games in a thread vs bickering (still looking forward to E3 meltdown threads of course).
 

Menome

Member
Samurai_Shodown.jpg



WIkipedia summarizes SNK's Samurai Showdown's impact on fighting games when it comes to firsts:

Like many of SNK’s flagship series, Samurai Shodown is home to several firsts in the history of fighting games. For instance:

I think Point #2 may be incorrect; Bushido Blade launched nine months before it. That let you move freely away from the initial combat areas to new ones.
 

sector4

Member
Was Project Gotham Racing the first racing game to use analogue triggers for gas / brake instead of face buttons?
 

gelf

Member
Was Project Gotham Racing the first racing game to use analogue triggers for gas / brake instead of face buttons?

I don't know what the first was but every Dreamcast racing game I played did it too. At a guess I'd say Sega Rally 2.
 

HTupolev

Member
Was Project Gotham Racing the first racing game to use analogue triggers for gas / brake instead of face buttons?
I'm not sure when that started getting standardized for default controllers, but supposedly, using a Jogcon for Ridge Racer Type 4 meant you got accelerate/brake shoulder buttons.
 
Was Project Gotham Racing the first racing game to use analogue triggers for gas / brake instead of face buttons?

Maybe analog triggers, but if you just say buttons then one of the earlier ones must be the NegCon sontroller on the PS1. It had two analogue buttons and an analogue shoulder button.

Both the 3D controller on the Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast controller had analogue triggers, but I don't know if any racers used them other than measuring on/off.

BTW wasn't PGR1 or 2 the first racer to turn the wheels of the car at a realistic speed regardless of the player throwing the stick or tapping d-pad suddenly in the opposite direction and thus turning the wheels instantly?
 
Was Project Gotham Racing the first racing game to use analogue triggers for gas / brake instead of face buttons?

Nope, that would be the Namco NeGcon controller, which was released in 1996:

post-16281-0-45916400-1399716602.jpg


I think the first game to support this controller might have been Rage Racer, though I could be wrong. Though the NeGcon controller only had one analogue shoulder button for gas.

The first game controller to have both L and R analogue shoulders pads was the Sega Saturn 3D pad which was released in 1997:

saturn_b.jpg


And I believe a version of Daytona USA used the analogue triggers for gas and brake. There were also tons of Dreamcast games that used this control too,


beaten by a million times.
 
Nope, that would be the Namco NeGcon controller, which was released in 1996:

post-16281-0-45916400-1399716602.jpg


I think the first game to support this controller might have been Rage Racer, though I could be wrong. Though the NeGcon controller only had one analogue shoulder button for gas.

The first game controller to have both L and R analogue shoulders pads was the Sega Saturn 3D pad which was released in 1997:

saturn_b.jpg


And I believe a version of Daytona USA used the analogue triggers for gas and break. There were also tons of Dreamcast games that used this control too,

As in analogue gas/brake, or just plain supporting the controller? Becasue the NegCon has been supported since Ridge Racer 1 and WipEout 1, though I don't know if they featured analogue gas/brake. Thanks for clearing a lot up here regarding the Sega Saturn controller though!
 
As in analogue gas/brake, or just plain supporting the controller? Becasue the NegCon has been supported since Ridge Racer 1 and WipEout 1, though I don't know if they featured analogue gas/brake. Thanks for clearing a lot up here regarding the Sega Saturn controller though!

Actually I didn't know that the original Ridge Racer on the pS1 supported the NeGcon, so I am not sure. But I will take a guess and say that all of Namco's racers probably supported the analogue gas and brake buttons. Honestly Rage Racer was the only game I have ever played with this controller.

Also, there were a lot more racing games that supported the Saturn 3D pad than I first thought:

Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
Daytona USA CCE Netlink Edition
Daytona USA Circuit Edition
Choro Q Park
Manx TT Superbike
Over Drivin' GT-R
Sega Ages OutRun
Sega Ages Power Drift
Sega Rally Championship Plus
Sega Touring Car Championship
Wipeout XL


On the Dreamcast, I am pretty sure that almost every racing game made for the console used the analogue triggers accordingly. I am hard pressed to think of a DC racing game that didn't use them.And there were a lot of racers for this console.
 
Actually I didn't know that the original Ridge Racer on the pS1 supported the NeGcon, so I am not sure. But I will take a guess and say that all of Namco's racers probably supported the analogue gas and brake buttons. Honestly Rage Racer was the only game I have ever played with this controller.

Also, there were a lot more racing games that supported the Saturn 3D pad than I first thought:

Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition
Daytona USA CCE Netlink Edition
Daytona USA Circuit Edition
Choro Q Park
Manx TT Superbike
Over Drivin' GT-R
Sega Ages OutRun
Sega Ages Power Drift
Sega Rally Championship Plus
Sega Touring Car Championship
Wipeout XL


On the Dreamcast, I am pretty sure that almost every racing game made for the console used the analogue triggers accordingly. I am hard pressed to think of a DC racing game that didn't use them.And there were a lot of racers for this console.

I gotta test it out after work today and see if they actually had analogue gas/brake in Ridge Racer 1 and WipEout 1, I think they may just be digital (on/off). The steering is definitely analogue though.
 

MauroNL

Member
Max Payne in 2001 introduced the concept of bullet-time / shootdodging.
After that nearly every shooter had some sort of slow-mo, bullet time thingy.
simmaxpayne0001.jpg
 
Depends. Are we declaring DLC as additional content? Because then, no. Additional content was a thing on PCs long before DLC even had its name.

When you add PC games, it is next to impossible to figure out which one had the first DLC. On home Consoles, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 had free DLC that could be downloaded online. SA2 had a Halloween theme that you could download to your VMU, while SA 1 had a bunch of other stuff (I forget what it had).

But, DLC could go all the way back to the Famicom and Super Famicom modems in Japan, for all I know.
 
When you add PC games, it is next to impossible to figure out when one had the first DLC. On home Consoles, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 had DLC that could be downloaded online. SA2 had a Halloween theme that you could download to your VMU, while SA 1 had a bunch of other stuff (I forget what it had).

But, DLC could go all the way back to the Famicom and Super Famicom modems in jJapan, for all I know.

Hmm, that is true. I also completely forgot about the Dreamcast having DLC. There's also stuff like the Satellaview...
 

fedexpeon

Banned
Tales of Phantasia was the first JRPG with full voice acting for scenes, and a full opening "cutscene" with a dedicated vocalized theme song on the SNES.
I guess after that, every JRPG has a JPOP for their opening lol.
Also the first game with a linear action zone combat system with a full range of X/Y movements.
 

Gen X

Trust no one. Eat steaks.
In regards to the NegCon, I believe that came out at the same time as Ridge Racer. It was also heavily supported through the PSones life with games such as the WipEout series, Gran Turismo (all the way up to GT4 on PS2), Need for Speed 1 (possibly sequels), TOCARidge Racer 2 & 4 and Rage Racer to name a few.

If we're talking ports, then Wolfenstein on the SNES counts, released in 1993.

There was also Zero Tolerance on the Megadrive which also came with a link cable to go from one joypad port to another on a different console.

Also in terms of Fps games there was something on the C64 around '87-'88 that used something like filled polygons. I can't remember that name of the game but if my memory serves me correctly it was released by Rainbow.
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
Max Payne in 2001 introduced the concept of bullet-time / shootdodging.
After that nearly every shooter had some sort of slow-mo, bullet time thingy.
simmaxpayne0001.jpg

Although it is easily my favourite game series and it certainly codified/perfected it, Bullet-Time had been in titles before Max Payne (2001) in one form or other:

MDK (1997) had a sort of bullet-time in it's sniper view. You would have window-in-window slow-mo views of bullets you'd just fired. Unreal Tournament (1999) had bubbles of Slow-Time you could enter that slowed everything down (plus you could turn on Slo-Mo via console commands). You could slow down time in Requiem: Avenging Angel (1999), too.

There may even be earlier examples.
 

Grath

Member
Xevious - First vertical scrolling shoot 'em up.

Pretty much every source I read on this (HCG101, 1Up blogs, various retro sites) says that Xevious was not the first one - 'only' among the firsts, and certainly the most known. I don't know if this is actually true or not, as no site I ever read named any actual previous shmup, maybe someone here knows.

Also, does anyone have information about the first video gaming specific magazines? Preferably in Japan, US and Europe (UK and Germany) separately?

Awesome thread.

My (hopefully true) contributions: Gran Trak 10 (Atari) and Speed Race (Taito) were the first racing games, both released in 1974.

Wikipedia says that Speed Race was the first Japanese game distributed in America.

Night Driver (Atari, 1976) was (one of the) first videogame with realtime first-person view.
 

Lurch666

Member
How about Pitfall? First time you could go backwards in a video game that I can think of.

Adventure on VCS (1979) off the top of my head.Plus technically you could in text adventures as well.

@Grath.Computer and video games was the first UK game related mag I can remember.
 

Steiner84

All 26 hours. Multiple times.
Rad Mobile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AXaEGhFDqs

First and only game to have a dedicated wiper button?!?

maybe first but certainly not the only one.
Both GT5 and 6 have manually operated wipers.#
speaking of that, GT5 and 6 both also have a dedicated button for flashing the headlights.
There is allready a buttong tio Switch between low and headlights, but you can also use a seperate button for flashing the lights.



Pole Position from 1982 was the first racing game with real world tracks and the first to introduce qualifying
 

Lurch666

Member
talking about xevious

Just remembered sky raider (1978) flying up the screen shooting stuff but nothing firing back,just a time limit.Then there was vanguard (1981) which had vertical parts as well as horizontal.

Then in 1982 there was radical radical,mission x and zoar.
 

-KRS-

Member
The xevious talk reminded me of the Super Xevious sequel on the Famicom. Anyone know which arcade game was the first one to receive a console-only sequel like that?
 
Defender (1980) was the first game to introduce the concept of a "game world" in that events would happen outside of the players view (e.g. Humanoids being abducted).

I'm not sure if it was also the first to introduce smart bombs and teleporting (as an escape mechanism).

It's already been mentioned as being the first game to have gameplay not confined to a single screen. Edit: maybe not, looks like Sky Raider was earlier.
 

Grath

Member
@Grath.Computer and video games was the first UK game related mag I can remember.

Wikipedia says their first issue was in november 1981. That's impressive. Thanks for the info.

They also say Electronic Games was the first American magazine (october 1981), with Computer Gaming World launching one month later.

And their very vague information on Japan is that LOGiN was the first magazine, sometimes in 1982.
 
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