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The Unsung Heroes of PC Gaming History
An anonymous reader writes "The history of PC gaming is littered with many well-known and highly regarded titles, but what about the titles you mightn't have heard of? This list of the top games in the history of the PC includes the usual suspects, such as Half-Life and Doom, but also some often overlooked PC games including such classics as Elite, the space trading RPG developed in 1984 by two college friends from Cambridge for the Acorn and BB Micro systems. The game used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory, all with 3D wireframes. Also in the list is Robot War, which required players to actually code the participants, and one of the first online multiplayer RPGs, Neverwinter Nights, which introduced many of the developer and user behaviors, such as custom guilds, that have made modern RPGs so popular."
What's your favorite classic game that always gets overlooked in these kinds of lists? My vote goes for Star Control 2.
Tyrone calls you up, you know, in the game, and he says, "I can dig more clams than you, stupid!" And you've got to say, "Nuh-uh, boy!" And then y'all gotta race down to the beach with your buckets and your shovels. And the object of the game is to find parking.
The games that have kept me occupied for the most time would be the various Microprose sims. F-19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon, Falcon 4.0. Admittedly, it may have been the manual that kept me occupied. Good times...
I would also make an honourable mention for Sir Geoff Crammond and his Formula 1 Grand Prix series.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.
Not Tradewars 2002?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
They're talking about the original NWN, the AOL game. Which had a very large following and was one of the first graphical MMORPGs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)
Iain Thomson: Minesweeper has probably cost more time in lost productivity in the office than anything else, including human resources meetings.
The game was bundled in with Windows 3.11 and all subsequent versions and is simplicity itself.
It Came out in Windows 3.1 (possibly earlier), not Windows 3.11 for workgroups.
World of Warcraft Should not even be on the list, Warcraft maybe, Starcraft maybe, Diablo maybe, but not WoW.
Duke Nukem Forever should be (as well as Starcraft Ghost) for having names that are ironically fitting.
MMOs are so popular these days, but MUDs, the text-based progenitors of MMOs started it all off, and are still quite active, with literally decades of their content built-up and still being added.
I spent a while earlier this year exploring a new MUD, picked it out of a list of hundreds.e
Don't let them get in the way of a good article.
"Escape Velocity is a precursor to Elite in many ways"
Yes, I can see how a 1996 release is a precursor to a 1984 one.
"In addition to a rich storyline, [Elite] used 3D wireframe graphics."
Rich storyline? You mean the fact that the game was packaged with a story that bore at least a passing resemblance to the gameplay? That's not what we mean these days when we say a game has a storyline.
"For a start it used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory"
(1) IIRC, there were 1024 worlds in Elite.
(2) Not particularly elegant or innovative, if you ask me, using a PRNG to generate random worlds. Things very much like it had been done time and time before. We've largely stopped doing it this way, but only because we don't have to any more...
Darklands. Freakin' great game. RPG, set in a medieval Germany where everything people at the time believed to exist does, in fact, exist. Very free form, but with two or three "main" quests you can go on (or not)--I won't say what they are, since discovering them is part of the fun. Pain-in-the-ass manual-based copy protection, so be sure to grab a PDF of the manual if you download it from an abandonware site or something.
The Commander Keen series (especially 4-6), Duke Nukem (especially 2--I'm not talking about the 3-D Dukes here) and Hunter Hunted all need more love than they get. They're not better than the best console platform games, but they're at least in the same league.
Tachyon: The Fringe was one of the last good space fighter "sim" games. Doesn't come up nearly as often as X-Wing, Tie Fighter, etc.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is the only really good FPS game I've played in quite a damn while that wasn't developed by Valve, but either no one else who played it thought so or not nearly enough people played it.
No mention of the BBS games of yore ? When I think of unsung heroes I think of Seth Robinson, creator of Legend of the Red Dragon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon
had the opportunity to experience on a computer. im not even saying 'game', mind that, im saying 'the best shit'.
it was SO good that in a good 1-2 weeks of the 1 month duration i played it for the first time, i really lost the track of space/time continuum. when i got off the game at times to drink, or eat, and saw my family members, it felt like i was not there and i was in a dream instead.
it was SO good.
fortunate for you people who didnt catch up with it in 1992, that they made it open source http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
note - while playing do NOT turn on voice acting at any point. it will kill your experience. the aliens, cultures pack much more punch when you do dialogues in text.
maaaaan. i wish i could really forget the game and play it all over again.
Read radical news here
Thats a simple one,
Dwarf Fortress!
This is one of the best games which has been in development by a single programmer for quite some time now. He works fulltime on the game living on donations from a very dedicated fanbase. The game revolves around creating and guiding (controlling would be too big of a word) a settlement of dwarfs, however the detail in the game in staggering. An insane amount of bodyparts are tracked for each dwarf, there is gravity, magma, water, and ofcourse.. lots of mining! The game offers almost an unlimited amount of fun and it is really up to the user to push the boundries of code!
If i this got your attention be sure to have a look at it: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
PS. Dont let the graphics fool you:
- http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Stonesense_%28visualizer%29
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Mayday-tileset.gif
Zork, Ultima 3-7 and Ultima Underworld and the original System Shock, maybe as well the Pinball Construction Set which was the first game with an in place graphical editor.
The 50 or so citations on the wikipedia article tend to indicate what most older gamers probably already know - that Elite has been a touchpoint for space games for the last 20 years or more. Who in the world can forget the damn game when it comes up constantly in game reviews and top X games lists?
Ugh-lympics still stands as the funniest game I've ever played, the "mate toss" event was also an early example of political incorrectness in a PC game. The mate toss event was similar to a hammer throw except instead of a hammer you swung your cave girl around by the hair and tossed her down the field.
The first truly addictive game I encoutered was Sopwith
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
While they do appear on some niche top ten lists sometimes, they are often forgotten. Thief was a radical departure from the traditional shooting game, making shooting the last (and usually deadly) option you should consider, a shift few games have made since. System Shock was one of the first fully 3D games and its sequel one of the first true RPG/FPS hybrids, paving the way for Deus Ex.
Abuse , a 1996 DOS sidescroller, continues to rank high on my list of all-time favorites, for three reasons:
1. The gameplay was some of the fastest and most addictive in its day, with frightening sound effects, amazing art direction, interactive and destructible levels, and dynamic lighting that changed depending on the player's and enemy's actions.
2. The player control system, using both the keyboard (movement and object interaction) and the mouse (aiming and shooting), had little to no equal in my DOS games library. I could run forward and shoot plasma rounds behind me, or fly in any direction and drop grenades in any independent trajectory.
2. The level editor, with its intuitive link-based object system, taught me about binary triggers, logic gates, and AI long before I picked up my first computer engineering textbook. Extraordinarily-complicated systems could be created in short order with just a little practice. I still edit and play custom levels using DOSBox to this day just because of the editor.
It's a shame that Crack dot Com, Abuse's parent company, fell off the face of the earth shortly after (even despite Bungie taking up the Mac version). Fansites still exist, and there used to be much talk about Abuse 2, but this game has largely been relegated to the history books in lieu of today's keyboard-mouse FPS games.
I still am amazed what can be accomplished on two 360K Floppy CDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
I have a Tandy TX (80286 on a XT motherboard) just so I can have access to this game. The sequel Starflight II was almost as good as the original and introduced a race whose appearance and actions changed based on their planet's solar cycle. Lots of science fiction goodies for the geek, like an encounter with an obvious Enterprise star ship.
Worlds that were unique through ingenious programming and even noted which you visited and gathered resources from so if you went back you had to land elsewhere, even Earth looked right from space using this system.
All and all an impressive game done on those 2 360k discs that many have not surpassed using DVD
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A mix of tactics and arcade shooting, graphics way ahead of its time (including proper animated 3D star fields) and a novel level system not directly related to points make this a standout game. In many ways, the Elite for the Atari 8bits inasmuch as people bought Atari 800's to play it. Amazingly, it all fits in an 8K cartridge. Even more amazingly, the guy who wrote it did 60-70% of the code based on the chip specs (he designed one of them) as no complete machines existed. When he finally got an assembler and final hardware, it more or less compiled/ran first time.
As an aside, it's depressing how the Atari 8bits are so often airbrushed out of history. Many games that are always cited as C64 originals were actually inferior ports from the Atari 800 originals although to be fair the inferiority was mainly due to games back then being designed around the hardware's strengths and limitations. C64 games that were ported to the Atari 800 generally sucked pretty badly too as the C64 had better sprite handling.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Wizard of Wor (1981), a game that basically looks like a Pacman style labyrinth meets space marines. What makes this game brilliant is the pacing, you start out with a large number of small moving targets, then go to a faster moving, but smaller number of targets. The enemies abilities improve too, the last one can teleport, other can get invisible. The game also features COOP gameplay (or VS if you like, as you can shoot your buddy) and music that very effectively underlines the pacing. From all the really old games out there, this one really stands out for me, as its still fun to play for its gameplay, not just for nostalgia.
EF2000 (1995) is what I consider the best flight simulation ever. It might not be quite as realistic as Falcon4.0, but its a lot more accessible. It is also the first game I have seen that simulated a complete dynamic campaign and persistant world. Instead of just having self standing missions, everything was generated dynamically and your action did have actual impact on how the war advanced. To bad that the concept of a dynamic campaign seems to have been lost in time, as it is nowhere to be seen in todays console games.
The Last Express (1997) is an adventure game, but not just your average adventure game, this one happens in (almost) realtime. Unlike other games this one doesn't sit around till the player takes action, but instead all the other characters in the game world actually act on their own. This makes the game world feel much more alive then basically every other game. I still haven't seen anything quite like it and its ironic how even todays "action" games allow you to basically sit around and twiddle your thumbs, you have to walk to the action, the action doesn't come to you.
Honorable Mention (but not really that obscure): Another World (Ico and SotC got a lot of inspiration from this), The Longest Journey (adventure with the best storytelling ever), Operation Flashpoint (best tactic shooter/warsim around), Syndicate (kind of realtime XCom:UFO), Strike Commander (storyline meets flightsim), Mech Warrior 2 and 3 (mech sim, not watered down mech action game).
so little time and space to remember them.
Yes, Elite was probably one of the first large scale space exploration/combat games. And for all its simplicity, quite unique and addictive.
But many games exist that fits this bill in other genres:
Eye of the beholder, one of the first D&D dungeon hacks, certainly one of the more popular
Tiger mission, the first shoot 'em up. The previous ones were shoot 'em sideways, mainly
Zaxxon, the first shoot 'em sideways that tried to use 3D effects and movements
Ghost'n'Goblins, the original platform game
Maniac Mansion, an original graphical horror adventure game
Paperboy, one of the first arcadegames that had more than a joystick (joysticks today, you can't even find in an arcade hall)
Mines of Titan, among the first D&D style games with a strategic combat system
Arkanoid, for all its originality, never duplicated sucessfully.
Star wars rebellion, just for the fact that I still play that game today, more than 10 years since its original release.
Being the nerdy, gamer, looser type that I am, I could probably go on for a LONG time, and still not have gotten to the 1990'ies. ;)
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
It wasn't until mass effect/dragon age that Bioware really got back on track to making good games again.
You forgot KOTOR, but yeah... NWN's campaign really bit. I enjoyed the gameplay, but the plot was mind-numbingly stupid.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
First person real time dungeon crawl on a TRS-80 with sound! At least five years ahead of its time in 1982, which is like a lifetime in the gaming industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath
Just to mention a true PC RPG classic that no one else cared to remember.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_at_Krondor
In the late fall of 1965 I trudged over to where the PDP-1 or 6, can't remember, was located. Down in some basement. There was an open demo of Spacewar and the room was packed. I stayed until the wee hours of the morning and finally got a chance to play for 5 or 10 minutes. I was fascinated. Fast forward to 2008 and Sins of a Solar Empire came out. Playing it, I had to chuckle a bit. It made me remember Spacewar. Gravity wells, hyperspace, ships firing torpedoes and other mayhem. Brought back old memories.
It was truly the WOW of it's day...I remember burning hours upon hours of modem time on that game.
It seems odd that they never listed Myst! It set quite a few benchmarks for story and visual quality.
Advanced Power Management? Arbitrage Pricing Model? Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha?
Help us clueless ones, please.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1. Rogue
2. Moria
3. Nethack
4. Angband
Without them, no Diablo, nor any of the 3D rogue-likes that followed
5) Dune II
First real RTS, and as far as I am concerned, one of the best, so many after that were mere imitators, and before you get on the feature bandwagon, I played Dune II on the Amiga 500. Probably before you were born, if you are actually arguing with me. And yes, Warcraft 2 was awesome, but it would never have existed were it not for Dune II. No, really.
Probably one of the earliest examples I can remember of a game with 'mouse look'. A well made first person RPG, completely non-linear with tons of quests, various factions to befriend or go up against. Even had some decent physics for '92, objects could bounce and roll, also had some limited dynamic lighting.
The whole thing was far more advanced than Doom which came out a year later.
Actions per Minute.
Basically how many times you can click the mouse and/or a hotkey in a minute.
Pro starcraft players have 200+ APM.
Elite actually evolved into Elite on the NES (same game but expanded missions), then Elite II, Elite Frontier, and a few other 90s-era sequels. I've also noticed that the PS1 had an Elite style game (in 4 parts), with identical view and controls, but the goal was to follow a pre-plotted script. It was not open-ended like the original.
As for the list:
- The Sims should be replaced with Little Computer People by Activision. That was the genesis of the genre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Computer_People
- Haunted House by Atari should be mentioned as the first survival-horror game.
- Starship and Star Raiders were the 1st first-person-viewpoint shooters.
- Also:
--- Zork or Dungeon
--- Last Ninja
--- Donkey Kong
--- Turrican (like Metroid before metroid existed)
--- M.U.L.E. for the C64 (with cool music besides)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The Ur-Quan Masters is a native linux port of Star Control 2, and I've found it largely indistinguishable from the real thing. It's awesome.
Rational thought is the only true freedom
You can play it now for free.
http://www.forgottenworld.com/
A complete cross-platform redesign is getting started here: http://goldchest.sourceforge.net/
Star Control 2 is the pinnacle of 1990's game development, in my humble opinion. The developers at Toys for Bob are still inundated with requests to develop a new sequel. (Shame on you, Accolade. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.)
Ur Quan Masters is a game that, with the developer's blessings, brings the original SC2 back to contemporary computers with refinements galore. Updated graphic engine for high-res displays, remixed music, and plenty of gameplay goodies.
My review of SC2 is here.
Actually as a loooong time Freelancer player I would say you have to consider the retail game more of a demo really. if you want to enjoy the real Freelancer you need to go to one of the many Freelancer mods sites, as the mods if what makes Freelancer, both single player and MMO. Thanks to the modders there are still tons of places and things I haven't done in a game released in 2003, new ships, systems, factions...it is fricking huge! Just pick up the excellent Freelancer Mod Manager and you are good to go. Works in Windows 7 x64 BTW.
As for games not on the list? I would go with Starflight because that game was so huge and different for the time. Both the PC and later Sega Genesis games gave you so much to do, explore and a pretty long mystery to solve. All in all a great game and one I would love to see done on a PC with today's tech.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.