Older Than They Think/Video Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

* Think ''[[Pong]]'' is the first video game ever? Well, our friends at [[That Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:First video game|think otherwise]]. Depending on how you define "video game", the answer is different; the first on a digital computer was ''Spacewar!'' in 1961, but a missile simulator using analog circuitry and a cathode ray tube existed in ''1947''.

** Speaking of which, the Atari VCS is NOT the first home game system, that goes to the Magnavox Odyssey.

** The first ever ''coin-op'' video game wasn't ''[[Pong]]'' either, but ''Computer Space'' (an adaptation of the early computer game ''Spacewar!'') which was released a year earlier (by the same company, before they changed their name to Atari). However, ''[[Pong]]'' was the first ''successful'' coin-op. Atari later revamped ''Computer Space'' and rereleased it as ''[[Asteroids]]''.

** The EDSAC - and for that matter, the Ferranti NIMROD - both fall under the classification of digital computers, and both precede the PDP-1 in being the hosts of computer games. The first digital computer game was made a full ten years before ''Spacewar!''.

* ''Ghen War'', a 1995 [[First-Person Shooter]] for the [[Sega Saturn|Saturn]] is a tragically unknown innovator in the genre. The game featured fully 3D environements and enemies a full year before ''[[Quake (series)|Quake]]'' came out, extensive terrain deformation before ''[[Red Faction]]'' made it cool and an ambient soundtrack that [[Variable Mix|changed depending on what was happening on the screen]].

* It has become a trend for people to give Nintendo consoles credit for innovating and coming up with new ideas when in reality, most of those "innovations" and technologies had already been used before by other game systems:

* Remember [[Humongous Entertainment]]'s first batch of games? You know, ''[[Putt-Putt]] Joins the Parade'', ''[[Fatty Bear]]'s Birthday Surprise'' and ''[[Putt-Putt]] Goes to the Moon''? Almost everyone played those off a CD-ROM under their Windows ports. Yes, we just said port. Almost no-one is familiar with their original DOS versions, let alone their first release on ''floppy disks''.

 

* There's a very cool article about this subject [http://www.gamesradar.com/f/gamings-most-important-evolutions/a-20101008102331322035 here].

* The gaming press likes to credit ''[[Half Life]]'' with being the first FPS with a strong story that drives the gameplay, which is somewhat misleading. It may be true that ''[[Half Life]]'' was the first shooter to have a story told entirely in-game, but the idea of stories themselves in shooters was not truly new at the time. Both ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' and ''[[System Shock]]'' placed a strong emphasis on storytelling in addition to combat years earlier, but they used a text-message-finding system to advance and expand their plots (there's an entry about it below).

* Many people think that the [[Fighting Game]] genre started with ''[[Street Fighter (video game)|Street Fighter]]'', though games like ''[[Yie Ar Kung-Fu]]'', ''[[Karate Champ]]'', ''[[Karateka]]'' and ''Way of the Exploding Fist'' predate it by years, going back to Bug Byte "Kung Fu" on the [[ZX Spectrum]]. There are some people who think that the genre was started by ''Street Fighter '''II'''''. These people are apparently unfamiliar with what the number 2 usually means.

** ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' was also not the first [[Fighting Game]] to implement [[Combos]], which were seen as early as 1985 in the [[Arcade Game]] ''Shanghai Kid'', the first game of the long-running ''Hiryu no Ken'' series.

* While we're on the subject, ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' causes a ''lot'' of mistakes like this. While the game brought many new features along with its revamped gameplay, it's slightly annoying to hear people discuss features that have been series mainstays as though they're unique to this game (ex: What's that? You think it's neat how fallen enemies might not actually be dead, it's annoying that you can't move while shooting, and it's funny that green herbs look like pot? Gee, you don't say...). [[Sequel Displacement|One has to wonder if any of these new fans are aware of what the number following a title actually means.]]

* Much like the ''Street Fighter II'' example above, many people think ''[[Doom]]'' was the first [[First-Person Shooter]]. ''Doom'' wasn't even id Software's first FPS (that would be ''Hovertank 3D'').

** ''Bioshock'''s use of logs can most likely be attributed to its status as a [[Spiritual Successor]] to the ''[[System Shock]]'' games. ''System Shock'' was released in 1994 -- not the first to use the trope, but one of the earlier examples. The developers thought that the current technology was incapable of simulating interactions with enough fidelity not to murder any immersion. Similar reasoning probably applied to most of the early examples.

** Also, ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' uses this. The PC has to go through the game and get the story and missions from Terminals. [http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ That doesn't help clear up the story much, though...]

** And even before that, ''Vampire Killer'' for the MSX was broken up into multiple small [[Metroidvania]]-style levels.

*** Which was released (on October 30, 1986 in Japan) only a few short months after [[Metroid]] itself (released on August 6, 1986 in Japan), meaning that ''Castlevania'' ''almost'' did "Metroid-style gameplay" even before Metroid did it.

** This has gone far enough that, nowadays, ''WoW'' fans will often accuse other MMOs of ripping off their favourite game for using gameplay mechanics and concepts that ''WoW'' ripped off from someone else. On the other hand, those who loathe ''World of Warcraft'' and all it stands for will make the same complaint of any other MMO with no regard to such things as "release dates."

** Or accuse Warhammer of being a [[WoW]] rip-off, which is funny because the reverse is almost certainly true. Still [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/10/i-hope-you-like-text/ Tycho of Penny Arcade] says it best.

** In fact, Blizzard once "announced" a new game as an April Fools joke: ''Warcraft: Heroes of Azeroth'', a strategy game and prequel to ''World of Warcraft''. The game in question was ''Warcraft 3''.

** The World of Warcraft expansion Mists Of Panderia is accused of knocking off [[Kung Fu Panda]] by having a race of Pandas with a new Monk class. However, the Pandaren have been around since before [[Warcraft 3|Warcraft III]] was released. It started as one of Blizzard's April Fool's jokes [http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaren_(April_Fools)/ announcing a fifth playable race].

** Funny that ''Runescape'' should wind up next to ''World of Warcraft'' on the list, since there's a dedicated number of people convinced that ''Runescape'''s basically a watered down version of it. It was released several months before ''World of Warcraft'' was even ''announced''. Wrap your heads around that for a minute.

* Valkyrie Sky is the first MMO [[Shoot'Em Up]]? Look up again, fella. That title belongs to the now defunct Bugs Rider published by Game & Game nearly 2 year prior to Valkyrie Sky Beta. Though you may argue that Valkyrie Sky is the first MMO Vertical Shooter, since Bugs Rider is a horizontal one.

* For all its popularity, many people assume that ''[[Pokémon]]'' is the first [[Mons]] collection/raising game; those people forget that ''[[Shin Megami Tensei|Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei]]'' was released in the ''eighties''. It also wasn't the first Mons anime; ''Megami Tensei'' had an [[OAV]] in 1987.

** [[Justified Trope|All of this may have something to do with the comic and the Megami Tensei series]] [[No Export for You|never getting released outside of Japan.]]

** Likewise, ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'' featured [[Gotta Catch Em All|monster collecting]] 4 years before Pokémon debuted, making the ''[[Dragon Quest Monsters]]'' series more of a natural extension than [[Follow the Leader|a clone]]. Of course, it [[No Export for You|wouldn't reach the states]] for over a decade and a half.

* Critics and fans are quick to label any sandbox that features driving and shooting a ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' clone. But the original ''GTA'' games were isometric, and ''GTA 3'' closely resembled, and has a continuing rivalry with, a game called ''[[Driver]]'' released two years prior. And then there's ''Hunter'', which was released on the [[Amiga]] by [[Activision]] in ''1991''.

*** Driving freely around cities, picking up missions at will, shooting and blowing up everything. [http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/quarantine Quarantine] did all that first. You didn't get out of your car and steal others, but the rest is there.

**** Arguably the ability to move around at your own pace with no need to do missions in a certain order goes back to RPGs such as the first Final Fantasy (though there may be more obscure earlier examples). The ability to not die (or at least, instantly respawn without dealing with a game over screen) was made famous by [[The Secret of Monkey Island]], whose sequel Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge has a proto-sandbox mechanic in that it allows you to go back and forth between three different islands and complete a large proportion of the game in any order you like, without dying or having to fight anyone. There are some opportunities to affect the final ending in both games, which predates games like Soul Blade where you can do a similar thing.

** There was an earlier game on the N64 called ''Operation: [[Winback]]'' with a similar cover system.

*** Any first person shooter is doomed to be compared to ''[[Doom]]'', ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Golden Eye 1997]]'', ''[[Counter-Strike]]'', ''[[Halo]]'' or ''[[Call of Duty]]'', depending on when it was made.

*** In fact it was the publisher, RedOctane, that first approached Harmonix with the idea, having previously been involved in developing the instrument controllers for ''Guitar Freaks''. Even the concept of a 5-button guitar game predates ''Guitar Hero''; RedOctane's third-party ''Guitar Freaks'' controllers have five buttons (despite GF being only a 3-button game), and these controllers were around as early as maybe 2001 or 2002.

** In the ''[[X-Play]]'' review for the American release of ''beatmania'', after giving it a poor score, co-host Morgan Webb accused it of being one of many ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' rip-offs.

*** Hamurabi was a management sim, not a sandbox sim (a sandbox sim is essentially a gamewhere you place all the buildings yourself).

* Remember the trailers for [[Need for Speed]]:Hot Pursuit (2010) placing great emphasis on the moving wings and spoilers? Polyphony Digital did it first with [[Gran Turismo]] 4.

** Speaking of [[Sierra]], it was established in 1979.

*** For Hardcore Mature Material, you have Alicesoft. The ''[[Rance]]'' series has been running since 1989. Second Longest running adult series, after Leisure Suit Larry.

** There are ''Touhou'' fans who dismiss other [[Bullet Hell]] shooters as ripoffs. Never mind that danmaku shooters have been around as early as ''[[Recca]]'' (1992).

* The [[Cutscene]] goes at least as far back as ''[[Pac-Man]]'' (1980).

* ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' was at one point referred to as a rip-off of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]],'' a game with very similar key features. This was, of course, because ''Tactics Ogre'' was released in North America on [[PS 1]] after FFT. The game is actually a [[PS 1]] remake of an SNES game, pre-dating FFT two years. Also, the similarities are due to some of the same designers working on both, so really, neither one is a "rip off" per se.

** And even Tactics Ogre wasn't the first with those features...FireEmblem predated it by a few years, and ''Nobunaga's Ambition'' and ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' has been around since the mid-'80s.

* While the [[Capcom vs. Whatever]] series [[Trope Codifier|widely popularized]] the concept of 2-on-2 (and later, 3-on-3) Team Battles, ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' [[Trope Maker|laid the groundwork]] for such an idea back in its 1994 inception. Admittedly, there it was more of a battle royale, "last man standing" survival affair, and it wasn't until ''KOF 2003'' that the series included tag-ins (called "shifts"). While many fanboys are quick to note that [[SNK]] [[Follow the Leader|blatantly copied]] [[Capcom]] (which ''is'' mostly true, although both companies cribbed off of each other on numerous occasions), fighting game enthusiasts tend to overlook this detail.

** ... although '''even''' tag battles were modeled long ago, thanks to ''[[Fuun Series|Kizuna Tag Encounter]]'', which was also the brainchild of SNK.

* Dimension-shifting in side scrolling shooters: Salamander (1986) came into mind of many gamers, but it's far from the first side scrolling shooter that has dimension-shifting. The idea goes back as far as the arcade game Vanguard (1981).

* [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Quick time event|proved]] that [[Quick Time Event]] didn't started with [[Shenmue]] like many gamers think.

** And as time passes, [[It Gets Worse]]. Many games coming out after [[World of Warcraft]] were derided as "[[WoW]]-clones" for [[Follow the Leader|directly copying the systems and sometimes look]] of [[World of Warcraft]]. There were some real problems with other companies trying to capitalize on the success but failing because they didn't actually understand what made the game great. However, it's now changed that the response to calling something a "[[WoW]]-clone" is "Well, it's an MMO! What else do you expect?" Which ignores the significant variety in games and playstyles that existed before or alongside [[World of Warcraft]] that were also MMORPGs. Raids, quests, progressively more ridiculous equipment, linear storylines, etc. are now seen as the definition of MMOs, even though some of those were in completely unrecognizable forms or nonexistent altogether before [[World of Warcraft]]. [[World of Warcraft]] may have refined a lot of things that needed refining, and ultimately made the genre accessible to a wide audience, but it also left out features that were extremely popular in games before it came out that in their own time were thought of as the definition of MMOs. The MMO genre is less of a genre than a wide variety of ideas that simply require [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|many players connected together online]].

* Tell me if you recognize this setting: Colonists on an alien world must fight among each other for limited resources while constantly under seige by parasitic mind worms controlled by an emerging consciousness produced by the neural interconnections of the native flora. That's right, it's Frank Herbert's Pandora book series which inspired [[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]].

* The [[Boss Rush]] phenomenon dates back to 1985, with ''[[Space Harrier]]''. The last level was nothing but previous bosses.

* The developers of ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' spent a lot of time in pre-release interviews for the first game talking about how they'd incorporated a materials-system into their engine like it had never been done before and would revolutionize how objects in the environment react to physical force; ''[[Half-Life 2]]'' did it four years earlier and to a much greater extent.

* The first video game to have an [[Easter Egg]] is routinely credited to Atari 2600's Adventure (1979), but in fact Easter Eggs have been found in two Atari arcade games (Owen Rubin's initials in Orbit and Skydiver, both from 1978), and no fewer than ''three'' games for the obscure Fairchild Channel F console (Brad Reid-Seith hid his name in 1978's Video Whisball and Alien Invasion, while Michael Glass's name can be found in the 197'''6''' Demo Cart)

* On [[This Very Wiki]], The page for ''[[Anomaly Warzone Earth]]'' cites the game as the first "Reverse [[Tower Defense]]" (aka Tower Offense) game. However, the first game of this type was actually [[Bokosuka Wars]], which having been released in 1983, not only predates [[Anomaly Warzone Earth]] by 27 years, it also predates every "standard" [[Tower Defense]] game.

 

** Many people complain about D&D incorporating elements from [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] into 4th edition. So many people don't realize that MMORPGs and [[MUD|MUDs]] have in fact incorporated elements from D&D into ''THEIR'' genre first, making it an odd case of a copier is being copied by the source material in order to seem more like it use to be, but game systems tend to copy each other a lot so this trope goes back a ways.

* When you hear the name "Morrigan", what do you think of? A [[Darkstalkers|fighting succubus]] or a [[Dragon Age|disapproving sorceress?]] But what about the ancient celtic triune goddess both characters were named after?

* Despite what [[Memetic Mutation|the Internet]] seems to think, the line "Hey you, get off [of] my cloud!" did not originate from ''[[Hotel Mario]]''. It is the title of a [[wikipedia:Get Off of My Cloud|Rolling Stones song]] from 1965, before video games as we know them even existed. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|The line was also delievered by]] [[Captain Planet and the Planeteers|Verminous Skumm]], in the 1980s.

* One of the most quoted lines in ''[[Team Fortress 2|Meet the Heavy]]'':

** ...is in fact a variant of ''this'' line, in ''[[RoboCop]]'':

 

* Haters of ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' will probably tell you that Sakimoto is a new guy, or make the fallacy that ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' was his first work on the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series - ignoring ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' and the ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' games...both of those predate ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' by 3 - 9 years. He's also by no means new to game development...you'll probably see his name (as well as Masharu Iwata) in the credits of any ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' games, or ''Revolter'', which was released in 1988. Way [[Older Than They Think]].

* Related to the above, most people will give you the impression that Nomura first started working with Square around ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', and some may tell you he was working with them with ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]''. Ignoring of course, that he was actually hired ''long'' before those games were even in production. Did you know he was actually working with the series as long ago as ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''? Sure he was only a debugger there, but did you also know he was a graphic designer in ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', too? And ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''? And ''[[Super Mario RPG]]''?

** ''[[Einhander]]'' was acclaimed as Square's first attempt at a [[Shoot'Em Up]] by many people who apparently knew nothing of ''[[Kings Knight|King's Knight]]''.

* For a company that's known for making video games, many people are surprised when they learn [[Nintendo]] has been around since ''1889''. Naturally they weren't making video games all that time; they were originally a playing card company, and started with the game ''hanafuda''. Nintendo still makes playing cards and card games, even continuing to make ''hanafuda'' cards. They didn't even get into making toys until [[Gunpei Yokoi]] joined the company in the 1960's.

** Likewise, in 1983 on the Speccy, Hudson also released ''Cannon Ball'' aka ''Bubble Buster''. Never heard of it? You more likely know it as ''[[Pang]]''.

* You know that [[Title Scream]] in the theme for the [[Mortal Kombat (film)|movie adaptation]] of ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''? It actually debuted in the commercial for the console ports.

* For many years following the release of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|Ocarina of Time]]'', many people thought that ''[[The Legend of Zelda|Zelda]]'' was a new series.

** Many of the features of ''Ocarina of Time'' thought to be original were actually carried over from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past]]'', including Kakariko Village, Lake Hylia, the Hookshot, Zelda's Lullaby, the Master Sword, [[Magic Music]] and the fact that Ganon was named Ganondorf before he became a monster.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' has a lot of examples mostly caused by [[No Export for You]]: Many players expressed their bewilderment that Nosferatu was changed from Dark to Light magic in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Path of Radiance]]''. What they don't realize is, Nosferatu (called Rezire in the Japanese version) was actually a light magic spell to begin with, first appearing in the 3rd game. It was, in fact, the GBA games that changed it from Light to Dark, and PoR restored it. Unfortunately, since the localizers [[Sequel First|got the GBA games first]], they chose a very dark magic sounding name for it, making the transition pretty strange.

** More examples from the series:

* ''[[World in Conflict]]'' was widely praised for it's brand new original resource and recruitment system, even though the creators had previously used the exact same system for ''[[Ground Control]] 2''.

** Or the free style camera control, which dated back to the original ''[[Ground Control]]''.

** Also, many gamers believe Amy debuted in [[Sonic Adventure]] or later, while her real first appearance was in [[Sonic the Hedgehog CD]], and before that, an obscure manga.

*** One cause of this confusion might have been that Sega of America decided to call her "Princess Sally" ([[Viewers are Morons|the name of a totally different and unrelated character]] who was created for one of the cartoons and doesn't even exist in the games' continuity) in the American manual of her debut game as a marketing tactic to promote the American Sonic cartoons and comics of the time.

* The [[Game of Thrones]] RPG is being seen as a quick cash grab adaptation of the HBO TV series - which in turn, an adaptation of [[George R. R. Martin]]'s fantasy books. Contrary to popular belief, The game has in fact been in development since 2005 (much earlier than the show). Assuming the show was never produced, the game would be considered more of a RPG adaptation of a fantasy book series, like [[The Witcher]].

* Many people think ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Golden Eye 1997]]'' is the game that popularized console FPS's (as well as the first "good" console FPS). In truth, there were several successful console FPS's before it, such as Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (released on the N64 less than six months before Goldeneye!), which also garnered a lot of critical acclaim and strong sales upon release.