Older Than They Think/Video Games: Difference between revisions

** 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:

*** 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.

*** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.