Whether the first published in 1984 King & apos; s Quest from Sierra On-Line, the first Civilization from MicroProse from 1991, or Ultima I from Origin Systems, which celebrated its premiere in 1981, all three computer games defined their own genres or revolutionized them significantly. A look into the past.
Table of contents
- 1 C: B_retro Ausgabe_95
- Role-playing games: Ultima I (1981) by Origin Systems
- Adventure games: King's Quest (1984) by Sierra On-Line
- Strategy games: Sid Meier & apos; s Civilization (1991) by MicroProse
- First person shooter: Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Doom (1993) by id Software
- Survival and horror games: Resident Evil (1996) by Capcom
- Open world games: Outcast (1999) by Infogrames
- Games that have also defined their own genre
- Tetris (1984) by Alexei Paschitnow, puzzle game
- Super Mario Bros. (1985) by Nintendo, Jump & apos; n & apos; Run
- Duke Two (1989) by Technosoft, real-time strategy
- Final Fantasy VII (1997) by Square Enix, Japan-RGP
- His father
- Pong (1972) by Atari, Arcade
for video games
- C: B_retro Opinion
- The editors look forward to your opinion on the subject
- C: B_retro Feedback
- Feedback is always welcome
- C: B_retro Review
- An overview of the last fifteen issues
< li> Games that have defined their own genre
In addition to the three greats from the genres of adventure, strategy and role-playing games, the two first-person shooters Wolfenstein 3D from 1992 and Doom from 1993, both from the id Software development studio, should be mentioned as formative pioneers or at least as revolutionary reinterpretations. A brief summary of the history of computer games.
C: B_retro Ausgabe_95
Games that have defined their own genre
Role-playing games: Ultima I (1981) by Origin Systems
After the” hardware eater “Ultima IX: Ascension, known for its immense system requirements, and the perfect gaming PC for the pioneering role-playing game were already in the spotlight in C: B_retro Edition_29 , this time the genre, which appeared in 1981, is in the spotlight – and series founder Ultima I the beginning.
After the first games that could be assigned to today's RPG genre were still based heavily on the tabletop role-playing game principle, which was very widespread at the time, the Ultima I developed by developer pioneer Richard Garriott was combined for the first time today essential game mechanisms such as hit points, attributes and race selection in a commercial computer game.
Ultima I was released for the first time in June 1981 and initially exclusively for the first real home computer for many, the Apple II. Numerous ports of the game for the Atari, Commodore 64 and Apple IIGS platforms as well as the later dominant IBM PC followed by 1986. The YouTube channel “Longplays For Days” has published a particularly extensive Let's Play PC version for MS-DOS.
Ultima I also featured many of the conventions that players take for granted in role-playing games today. The game world was divided into a world map, which was peppered with cities and dungeons and on which enemies and monsters were generated at random. Spells, weapons and armor were bought in cities and outposts with the gold found earlier.
Play Ultima I in the browser: Players who would like to see the classic RPG for themselves can do so via the ClassicReload website and the x86 emulator DOSBox directly in their browser.
Adventure games: King's Quest (1984) by Sierra On-Line
On May 10, 1984, King & apos; s Quest, the first adventure game of its kind, appeared at a time when players sometimes still had to enter commands such as “take the object” or “move forward” to guide the protagonists through the adventure games control, whose “game worlds” often had to fall back on images and text as a backdrop.
The one written by Roberta Williams and by a team consisting of six programmers at a cost of around $ 700,000 programmed story by King Graham was the first adventure game in which the main character was animated on the screen and could interact with objects.
King Graham could be moved around the screen with the help of the keyboard, picked up objects and opened doors, all in simulated 3D. Puzzles had to be solved, for which in turn the country had to be explored, people met and objects found.
King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown, as it is now called, was a real innovation in its use of 16-color graphics. Even with a CGA graphics card in connection with a composite video monitor or a television set, it was possible to use the full color depth.
The YouTube channel “Gamer Walkthroughs” presents the pioneering adventure at the time, which was based on the so-called “Adventure Game Interpreter”, the AGI engine, but which was only developed with King & apos; s Quest II: Romancing the Throne was named after 1985.
Originally commissioned by IBM to demonstrate the high graphics performance of the IBM PCjr, a slimmed-down version of the IBM PC, King & apos; s Quest was also Sierra On-Line's greatest success to date, which in later years was called Sierra Entertainment.
King's Quest also served Sierra as the basis for games such as Space Quest, Police Quest and Gold Rush and influenced all subsequent digital adventure games.
In addition to the original version of King's Quest, there is also a new edition from 1990 that already used the more powerful Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI), as well as an unofficial remake from 2001 with VGA graphics, which is free for macOS and Windows via GamesNostalgia can be downloaded.
Play King's Quest in the browser: King's Quest I can also be played directly in the browser via ClassicReload in the version released for the Apple II in 1984. In addition, other versions of the classic are available for nostalgic hours.
Strategy games: Sid Meier's Civilization (1991) by MicroProse
< p class = "p text-width">First released in September 1991 for the PC with MS-DOS and later also for Amiga, Atari ST, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Dreamcast, among others, Civilization revolutionized the genre of strategy games forever.
Not only did the Civilization developed by Sid Meier for MicroProse change the genre of strategy games forever, it also raised the genre of global strategy games for the first time to one that was accepted by the broad mass of computer gamers and therefore popular and therefore commercial Level.
In terms of play, “Civ” also offered unprecedented features: For the first time, players not only controlled their armies, but also deployed them. Players not only destroy, they also build. In Civilization, opponents could not only be defeated with powerful armies, but also with the help of their own culture.
The YouTuber “loomey” demonstrates in a detailed Let's Play how Sid Meier & apos; s Civilization was a milestone in 1991.
Even if the first Civilization represents an abstraction of the entire history of mankind, it forms the basis for all great strategy games that focus on certain epochs of history, such as Europa Universalis and the equally famous Rome: Total War.
Play Sid Meier & apos; s Civilization in the browser: The milestone in the history of strategy can also be played online on the retro platform ClassicReload.
Ego-Shooter: Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Doom (1993) by id Software
Without concealing shooter milestones such as the also absolutely groundbreaking arcade shooter Battlezone by Atari from 1980, the genre needed until the beginning of the 1990s to become really relevant for the first time.
The two revolutionary first-person shooters Wolfenstein 3D and Doom from the development studio id Software raised the shooter and especially the first-person shooter genre to a new level between 1992 and 1993 and laid the foundation for games that players now know as 3D first-person shooters designate.
At the latest with Doom, which was released on December 10, 1993, first for the PC with MS-DOS and subsequently also for Windows, Sega 32X, Atari and many other platforms, the genre established itself at the top of the favor of computer gamers. How Doom played, the YouTuber “Shirrako” illustrates with a Let & apos; s play of the much nicer to look at remastered version in 1080p, which was released in 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Android.
Doom introduced players to the concept of immersion, a previously unknown level of interaction with a computer. When playing Doom, the player did not move the character on the screen, but the player was the character for the first time. This opened up completely new possibilities for interactivity and paved the way for how games should be played in the coming decades.
In addition to the actual game, the Doom engine also represented a blueprint for computer games and especially first-person shooters. The Doom engine, originally developed on the NeXTStep operating system initiated by Steve Jobs and later ported to various platforms, set new standards in the field of 3D at the time -Graphic and used raycasting instead of polygons for the first time.
The developer and co-founder of id Software John Carmack, who together with the also very well-known genre greats John Romero and Tom Hall, as was also responsible for the game at Wolfenstein 3D.
Doom wasn't the first of all first-person shooters, but its immense commercial success laid the foundation for hosting an entire genre and selling millions of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series games.
Play Doom in the browser: The successor Doom 2: Hell on Earth, released in 1994, can be played directly in the browser window via ClassicReload.
Survival and horror games: Resident Evil (1996) by Capcom
Whether FEAR, Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising, almost every title from the genre of survival and Horror games were significantly influenced by the first part of the Resident Evil series from Capcom.
In March 1996, Capcom used a scenario that caused fear or at least goose bumps in almost every player. A dark and stormy night in a seemingly abandoned mansion, but the player is not alone. Something is with him, lurking in the shadows and waiting for his chance to reach for him.
Undead creatures, people like animals, which often do not move immediately after opening show a creaky and squeaky door, but lie in wait for the player behind the next bend, the next corner or the next shelf.
At first exclusively on the first Sony PlayStation, Resident Evil spread its horror a year later on the Sega Saturn and the Windows PC.
Capcom used the pioneering possibilities for Resident Evil the PlayStation and later also the PC to create a dark cinematic horror experience that used many of the same tricks that films had previously used to frighten and terrify viewers for decades.
The LongplayArchive shows on YouTube how horror looked in 1996 in the NTSC version on the PlayStation.
Capcom managed to increase the tension and horror even further with the help of an innovative storage system. This relied on a limited number of typewriter tapes scattered throughout the game. If the player ran out of tapes, it was sometimes just as threatening as what could be waiting behind the next door.
On the Windows PC, the game's graphics could only be fully exploited with a 3D accelerator such as the 3dfx Voodoo. In 2015, a remake of Resident Evil was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Windows PC, based on the 2002 version for the Nintendo GameCube.
In addition to the first Resident Evil, the first part of the Alone in the Dark series developed by Infogrames from 1992 must also be named as the forefather of the genre.
Open World Games: Outcast (1999) by Infogrames
On August 20, 1999, the action adventure Outcast, published by Infogrames and developed by Appeal, was released, which with its enormous game depth and largely open game world, great freedom of action and harmonious orchestral background music was a milestone in the genre of the open, which at the time did not really exist -World games.
The opponent's AI and the graphic representation of Outcast also set a new benchmark for freely accessible game worlds in 1999. Paradise, also developed by Appeal -Engine worked with a mixture of textured voxels as well as polygons calculated by software and raycasting.
Until then, there was simply no such thing as an open world. Even the official trailer for Outcast caused open mouths among players. The YouTube channel “60 Seconds Retrogames” delivers 60 seconds of the best impressions from Outcast, which later received a new HD edition.
Originally, the game could only be played in 320 × 200, 400 × 300 and 512 × 384 pixels, but while Outcast was still being developed, the developers added the VGA and SVGA resolutions with 640 × 480 and 800 × 600 pixels.
Outcast was one of the very first computer games to use techniques such as bump mapping, depth of field, subpixel antialiasing and shadows calculated in real time. The Open World itself, the surface of which consisted of so-called tiles, was largely developed with the Autodesk 3ds Max program, which at that time still operated under the name 3D Studio 4 for DOS.
Games that have also defined their own genre
In addition to the six specially highlighted games and genres In the history of video games that went back to the end of the 1970s, there were many other games that defined their own genre or revolutionized an existing one. Here is a small overview of other titles worth mentioning.
Tetris (1984) by Alexei Paschitnow, puzzle game
The puzzle game developed by Alexei Paschitnow is also valid sold more than 425 million copies as the best-selling video game of all time and was a real global success, especially on the Nintendo Game Boy.
Super Mario Bros. ( 1985) from Nintendo, Jump & apos; n & apos; Run
Super Mario is one of the few characters that no longer needs to be introduced to any player in the world. Under the original title “Sūpā Mario Burazāzu”, the platform game developed by Shigeru Miyamoto was released on September 13, 1985 for the Famicom, the original version of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Herzog Zwei (1989) from Technosoft, realtime strategy
Herzog Zwei from the Japanese developer and publisher Technosoft was released exclusively for the Sega Mega Drive. Duke Zwei did not become a commercial success, but those who played it call it the first serious real-time strategy game.
Final Fantasy VII ( 1997) from Square Enix, Japan-RGP
Final Fantasy VII heralded a new era for role-playing games in general and especially for the genre of Japanese RPGs with its pre-rendered 3D backgrounds, great characters and a story that has been best and most lovingly staged for many players to this day. In addition, FFVII successfully led the series into the 3D era.
His father to video games
Pong (1972) by Atari, Arcade
Pong, developed by Atari in 1966, is considered to be one of the first video games and was the very first world-wide popular and commercially successful game.
Developed under the leadership of Allan Alcorn, Pong is now considered the forefather of all video games, even though video games were developed before. Pong was specially designed for arcade slot machines and was a sport and skill game that was later ported to countless platforms.
The AY-3-8500 integrated circuit developed by General Instruments is also known as Pong on a Chip (PoG) and made it possible to accommodate the entire game, including variants, on one chip. This chip was also used in the GDR for the TV and screen game BSS 01.
C: B_retro opinion
The editors look forward to your opinion on the subject
The eleven titles and genres mentioned are only examples of the greatest milestones in the history of video games. The editors are interested in your opinion on the topic and the biggest milestones and “game changers” for you.
A detailed explanation is given in the comments on this issue in the ComputerBase forum expressly desired.
C: B_retro Feedback
Feedback is always welcome
The editors are happy to receive constructive criticism, praise, and suggestions in order to be able to align the series even more closely with the wishes of the readership in the future. With this reading material in their luggage, the editors wish you a relaxing Sunday.
C: B_retro Review
The last fifteen issues in the overview
The last 15 topics from the previous editions of C: B_retro :
- C: B_retro Ausgabe_94 : Doom 3 im can be found here Benchmark
- C: B_retro Issue_93 : AMD K6, K6-2 and K6-III
- C: B_retro Issue_92 : GeForce vs. Radeon in the duel of generations
- C: B_retro Issue_91 : One of the most successful game consoles in history
- C: B_retro Issue_90 : The ideal gaming PC has been advising gamers for over 15 years
- C: B_retro Issue_89 : Your best games of all time have been selected
- C: B_retro Issue_88 : What are the best video games of all time?
- C: B_retro Edition_87 : The first IBM PC in the world defined standards
- C: B_retro Edition_86 : Microsoft Windows 96
- C: B_retro Edition_85 : AMD Phenom and Opteron ( “K10”)
- C: B_retro Issue_84 : FIFA Soccer and other football pioneers
- C: B_retro Issue_83 : Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 with PowerVR Kyro II
- C: B_retro Ausgabe_82 : ComputerBase builds the perfect Voodoo-2-Retro-PC
- C: B_retro Ausgabe_81 : The first graphics cards of the ComputerBase-Community
- C: B_retro Issue_80 : The early history of the graphics card
- C: B_retro Issue_79 : Nokia Communicator
- C: B_retro Issue_78 : The first Microsoft Xbox
Even more content of this kind and many more reports and anecdotes can be found in the retro corner of the ComputerBase forum as a Also in the subject areas C: B_retro and Retro.