What games were ahead of their time?

I would say Killzone 2 was ahead of its time. It was a complete game, with a solid campaign and a multiplayer that had some interesting ideas like Warzone. Warzone was a 32 player mode with changing objectives. The gadgets and tech were also cool to use, and today's games still seem to pale in comparison which is kinda sad. The class system was also pretty good, better than today's shooters. So overall, Killzone 2, a game that came out in 2009, seems like part of a bygone era compared to today's shooters.

How about you, SW? What games were ahead of their time?

MGS 2, Morrowind, Splinter Cell were the first three that popped out of my mind.

Cyberpunk 2077 was but dump sh*t mess of a game.

Halo CE.

Tomb Raider 1

Resident Evil 1

Gears 1

RDR 1

Oblivion

GTA 3

Gears of War

TES 4 Oblivion

Mass Effect

Half Life 2

GTA IV

Age of Empires

Super Mario Kart

Tresspasser.

Phantasy Star.

Since no other asshole will list them.

Crysis was so ahead of its time, it even puts the remastered to shame and that says alot. Crysis gets my vote here.

Halo: Combat Evolve is also another game ahead of its time and even on the Xbox console, that game was so fun, I even find it fun to play it again through the MCC.

RE4. Game probably will win GoTY if it releases this year.

Oh one more, Earthbound.

It did release this year in VR!

Godammnit the VGA is so bias! There an agenda against VR lmao.

That aside even in VR game somehow reviewed well, game really is great.

TES 4, for all its' derpiness really was very impressive considering it released right at the beginning of the 360/ps3 era.

halo 3, love it or hate it, Halo 3 had a full campaign, with collectibles, secrets and gameplay modifiers, local and online co-op, fully implemented multiplayer with a whole host of modes and matchmaking options including custom games, forge mode somewhat of a level editor which when combined with custom game rules gave rise to very creative custom game modes, integrated file share system not only sharing game modes but clips screenshots etc. as well, and a fully featured theater mode allowing you to watch previous matches from other peoples perspective, break down the chaos and see exactly what happened, go frame by frame for that perfect screenshot or get shots for machinima basically impossible in 90% of games. All in 2007!!!! to this day it remains one of the most feature rich AAA releases ever.

Quite a few pioneers in gaming off the top of my head.

The Elder Scrolls series - Seeing as how every game from Morrorwind up became THE standard for open world RPGS

Xenosaga - took epic storytelling that blended biblical mythology, Jewish mysticism and gnosticism into a three part space opera.

.Hack series - 1st console games I ever played that uses data flags to transfer progress and decisions over to the next game. Mass effect would replicate and expand on this move 8 years later with mass effect 2

Perfect Dark - a console shooter (dominated genre on PC then) that actually had bots in multiplayer that all had preprogrammed AI allocated to them - most FPS's now still don't do that

VR in general - it's ahead of it's time now, and if you've experienced what it can actually do (star wars, fallout, elder scrolls) it's a the most innovative thing to happen to gaming since online multiplayer. It just needs more time.

A few off the top of my head would be:

- Street Fighter II

- Chrono Trigger

- Resident Evil 4

- Resident Evil

- Resident Evil 2

- Halo CE

- Gears of War

- Smash Bros.

- The Legend of Zelda

- Super Mario Bros.

- Super Mario Bros. 3

- Mario 64

Star Tropics

Anyother answer is wrong. the game is still to this day best game ever made.

@ghosts4ever: easily beaten by tlou2, tho. Nice try, but deusex is far behind.

I Robot

Daggerfall

Neverwinter Nights (1991)

Breath of the Wild

Liberal Crime Squad

Dwarf Fortress

Ultima Underworld

Total Annihilation

Super Mario 64

Metroid

Virtua Fighter

Crysis

Arcade games from the 1970s:

Jet Rocket (1970, Sega)

Wild Gunman (1974, Nintendo)

Ninja Gun (1970s, Kasco)

F-1 (1976, Namco)

Heli-Shooter (1977, Sega)

A few more worth mentioning:

- Super Metroid

- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

- Final Fight

- Metroid Prime

Lost Planet 2, the game got criticized for relying more on its online campaign co-op than having a self contained SP campaign. This would have been more acceptable a generation later but wasn't when it released as a 7th gen title.

IDK if Halo CE was "ahead of it's time". But, it was the 1st game that really got 1st person shooters right on a console, IMO.

Company of Heroes - this 2006 RTS had fully destructible environments and some pretty wild tech in general going on.

I don't think any other RTS series since has been as ambitious and pulled it off so well. hugely innovative and impressive game in what was at the time a very well worn, established genre.

Have you played Age of Empires IV?

It's pretty great, better than Dawn of War 3 at least :)

yup, I'm too shit to play against people but i've been going through the campaign and playing skirmishes against AI.

very solid RTS and agree a nice bouceback from the disappointing DoW3. gives me some hope that Coh3 wont be a complete disaster

good shout. despite the revisionism it's gone through on system wars in recent years, back in its day as a pure shooter it was peerless. playing crysis for the first time on my gtx 8800 ultra, with the incredible visuals, day and night cycles, huge open areas, destructible environments and predator like suit powers was a legit "this game is a gen ahead of everything else" experience

Definitely Ultima IV, of all time.

The witcher 3 redefined what open world gameplay should be. Every open world game that came after it is a clone.

From the top of my head, Sonic 1, Final Fight, Street Fighter 2, DOOM 93, Halo CE, Morrowind, Left 4 Dead, No Man's Sky and Dreams.

• Battlefield 2 did modern combat before COD4 did it also has 64 MP with squads and this was in 2005.
• Crysis easily in terms of graphics no other games since has ever made such a huge generational gap
• Donkey Kong Country graphics using 3D sprites
• F.E.A.R. AI
• GTA :SA open world size may seem small by todays standards but in 2004 on a PS2 it was huge with 3 big cities along with a countryside and desert.

Way ahead of their time in terms of graphics :

Defender of the Crown + Sinbad and the Throne of Falcon (Both on Commodore 64)

Shadow of the Beast (Amiga)

Virtua Fighter 3 (Arcade)

Ahead of its time in terms of gameplay and sheer brilliance:

Street Fighter 2

Maybe I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I feel like a lot of the games listed are just good games, and not necessarily "ahead of their time". There are some definite pioneers, as well as innovators here, but I thought the crux of being ahead of your time was that the world didn't recognize how correct you were until well after the fact.

Games like Halo CE (my favorite and literally the only one I care about) or The Witcher 3 immediately garnered recognition and praise; and deservedly so. But I would argue they were exactly of their time... and they did it best.

Can anyone name a game that influenced many, but received little to no praise?

Motorstorm

BF: BC2

Killer Instinct

Goldeneye 64

MGS2

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Oblivion. Remeber when we all laughed about horse armor? Now games make all their money from horse armor.

Alien Reserecrion on PS1 was criticized for having the twin stick controls that every FPS uses now.

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Yes that is the real name of a game that actually exists. No one played it, so they made a sequel and called it "Rocket League" instead.

System Shock 2

Warhawk/Starhawk

Savage: Battle for Newerth

Prey: Mooncrash DLC

Todd didn't underestimate how lowly we are.

Nor should any publisher really.

Reminds me of the dude using the whip sound.

PTO I - III

Afterburner

Police Quest Collection

some Arcade Game I forget the name of.

Good one.

Made by an ex-cop aiming for realism. For such an old ass game, aims so high.

Donkey Kong Country immediately comes to mind, but other games that were ahead of their time include Killer Instinct, NBA Give N' Go, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, NFL 2K5, Smugglers Run, SOCOM (mostly because of the headset that you could give commands to your squad in the campaign), MAG (this game missed the mark before large scale gameplay and battle royale craze took off), SMB3, Anything using the Power Pad or Power Glove (although a lot of the later didn't work well), SEGA Channel... I could probably keep going, but those seem pretty good.

Crysis because nobody could play the damn thing🙃

@hardwenzen: that was back when PC gaming was in its prime.

What you meant to say is back when PC had exclusives.

Warzone 2100

Resident evil 1

Metal Gear 2

Silent hill 1

Super Mario Bros

Counter Strike

Portal and Super Mario Maker.

Portal, because it was incredibly innovative. Super Mario Maker, because the sky was the limit. It had more replay value than most other games.

Gotta admit: wasn't much of an online player before COH 2.

But when it clicks online, it clicks. You should definitely check out the online aspect (AI in skirmish isn't the greatest).

yes, there are lame strategies from people. But you need to get the basics down: resource collection, boosting economy, scouting your enemy (what is he up to? Already building barracks?) and unit placement

The other aspects of any RTS are always the same (rock/paper/sciscors). I'm sure with all the COH experience you'll do plenty fine online ;)

simple sonys first party.

Final Fantasy XII - The graphics, gameplay, battle system and gambit system was ahead of it's time. It makes FFXIII look basic,

The Legend of Zelda - The origins of open world/sandbox gaming.

Galaga - Revolutionized fixed shooters and was not as bad a quarter muncher in arcades.

Ocarina of Time - Showed us how to make a 3D adventure game.

Breath of the Wild - The first and only TRUE open world game.

Super Mario Bros. - Perfected 2D platformers and became the Holy Bible of game design.

Super Mario 64 - Showed us how to do 3D platformers/utilization of stick controls in 3D space.

Pokémon Red and Blue - Ahead of its time for connectivity between players for trading/battling with link cable.

Star Fox - Graphically and spatially innovative as a 3D on-rails shooter on a 16-bit system.

Super Metroid - Perfected Metroidvania, presented excellent progression within its world as the game subtly guides you along its labyrinths.

Resident Evil 4 - The beginning of 3D action games as we know them today, leading to awesome franchises such as Uncharted and Last of Us as well as many clones and trashy copies.

Astrobot: Rescue Mission - Did VR really well in a time that VR was barely in its liftoff phase and put you into an immersive world full of fun platforming challenges

Halo 2 - Took what made the original so great and brought it to online multiplayer, a big step forward for console shooters.