Tag Archives: pioneering

System Shock, PC

This is the original VGA/SVGA* version of System Shock, first released in 1994. The game was developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems in North America and Electronic Arts in Europe.

*= System Shock was originally released in VGA (320×200 resolution), but was soon upgraded to SVGA (640×480 resolution) via patches and re-releases. I’m showing both the VGA and SVGA versions here.

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Unreal Tournament 2004, PC

Epic Games‘ Unreal Tournament 2004 is the third game in the Unreal Tournament series, and is an updated version of its predecessor, Unreal Tournament 2003.

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Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, PC

This is the expanded version of Diablo II, called Lord of Destruction, released by Blizzard in 2001.

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Dynamite Dan, MSX

The MSX version of Rod Bowkett‘s classic Spectrum platformer, Dynamite Dan, was programmed by Mr. Micro and published by Mirrorsoft in 1986. It is an excellent port and looks and plays very similarly to the original.

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Quake II, Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 version of id Software‘s Quake II was developed by Raster Productions and released in 1999, by Midway in North America and Activision in PAL regions.

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1942, Arcade

1942 is a vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter from Capcom, first released into arcades in 1984. The game is loosely based on the Battle of Midway of WWII and sees you piloting an American P-38 Lightning, fighting against Japanese forces.

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Phantasy Star Online, Dreamcast

Phantasy Star Online was developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega in 2000 for the Dreamcast. The game is an online/offline JRPG in the style of the previous Phantasy Star games, and is much-celebrated. We’re looking at PSO “Version 2” here, which came out in 2001, with expanded content.

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Wings of Fury, Apple II

Designed and programmed by Steve Waldo, and first published by Brøderbund in 1987, Wings of Fury is a pioneering and influential side-scrolling shooter in which you pilot an American F6F Hellcat during World War II.

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Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis, PC

The MS-DOS version of Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis was the original, first released by Westwood Studios in 1992. The Amiga version followed shortly afterwards, in 1993.

Aka “Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty” in North America.

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Dark Souls, PlayStation 3

Considered by many to be a masterpiece of video game design, Dark Souls is an action-based fantasy role-playing game, and was developed by From Software and first published by Namco Bandai Games in 2011.

Dark Souls was so successful, in fact, that it created a succession of similar games, called ‘Souls-likes‘. Not many games can claim to have created a whole sub-genre on its own, but this game did.

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