Games that impressed you with technology

[luj1]

Is John Carmack an imbecile?

How does Carmack writing "Unreal looks very good" in a .plan update equate Unreal being a "Quake killer"?

Unreal ended half a decade of id Software's clear dominance in the shooter genre. For the first time they had to face a competent rival. Unreal clearly had better graphics than Quake 2 and better support for mods (it was possible to enable multiple mods, while Quake 2 would only allow that if multiple mods were merged and compiled together into a single DLL). Gameplay wasn't perfect, for example there were complaints about weapon design, but the ball started rolling. UT released next year was at least as good and popular as Q3A.

Unreal also ended the dominance of idTech engines over next several years and won console market share before id Software added official console support to their engines. John Carmack obviously made mistakes, for example the 5 year gap between Quake 3 and Doom 3 engines, or lack of user friendly level editors, but those mistakes wouldn't matter without a competent rival.

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

 

[Arbiter]

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

Quake maps are made by unpaid modders, while idTech is no longer licensed to anyone outside of Bethesda. At the same time Unreal is one of 2 dominant engines for commercial game development.

I believe that Quake engine is more popular among modders simply because of open sourcing and therefore availability of modern source ports.

There is still some modding for Doom engine, but it does not change the fact that Build, Quake and Unreal engines made Doom obsolete.

 

[Beans00]

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

None of that is relevant to commercial success or cultural relevancy beyond the small group of dedicated fans.

I love thief 1/2, and so do a lot of people. It's one of the most modded games ever but it's played by a relatively small amount of people. Quake 1 having a dedicated fan modding community is a bonus but doesn't really mean anything since 99% of players don't care about content 30 years later.

Unreal's legacy is in the engine.
https://unreal.fandom.com/wiki/Unreal_Engine_1
https://unreal.fandom.com/wiki/Unreal_Engine_2

Also the unreal tournament games, which completely took over the whole mp arena fast paced scene from quake.


In terms of engine impact quake was the first big successful 3d shooter. In terms of sales it was roughly equal to unreal (both selling ~1.5m copies).

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Is John Carmack an imbecile?

How does Carmack writing "Unreal looks very good" in a .plan update equate Unreal being a "Quake killer"?

Unreal ended half a decade of id Software's clear dominance in the shooter genre. For the first time they had to face a competent rival. Unreal clearly had better graphics than Quake 2 and better support for mods (it was possible to enable multiple mods, while Quake 2 would only allow that if multiple mods were merged and compiled together into a single DLL). Gameplay wasn't perfect, for example there were complaints about weapon design, but the ball started rolling. UT released next year was at least as good and popular as Q3A.

Unreal also ended the dominance of idTech engines over next several years and won console market share before id Software added official console support to their engines. John Carmack obviously made mistakes, for example the 5 year gap between Quake 3 and Doom 3 engines, or lack of user friendly level editors, but those mistakes wouldn't matter without a competent rival.

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

Mmm... everywhere? (https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/unreal-engine-5)

 

[Luka-boy]

Dungeon Keeper Possession spell blew my fucking mind back in the day. RTS/management game where using that spell you can take direct control of your minions in first person. Each having different stats, skills, height, sometimes with modified eyesight (ie. Hellhounds, being dogs, were colorblind). And capable of leveling up and learning new skills and even evolving into a new more powerful creature in a few cases.

Just... *mwack* Chef Kiss.

Machines: Wired for War had the assuming first person control part too, but lacked the RPG elements, attention to detail and charm of DK.

 

[Alienman]

For a new game: Exanima. Great looking top-down engine with cool physics. I hope they license it out.

 

[Zlaja]

This was mind-blowing back in 1999:

 

[ADL]

 

[luj1]

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

Quake maps are made by unpaid modders, while idTech is no longer licensed to anyone outside of Bethesda. At the same time Unreal is one of 2 dominant engines for commercial game development.

I believe that Quake engine is more popular among modders simply because of open sourcing and therefore availability of modern source ports.

There is still some modding for Doom engine, but it does not change the fact that Build, Quake and Unreal engines made Doom obsolete.

I'm talking about Unreal as a game

Where is it?

 

[dbx]

Breathless and Alien Breed 3D 2 on ther Amiga
Crammond's F1 GP
Inferno (gameplay was utter shit though)
Unreal, GTA3, Morrowind. Didn't think much of Daggerfall because in my mind in was Amiga's Legend of Valour just way bigger
Far Cry (the first) and Crysis

Brother this is some high quality copium

Quake maps are still getting made BY THE DOZENS

Where is Unreal on the map? Just where?

Quake maps are made by unpaid modders, while idTech is no longer licensed to anyone outside of Bethesda. At the same time Unreal is one of 2 dominant engines for commercial game development.

I believe that Quake engine is more popular among modders simply because of open sourcing and therefore availability of modern source ports.

There is still some modding for Doom engine, but it does not change the fact that Build, Quake and Unreal engines made Doom obsolete.

I'm talking about Unreal as a game

Where is it?

UT has way more players than OG quake/quake2/quake3 (probably combined).
I'm not counting quake live because it's not OG.

 

[King Crispy]

MicroProse's F19 Stealth Fighter

This was THE flight sim to have back in 1988. Stupendous, and its manual was maybe better than the game itself!

 

[DesolationStone]

Wing Commander because, i mean

Wing Commander III
Half Life 2 for the source engine
Half Life Alyx for… everything
Freespace 2 for the scale of the ships and the incredible scripts for the mission designer
But the game that most shocked me for his technology, was and still remains I-War (Independence War), the use of Newtonian physic in that game it's still incredible, and the HUD it's just the most beautiful thing never created in the history of videogames

 

[luj1]

UT has way more players than OG quake/quake2/quake3 (probably combined).
I'm not counting quake live because it's not OG.

Which UT? UT99? Where?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992) took the gameplay of real-time blobbers that started with Dungeon Master, but placed it in a 3D environment (though relying heavily on 2D sprites) with some verticality:

Screenshots from the sequel:

 

[Beans00]

UT has way more players than OG quake/quake2/quake3 (probably combined).
I'm not counting quake live because it's not OG.

Which UT? UT99? Where?

Did you even have internet(or computers?) in whatever former yugoslav shithole you're from in the late 90s/early 00's?



You never played quake 3 or unreal tournament so I'm not sure why you're larping right now lol. If you way to prefer quake 1 that's fine and that's your right. Quake was fun as hell but this is literally some type of fanboy schizo moment you're having right now if you genuinely don't understand how popular and impactful unreal was.

 

[DesolationStone]

No one seems to have cited Homeworld

And no one seems to have written about Company of Heroes either

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Incubation - tactical tb squad based game where you could switch from top down to isometric to fpp view on the fly with great 3d graphics

Total Annihilation - lots of crazy simulationist stuff that rts (or strategies in general) never did before and mostly never did after tbh

Myth TFL - map area being an actual 3d environment with free zoom, panning, rotating, orbiting, adjustable time dilation and all that jazz + carnage and the extent to which physics and weather conditions affected the combat

I believe all of those were released in '97, which is not surprising.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Trespasser. It was weird and borderline unplayable when it came out, but the fascination with it kept me playing.

 

[Borelli]

Portal, the first time i saw the trailer for it i was like whoa. First person teleporting never felt so good.

 

[NecroLord]

I like good lighting and shadows in games.
Thief: The Dark Project, later Gold and Thief 2: The Metal Age.
STALKER Trilogy is another fine example.
F.E.A.R as well (the first game, that is).
Unreal also succeeded at creating a strong sense of awe and wonder, being trapped on an alien world that is majestic in aspect.

 

[luj1]

Did you even have internet(or computers?) in whatever former yugoslav shithole you're from in the late 90s/early 00's?

I bought games in 1995 with actual money. Meanwhile you are *begging* for free games, on an internet forum, in 2024, beggar.

You never played quake 3 or unreal tournament...

Tell me what else I have, or haven't played, you wet potato. While I was playing BOTH of these games in prestigious LAN dens behind the iron curtain, you were giving handjobs to your bum uncle in your dimly lit cabin in Texas, while coyotes howled in the night. Bum.

 

[thesheeep]

Definitely Daggerfall.

The procedural generation isn't good, don't get me wrong. It's the worst kind of random non-design.
But it is technically incredibly impressive - most devs today couldn't pull it off with 100x the hardware, yet someone 20+ years ago coded it with much, much less.
I'm still impressed by the achievement.

 

[King Crispy]

Daggerfall may not have been the introduction of the sandbox game/RPG, but it certainly was the absolute best at it for its time and for years afterwards.

Without all that expanse of land to potentially explore, even if most of it was empty, it would have lacked a lot of its wonder.

 

[Jaedar]

Sacrifice: Seeing the terrain deform into volcanos, fall away entirely and more.
Portal: The portals.
Factorio: So many entities doing stuff at the same time every frame.
Dark Messiah: The way the physics interacted so nicely with the combat.
Left 4 Dead: Dozens of zombies that manage to pathfind intelligently without clipping through eachother or getting stuck or looking stupid.

 

[luj1]

Sacrifice: Seeing the terrain deform into volcanos, fall away entirely and more.

Agreed and this was also true for some games such as the first Black and White and Populous 3.