9 Games That Were Ahead of Their Time

Games can become stagnant. It’s easy for developers to stick to safe games that sell big numbers, but sometimes it’s worth taking a chance to make something new. Some games get forgotten, others cherished. Here are ten games which were ahead of their time.

 

1. Sentient (1997)

Sentient is a game which would fit in so well if it were released today. A first person adventure game mixed with a point and click mechanic, it was similar to many ‘walking simulators’ available today. Sentient tasked you, Garritt Sherova, with saving the space station Icarus from colliding with the sun.

The sole survivor of a medical ship crash, Sherova had to deal with multiple plot threads, including a political assassin, a murdered captain and a bout of radiation sickness. The crew move around the ship based on their shifts and can be found in different areas at different times. Sentient was one of the first games that made me feel like I could live in its world. While it looks dated now, the first-person nature of the game really immersed me and could feel what it would be like on the space station Icarus.

On the downside, Sentient had a punishing time limit and the lack of direction meant you often ran out of time, along with the mechanic to talk with other crew members being interesting but clunky. If Sentient were released today (and tidied up a bit), it would much more of a success.

 

2. Trespasser: Jurassic Park (1998)

You’re probably already painfully aware of Trespasser: Jurassic Park. One of those games that had so much promise, but failed to live up to it. It’s been listed on a number of occasions as a game that totally failed to live up to the hype and truly it did fail, but did so with style.

You play Anne, soul survivor of a plane crash who finds herself washed upon the shores of Site B. Your job is to fight your way to the evacuation site through the game’s various levels. Trespasser wanted to revolutionise games, however it came across more like Surgeon Simulator crossed with a FPS, with Anne’s hand roaming all over the place trying to open doors, pick up weapons and generally do anything. Team that with wonky AI and you have a disappointing game all round.

But it’s important to remember that Trespasser was the first game to use ragdoll physics and it used a trick where 3D objects at a distance would change to 2D to help Trespasser run smoother. Also Trespasser was the first FPS to feature large outdoor, open environments, with many FPS’ of that time sticking to corridor based gameplay. Eat that, Half-Life!

 

3. Alone in the Dark

Time has not been kind to Alone in the Dark. The most recent incarnation, Alone in the Dark: Illumination arrived on Steam in 2015 and has a ‘Mostly Negative’ rating based on reviews. Before that was the 2008 reboot simply named Alone in the Dark, and it just stunk.

Sadly, the Alone in the Dark series has been stagnating since the late 90’s and it seems that Atari is unwilling to spend the cash on this iconic series that it deserves. It’s so upsetting to see the series go to waste, which was once called the godfather of survival horror.

Alone in the Dark served as a precursor to games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill and many more horror games just before the turn of the century. Alone in the Dark has also spawned two movies, which are best off forgotten. The game used static cinematic camera angles to create its atmosphere in a similar fashion to the early Resident Evil games, the Dino Crisis series and Parasite Eve.

 

4. Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999)

You get the impression that David Cage always wanted to be a Hollywood director. His games are always wonderfully cinematic, even if they don’t quite work at times. Omikron was essentially an adventure game but mixed various other genres into the game. Omikron’s key feature is following death you are reincarnated into another body in the city, but you’d have to re-earn any stats that you’d lose after dying.

Omikron also had music royalty on-board when David Bowie agreed to work on the soundtrack for The Nomad Soul. Bowie was eager to work on Omikron and also appeared in the game and had some say on the game’s story and design. Omikron: The Nomad Soul hasn’t aged well, but it’s different and had a number of very interesting ideas.

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