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Discover the unsung heroes of the gaming world! This list explores 10 underrated video games that introduced groundbreaking mechanics and ideas long before they became popular, proving they were truly way ahead of their time.
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00:00For many games lightning strikes and we tend to associate either said franchise, landmark
00:04one-off or the creators themselves for getting everything just right.
00:07But what of the other titles that attempt to line up the stars only to find that no one
00:12was looking?
00:13So with that stuff in mind, which games completely blew you away by being ahead of the curve
00:16only for the industry to keep thundering on without anybody else noticing?
00:20I'm Scott from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 underrated video games that were way
00:25ahead of their time.
00:2610.
00:27Killswitch
00:28We tend to attribute the whole stop and pop cover system to Gears of War, but there
00:32was one title that showcased this exact trope back when Marcus Fenix was but a glint in Epic
00:37Games' eye.
00:381999's Operation Winback had already laid the groundwork for hugging walls and popping out
00:42to blast enemies, but it was Namco's Killswitch that put its variation on the same cover system
00:47front and center for all to see.
00:49All of this whilst introducing Blind Fire, another quintessential ingredient of the Gears
00:53of War formula.
00:54Sadly, despite both games showing remarkable potential, Killswitch in particular was
00:58regarded as being truly innovative for the time, its level design and story just couldn't
01:02make a lasting impression.
01:03Not to mention Killswitch came across as a B-tier release, albeit with pretty awesome features,
01:08yet those things combined to mean that the industry just wasn't ready to embrace it wholeheartedly.
01:13That would instead happen with Gears of War and the Xbox in 2006, and the rest remains
01:18history.
01:189.
01:19Virtua Fighter
01:20You have to feel somewhat sorry for Sega.
01:23Back in 1993, they were bestowed some sort of power from the gaming gods as they figured
01:27out how to render a full 3D fighting game not soon after Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat
01:32were still being played religiously.
01:34Yes, these character models were primitive as hell, but back then, man, there was nothing
01:38else like it.
01:39One year later and we'd lay eyes on Tekken, and whilst a level of deep technical proficiency
01:44was never Tekken's claim to fame, it's hard to deny that despite getting there first,
01:48Virtua Fighter has played second fiddle to everything from Tekken to Mortal Kombat and
01:53even Dead or Alive ever since.
01:54If only Sega had hung back and perfected their character models, maybe it would be another
01:58story.
01:598.
02:00Def Jam Fight for New York
02:01Now I have to get this in here that I am a humongous fan of Def Jam Fight for New
02:06York
02:06and I still cannot believe that Vendetta was the last thing we saw.
02:09Back to the entry itself, and Def Jam Fight for New York is something of an anomaly.
02:13A fantastic Def Jam Vendetta sequel turned into more of a straight up fighter than a
02:17wrestling spin off.
02:18All of this resulted in gameplay that was absolutely outstanding, and yet it couldn't find a home.
02:23Of course it didn't help that EA royally killed the franchise stone dead with Def Jam
02:28Icon, a woeful dance to do damage directional shift that alienated fans and newcomers alike.
02:33Still where once it looked as though Fight for New York had proven there could be an entire
02:37genre of 3D brawlers where you'd slam opponents heads into environmental objects and bust out over
02:42the top finishers.
02:43The passion fans had completely fell away, and the majority of fighters we get today
02:47are still bolted onto 2D planes.
02:49I will totally take this opportunity as well to say what the hell happened to the brawler
02:53genre.
02:54Just give me a whole bunch of environmental objects to throw dudes into.
02:57That stuff was fun even in the Minority Report game, and yes I know, no one will ever believe
03:02me.
03:027.
03:03The Mindgate Conspiracy
03:05In what felt like a literal meeting of the minds, two telekinetically powered titles
03:09were released within months of each other back in 2004.
03:12Free Radical's Second Psy took a stealthier approach to occasionally letting you mind-slam
03:16a soldier or two off the walls, whereas Midway's PsyOps was a physics-based sandbox of unlimited
03:21potential.
03:22Years before Steam Greenlight would take off with any number of quirky ideas, and just as
03:26games were beginning to showcase the ragdoll physics-based delights of the Havoc Physics
03:29engine, PsyOps let you pick up enemies and objects, emulate them, possess them, and so
03:34much more in between.
03:35The likes of Dishonored or Just Cause 2 would make their names on treating the AI like a
03:39plaything, but it was PsyOps that managed to build an entire game around manipulating
03:43not only your enemies, but chunks of the environment too.
03:46Exploring the world around you by flying around on a mind-controlled crate, lobbing a piece of
03:50a broken statue at foes like a giant deadly bowling ball, that was PsyOps, and it's criminal
03:55we never saw a sequel or even a remaster.
03:57Number 6, Dark Chronicle
03:59There's something about developers level 5 that makes them the fan's choice of RPG
04:04developer.
04:04From Ni No Kuni to Dragon Quest, Yo-Kai Watch to Dark Cloud, their ideas, characters, and
04:09worlds are exemplary, but you'll never catch someone mentioning them before Square Enix
04:13or Bethesda whenever asked about RPGs.
04:15Dark Chronicle then was the kitchen sink-throwing sequel to PS2 launch title Dark Cloud, a stunning
04:20little game that adopted the zeitgeist of cel shading to colour its gorgeous Studio Ghibli-esque
04:25world.
04:25Level 5 included a gigantic amount of game mechanics ranging from camera modes to procedurally
04:30generated dungeons, fishing to tactile real-time combat, something that Final Fantasy to this
04:35day, including even number 15, has still not perfected.
04:38Almost a decade prior to Minecraft and 14 years before Dragon Quest Builders, Dark Chronicle
04:43also let you assemble a number of parts to custom build a series of villages and townships,
04:47further adding to the seemingly endless list of things to see and do.
04:51When later RPGs would adopt the same approach of just adding minigames to bulk everything
04:55out, it's worth remembering that Dark Chronicle did so with the utmost purpose, routing it
04:59all through a story and set of main characters that made everything make perfect sense.
05:03Number 5, Fahrenheit Slash Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain.
05:07Despite the likes of Gone Home, Firewatch or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture being regarded
05:12as narrative heavyweights, it's Telltale's The Walking Dead that really takes the cake
05:15as far as revolutionising how direct storytelling can meet with gameplay to form a full experience.
05:20Such critical acclaim tends to leapfrog David Cage and his contributions to the industry.
05:24Mainly because, thanks to Fahrenheit's god awful back third, where you're tasked with
05:28fighting a physical manifestation of the internet alongside Heavy Rain's terrible voice acting,
05:34his games never truly broke through to the mainstream.
05:37Still in service of artistic expression, Cage was the first guy to recommend players don't
05:41actually play his titles more than once.
05:43Instead he wanted you to live with your decisions, kinda like Telltale's games.
05:47And as for quick time events or on screen button prompts guiding the occasional contextual
05:51animation, Cage's games had them in spades back when Telltale was still working on Sam
05:56and Max.
05:57Number 4, Sweet Home.
05:58You literally would not have Resident Evil without Sweet Home.
06:02It is that simple.
06:03Developed by Capcom but helmed by Tokaru Fujiwara, he would pioneer all sorts of survival horror
06:09staples such as item hoarding, exploration, puzzle solving, sporadic save states and of course
06:13a constant state of threat.
06:15When time came for Capcom to enter the 3D realm, Sweet Home became the base point, as Resident
06:20Evil was designed to ostensibly be a polygonal version of that initial vision.
06:24At the start of development Capcom even made encounters first person just like in Sweet
06:28Home, and Resi's own Spencer Mansion was directly inspired by that game's location.
06:33Naturally as time has gone on we tend to look back at Resident Evil as the granddaddy of
06:37survival horror, and of course it's true that Capcom perfected all those ideas with that
06:41first game, but you literally wouldn't have it or survival horror as a genre if not for
06:45Sweet Home.
06:46Number 3, Shenmue.
06:47For the longest time developers were continually looking into various ways to enhance immersion,
06:52and for the record setting budget of $70 million, the most expensive game ever made
06:57at the time, director Yu Suzuki set about crafting an epic tale where everything from
07:01stroking cats to picking up fully rendered pamphlets was interactable.
07:05This resulted in one of the most revered and culturally beloved games of all time, possibly
07:10the first ever triple A game too.
07:12But simply because of its interactive elements being so impossible to imitate, it would be years
07:16before any other titles would devote so much time, effort and money into making an environment
07:21feel alive.
07:22The Yakuza series is a fairly close approximation of Sega continuing this overall design philosophy,
07:27and you can look to the likes of LA Noire or first person horror titles in general to
07:31see gameplay mechanics made out of scouring the environment.
07:33Still, when people say there's nothing quite like Shenmue, it comes directly from its most
07:38pioneering features being a direct product of what wasn't around at the time.
07:42Number 2, Metal Gear Solid.
07:44Obviously Metal Gear is far, far from being an underrated game, but it's easy to forget
07:48that underneath all those crazy plotlines and robo-dinosaur boss battles is a directorial
07:52flourish that showed video games can easily rival Hollywood, and then some.
07:56Crafted by auteur Hideo Kojima, he showed how to bring a level of cinematic immersion, storytelling,
08:01actually great voice acting performances from memorable characters, all elements that would
08:05force the industry's developers to sit up and notice.
08:08There's barely a story-driven game today that doesn't owe its methods, camera placement,
08:12cutscene direction, character presentation or overall feeling of cinematic quality to Metal
08:16Gear Solid.
08:17And all of that is worth remembering.
08:19Number 1, Crysis.
08:21The game that looked at your measly home computer setup and laughed a hearty laugh, as developers
08:29Crytek cared not one bit that only a fraction of the populace would ever see the full potential
08:34of what they'd created.
08:35Instead, they just wanted to make the most graphically impressive game of them all for
08:39what was available at the time.
08:41To some degree, you can kinda blame Crysis for the obsession many gamers now have on frantically
08:45buying up the latest graphics cards or consoles just to match whatever top specs are available.
08:50Here was a game that no two people would be able to have the same experience with.
08:54Now, there are so many video games released every single day of the year across digital
08:58storefronts that it is impossible to keep track of even a fraction of them, and that
09:03means that some real gems inevitably end up falling through the cracks.
09:07And the gaming medium is constantly moving and innovating, and yet isn't always clear
09:11precisely how influential a game is going to be until a few years after that fact.
09:16So as you can imagine, those titles that we've just said slipped through the cracks actually
09:20could have ended up shaping the industry for the better, or at least in very different
09:23ways had they got their proper time to shine.
09:26So let's take a look at them today as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are
09:2910 more underrated video games way ahead of their time.
09:3310.
09:33Resident Evil Outbreak At the time of its release in 2003, PS2-exclusive
09:38Resident Evil Outbreak was an ultra-ambitious attempt to take the survival horror franchise
09:43in a bold new direction, as here it was centred around four-player online co-op.
09:47Though online multiplayer had been flourishing for years on PC by this point, console multiplayer
09:52was still a fledgling concept, with the PS2 trading the original Xbox significantly in
09:57that regard.
09:58And though the PS2's online functionality, requiring the purchase of an additional network
10:02adapter, was undeniably clunky, when it worked Resident Evil Outbreak was an absolute blast
10:07to play with friends.
10:08Even with the lack of voice chat, the ability to play through a number of survival scenarios
10:12in Raccoon City with up to three friends was a novel blast, as was the ability to posthumously
10:17reanimate as a zombie and attack your own pals.
10:20Outbreak garnered mixed to positive reviews upon release, but hasn't ever really received
10:24due credit for being so far ahead of the pack where co-op multiplayer on consoles is concerned.
10:29Had Outbreak and its lesser-received sequel released a generation later and been able
10:34to benefit from a superior online infrastructure, they surely would have enjoyed a more appreciable
10:38legacy.
10:39But, with persistent rumors that an Outbreak remake or remaster is on the way, it may yet
10:44get the respect it so thoroughly deserves.
10:46Number 9.
10:47Red Faction
10:48Considering how scarcely talked about it is these days, you barely know that Red Faction
10:52was once one of the most anticipated games of 2001, hyped up for its potentially game-changing
10:58technical achievements.
11:00Red Faction's big sell was its GeoMod technology, which allowed players to majorly transform the
11:05game's environments with rocket launchers and other explosives, literally destroying
11:09the scenery in ways most games simply couldn't due to technical limitations.
11:13It was like nothing that players had ever seen before, and though Red Faction was widely
11:17praised upon its release, it's largely remembered today as that game that reminded you of Total
11:22Recall.
11:22The granularity of the destruction, of being able to literally blow holes through walls and
11:26explore the other side, was absolutely mind-boggling two decades ago.
11:30And though it did spawn a moderately successful series, it's never really enjoyed a chest
11:35thumping recognition.
11:36Number 8.
11:37Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem
11:39Years and years before games like Undertale peeled back the screen to thoroughly mess with
11:44the player's mind, there was Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem, a 2002 psychological horror
11:49that truly broke new ground for video games.
11:51The game's big hook was the abundance of sanity effects.
11:55Reality-warping illusions intended to throw the player off balance and keep them thoroughly
11:59unnerved.
12:00Some of the more boundary-pushing effects included the screen going black, the GameCube's
12:04start-up screen suddenly appearing out of nowhere, a fake volume bar showing up on the
12:08screen, and the game pretending to delete your save file.
12:11Players had never experienced anything this playfully intrusive, and though the game received
12:16rave reviews from critics, it flopped commercially.
12:19And that was because Eternal Darkness was a GameCube exclusive and remains trapped on that
12:23console.
12:24It's never been played or embraced by the wider gaming contingent, no matter that it did the
12:28meta before anyone even knew what that word meant.
12:30Rarely has any horror game so brilliantly toyed with the player's firmly cemented notion
12:35of reality.
12:36And releasing 20 years ago as it did, it was massively ahead of the curve.
12:417.
12:41The Dark Project
12:43Now, stealth mechanics are so common in video games these days that it's easy to take them
12:47for granted.
12:48But before Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, Splinter Cell, and Assassin's Creed, there was Thief
12:52The Dark Project.
12:54Released in early 1998, the first-person adventure game pioneered the stealth genre with its intense
12:59emphasis on avoiding detection by both sight and sound, with sophisticated, for the time,
13:04AI systems creating dynamic cat-and-mouse scenarios.
13:07Though the visuals have obviously aged over the last quarter-century, mechanically Thief
13:12held up incredibly well.
13:13The smart AI and incredible level design combine to make stealth challenging yet intuitive.
13:18Its two immediate sequels also released to strong acclaim, building on the original's
13:23surprise success.
13:24Nobody's going to tell you that Thief is anything but a beloved game, but only by those who know
13:29about it.
13:30Because to an entire generation of gamers reared on Assassin's Creed and such, Thief
13:34is just ancient history, a quaint footnote no matter that it actually served as the progenitor
13:38for basically all modern stealth games.
13:41Back in 1998, there was absolutely nothing like Thief, and without it, video games would
13:45look very different today indeed.
13:47Number 6, Alien Resurrection.
13:49At the time of its original 2000 release, Alien Resurrection was largely dismissed as yet
13:54another video game adaptation cynically cashing in on a major movie license.
13:58Yet the PS1-exclusive title was actually one of the first games to utilize a twin-stick control
14:03scheme, with the dual-shot controller's analog sticks being used to move and aim at the same
14:07time, which was a majorly revolutionary concept for its era.
14:11Hilariously, the control scheme was actually considered frustrating and awkward upon release.
14:15Her now infamous GameSpot review even called the controls almost unplayably difficult.
14:20Yet barely a year after Alien Resurrection's release, twin-stick shooters were popularized
14:24by the likes of Halo Combat Evolved, which forever changed how first-person shooters were played
14:29on consoles, while also taking much of the credit for the innovation.
14:32Alien Resurrection is certainly a pretty flawed game, I mean, it is super difficult, and the graphics were
14:37pretty wonky even at launch, but it was absolutely instrumental in ushering in an FPS game feel that's persisted ever
14:43since.
14:44Number 5. Blinx the Time Sweeper
14:46Let's pour one out for old Blinx the Time Sweeper, eh? An early-action platformer for the original
14:51Xbox which was initially conceived as the platform's furry-faced mascot, basically being Microsoft's
14:57answer to Mario or Sonic. Yet Blinx, while receiving broadly positive reviews upon release,
15:02failed to make a dent commercially, before a similarly-received sequel planted the final
15:06nail in the IP's coffin. And though the game's controls were understandably criticized,
15:11Blinx was absolutely revolutionary in introducing the ability for players to manipulate time,
15:16reversing it, slowing it down, speeding it up, and freezing it entirely. This is a mechanic that's
15:20considerably more commonplace nowadays in video games, and per the more complex architecture of
15:24modern gaming hardware, basically something that we actually take for granted. But back in 2002,
15:30it represented a major technological breakthrough, with the rewind feature achieved by having the
15:34Xbox continuously record gameplay onto its 8GB hard drive, allowing it to then be freely and
15:39comprehensively manipulated. Now, the time-altering gimmick enjoyed far more mainstream success with
15:44the likes of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, which released the next year, which while being a
15:48far better game overall, wasn't nearly as nuanced or complex as Blinx due to the technical limitations
15:54of other platforms that it released on. Number 4, TimeSplitters 2. Oh man, TimeSplitters 2, what a
16:00game. There's an entire generation of gamers who remember rushing home from school to play this
16:05masterful multiplayer first-person shooter with their friends for hours and hours on end. And
16:10though the series sadly never became a wider breakout hit, it remains much loved by basically
16:15anyone who did play it. Developed by Free Radical Design, primarily ex-Rare employees who worked on the
16:21innovative GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, TimeSplitters 2 was a tectonic leap from the basic but enjoyable
16:27first game. Beyond its playful cinematic campaign, the real meat of TimeSplitters 2's gameplay was its
16:32mesmerizing multiplayer suite, which took the already amazing multiplayer of GoldenEye and
16:36injected it with a weapons-grade dose of steroids. With more than 120 wild and wacky characters to
16:42choose from, it's easy to see this game as a predecessor to the glut of hero shooters that we
16:47have today, focused on players being able to express themselves through their colorful avatar.
16:51And then there was the expansive array of multiplayer modes, from the basic deathmatch and capture the
16:55flag offerings all the way to the legendary virus mode, where one player must infect all others with
17:00the disease tag style to end the game. Throw in a bevy of challenge modes and meaningful unlockables,
17:06and it's clear that TimeSplitters 2 paved the way for the modern shooter as it is today,
17:10even if it is difficult to imagine any contemporary multiplayer first-person shooter offering so much
17:14content in a base package. Nowadays, most of these characters would be carved out and sold off to
17:19players through DLC and microtransactions. 3. System Shock 2
17:23The original 1994 System Shock was a hugely influential first-person shooter, yet its 1999 sequel
17:29somehow delivered an even more pivotal and tide-changing entry into the genre. You see,
17:35System Shock 2 was an envelope-pushing hybrid of FPS and RPG, presenting players with a bevy of
17:40customization options which were virtually unheard of in the genre at the time. While most FPS games
17:45of the era were single-mindedly centered on shooting enemies, System Shock 2 allowed players to fine-tune
17:51their characters' abilities and weapons however they wished, introducing more meaningful progression into a
17:55genre that typically stopped at handing you just a bigger and better gun. Sadly, like its predecessor,
18:00the sequel flopped commercially, despite enthusiastically positive reviews. Yet it
18:05nevertheless had a huge influence upon the FPS, with games like Deus Ex clearly borrowing from its
18:10winning feat of genre fusion. These days, RPG-esque customization is commonplace in an FPS game,
18:15and that all goes back to System Shock 2. 2. The Getaway
18:19Today, 2002's The Getaway is largely remembered as a decent but very flawed GTA clone, which rather
18:26uncharitably ignores the game's own very distinct breakthroughs. You see, The Getaway was delayed over
18:30two years due to Team Soho's decision to photorealistically recreate large areas of London,
18:35and in the team's defense, it remains one of the most impressively grounded open worlds in any video
18:40game to this day. While the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games got around the technical limitations by
18:45splitting their worlds into several separate locations, The Getaway continuously streamed the
18:50surrounding environment to the player as they moved around it, giving the impression that they
18:53were playing in a teeming, actually alive sandbox. Despite its Guy Ritchie-esque crime caper plot,
18:59The Getaway was thoroughly concerned with gritty realism, opting for a minimalist HUD in which players
19:04were guided to their next objective by their car's taillights, and a character's low health was only
19:08indicated to them by limping or bleeding on screen. Moving characters around was also slow and clunky in a
19:14manner kind of not too dissimilar to Red Dead Redemption 2, a fact that frustrated many expecting
19:19a more fast-paced, arcadey romp in the vein of GTA. But looking back at it now, what a game.
19:241. Jurassic Park Trespasser Even defenders of 1998's Jurassic
19:29Park Trespasser will admit to you that it's not a great game, but it is nevertheless far from being
19:35just another lazy movie tie-in. In fact, it was a massively ambitious title and usually ahead of its time.
19:40The PC-exclusive title was built around using a proprietary game engine that broke new ground
19:45for the genre, delivering complex and expansive environments like fields full of trees by
19:50continually rendering new geometric and texture data to the player, not unlike the Getaway streaming
19:54utility. Trespasser also used an innovative imposter rendering technique, whereby objects were visualized
20:00as 2D sprites until the player got sufficiently close to them, at which point they then morphed into
20:053D objects. Furthermore, Trespasser boasted state-of-the-art physics, namely the implementation
20:10of a ragdoll mechanic that was years before mainstream gaming dared to touch it, and complex
20:15AI which drove both the dinosaur's behavior and movements. Despite scarcely being known by players
20:20at large these days, Trespasser has been cited as influencing some of the biggest and most successful
20:25games ever made, from the likes of Halo Combat of Old to Far Cry, Doom 3, and even Half-Life
20:302.
20:30It was ultimately a game undone by its own runaway ambition. PCs of the era struggled to run it
20:36properly, and the rest of the game couldn't even begin to live up to its engineering ingenuity. Yet,
20:41it absolutely deserves a snug spot as a necessary precursor to much of modern AAA gaming.