Most innovative ideas/controls/etc in an arcade game

AtariShag

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Most innovative ideas/controls/etc in an arcade game

Arcades have been a great source for innovative ideas over the years but I have been wondering what ideas we've seen implemented in arcades - not just in control or graphics technologies but in mechanics - you think are the most innovative. I'm doing some research in this area and I've run into a few fuzzy patches.

One fuzzy patch is about Atari's Pursuit from 1975. Was it the first flight combat game? Was it a first person style game? I know that honor usually goes to Night Driver but it's hard to say because the pictures of Pursuit make it appear to be a possible 1st-person game but I can't find better pics or video of it, never had the pleasure of finding one in person.

I guess to start off you have games like Gotcha introducing the maze idea; Clean Sweep introducing the dot "eating" idea; Gran Track 10 started the race car genre, Qwak the light-gun genre; GunFight the first game to take advantage of a microprocessor which would improve games quite a bit. I, Robot the first to go full-polygon, etc.

Feel free to add on your thoughts it's a subject I've found most interesting lately
 
Missile command holds my honor as the most influential controls. The precusor to a standard PC mouse could be seen thru the trackball.

Beyond your games mentioned, i'd throw these 4 important games into the mix.

1. Dragons lair. Laser disc game which would signal programmers to the power cd-based games would have in gaming.
2. Tetris. Most influential puzzle game released ever.
3. Tron. Experiment with visual amazement thru the cabinet. Also signified the success a game could have when released along side its big-screen counterpart.
4. Star Wars. Signified how important a game's movie-tie in could have on sales. Released several years after the movie, the game proved that cross-marketing media sources could work. Its hard to think of a good blockbuster movie which has not been made into a game now.
 
Those are some great games that did change things.

I've noticed that movie blockbuster based games have fared better in arcades then they have on consoles, which I think is because of the arcade focus on quick action instead of trying to retell the movie's story.

Games like Subs and Darius seem to be fine examples of multi-screen games. That's always been something that can be done better in the arcade as well.
 
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1985) - Many consider it the father of modern fighting games. Head-to-head combat, multiple unique opponents and locations, multiple moves including projectile (joystick/button combinations), etc. It most likely had an influence on Capcom creating SF1 which led to SFII. The rest is history.
 
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1985) - Many consider it the father of modern fighting games. Head-to-head combat, multiple unique opponents and locations, multiple moves including projectile (joystick/button combinations), etc. It most likely had an influence on Capcom creating SF1 which led to SFII. The rest is history.

I see your Yie Ar Kung-Fu and raise you Karate Champ (1984). I don't follow the fighter scene, but I've always heard that Karate Champ was the father of fighting games.


I always thought it would be interesting to have interviews with the people who designed the controls at Atari. Lots of talk about the game designers, but I've never even seen a name mentioned about the controls or even a group talk about the controls.
 
I've always liked games with interesting mechanics and controls:

Sea Wolf - Periscope
Battlezone - Tank controls and periscope viewport
Rip Cord - D-ring parachute trigger
Thunderblade - One of the first games to have forced feedback
Lunar Lander - Thruster control
Spy Hunter - Multi-button steering yoke
Subroc - 3-D viewport
Stompin - Floor pad controls
Paperboy - Handlebar controls
Gun Fight / Boot Hill - Pistol grip controls
Punch Out / Arm Wrestling - dual independant screens

BTW, what was the first game to have a trackball?
 
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I see your Yie Ar Kung-Fu and raise you Karate Champ (1984). I don't follow the fighter scene, but I've always heard that Karate Champ was the father of fighting games.


I always thought it would be interesting to have interviews with the people who designed the controls at Atari. Lots of talk about the game designers, but I've never even seen a name mentioned about the controls or even a group talk about the controls.

Haha. I was going to mention Karate Champ as well. I believe it was the first to do the head-to-head martial arts combat along with the multiple move combinations done on 2 joysticks.

Though, I think Yie Ar Kung-Fu definitely took it to another level with buttons, health bars and other concepts mentioned before.

I think both made their innovative marks on the fighting genre. Karate Champ may get bonus points for being featured in the movie Bloodsport.

 
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I don't see "innovative" necessarily equaling "successful."

For example, Holosseum/Time Traveler were a very innovative idea.

Others I'd consider innovative:
Robotron 2084
Karate Champ (already mentioned)
Tempest
Marble Madness (because gameplay seemed to be directly mapped to the interface object)
Sea Wolf (already mentioned)
 
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I've always thought that XYBots was innovative in that as an over the shoulder 3D maze shooter it was (to me at least) the precursor to the first person shooter genre. Compare to Castle Wolfenstein 3D.

I guess the control itself (spinning joystick) was nothing new, but how it was used and what it led to were.
 
Yes, success doesn't have to have anything to do with it. Just looking for innovative ideas, even if they were overlooked. In that sense Sundance was a very interesting idea but in the end the execution wasn't very good. But I don't know of many games that use the controls like that did.

I did some searching and I see in the database that Sega's Heavyweight Champ from 1976 would technically be the first one-on-one fighting game but games like Karate Champ and Yie-ar Kung Fu I think introduced their own elements to set the genre in motion. I've never played YAKU, looks like a fun game though.

Thanks for pointing out Gottlieb's Exterminator, I hadn't heard of it before but one of the things I like discovering about arcades is when they tried out weird quirky ideas like that.
 
Konami's Police 911 - sensed your body motion for ducking and reloading.

Konami's Mopac Boxing - used accelerometers to register punching and sensed your body motion for ducking.
 
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