Zak McKraken - first graphical point & click adventure Ultima Underworld - first 3D FPS RPG Tomb Raider - first mainstream game to use 3D acceleration
Everquest 1. 3D MMO. Sadly the genre has gone backwards in quality since then, but cannot blame EQ for that
Nup: Enchanted Scepters, 1984; the World Builder engine used to make the game was even released publicly in 1986, two years before the Zak and his Alien Mindbenders hit shop shelves. Depends what you mean by 'FPS'; Akalabeth: World of Doom was released in 1979 (but not widely distributed until 1980), 13 years before Ultima Underworld, and used a first-person view while in-dungeon. Fun fact: Akalabeth was written by Richard Garriott, and it's sometimes referred to as the original Ultima. Virtua Racing used hardware 3D acceleration in Sega's Model 1 arcade hardware in 1992; Nintendo released the Argonaut RISC Core (ARC)-based Super FX chip in 1993 to bring hardware 3D acceleration to the SNES beginning with Star Fox; the 3DO and Atari Jaguar both had hardware 3D acceleration built in (though the Jaguar's sucked, 'cos it was basically just a boring RISC processor with a few 3D-centric instructions slapped on the top). Tomb Raider didn't come out until 1996, and it required later patches to actually support hardware acceleration instead of software rendering on the PC.
I will second the nomination for Super Mario Bros., simply because of it's reputation for revitalizing the US video game industry in the '80s. SMB carried the NES across the globe more than any other game and led the gaming software sales charts for 20 years (still only second behind Wii Sports, if VGChartz is to be believed). On top of that, while it wasn't the first appearance of Mario in a video game, SMB's success led to Super Mario World, SMB3, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy and thus SMB can be held as the mainstream emergence of the most popular gaming character/series to date. And speaking of Super Mario 64... The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
While I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, the games I mentioned popularised the point and click adventure or the the 3D FPS - neither of the examples you mentioned were well known or popular, especially since Scepters was a Mac game (rare as hen's teeth) and Akalabeth was an even more esoteric Apple II game. Neither game, as the thread title suggests, moved the games industry forward. I know that, but Tomb Raider was the first mainstream PC game that I remember to have 3D acceleration, albeit through a patch and an add-on card (the Voodoo card with its delightful pass-through VGA connector ) Again, while the games you mentioned moved the arcade and console industry into 3D, it was undoubtedly Lara and her pyramidal boobies that popularised 3D acceleration on the PC.
...What? Akalabeth was one of the best-selling games of the era. It earned Garriott over $150,000 in royalties, which funded development of the Ultima series. If that isn't moving the games industry forward, I don't know what is. As for Mac games being "rare as hen's teeth," they sure as heck weren't rare in the US: the Apple market was huge. Some of the biggest names in the industry got started making games for Apple hardware: Bungie, Sierra On-Line, Strategic Simulations Inc., Westwood, Mindscape, Origin... It might be the first mainstream PC game you remember having hardware 3D acceleration support, but it wasn't the first in actuality: the patch wasn't released until mid-1997¹, to the best of my memory as someone who still owns a 3dfx Voodoo 4MB accelerator, while GLQuake came out in January that year and vQuake (exclusive support for the Rendition Vérité) in late 1996. Even that wasn't the first, but may have been the first mainstream game depending on your definition. (Oh: and you never specified "PC" in your original post. ) ¹ I can't find an accurate release date, but this mentions the patch in a review published in the March 1997 issue of PC Magazine. EDIT: Ooh, this is handy: a dated list of 3D accelerated PC games. Ignoring the first few entries 'cos they were non-mainstream demos bundled with a Matrox card and not available to purchase separately, it looks like the first mainstream 3D accelerated game for the PC was NASCAR Racing in June 1995, followed by August 1995 support for the 3D Blaster in Actua Soccer, Battle Arena Toshinden, Battlerace, Euro 96, Fatal Racing, Flight Unlimited, Hi-Octane, Magic Carpet Plus, Rebel Moon, Screamer II, Screamer Rally, and Whiplash.
D'oh! You're right of course: Manic Miner came before Jet Set Willie. 3D Ant Attack also deserves an honourable mention, I suppose, as the first isometric game. And although ELITE got there first, Mercenary created the first vector 3D adventure in 1985. Two years later came Driller, the first game to use the Freescape engine which allowed the production of full three-dimensional environments using filled polygons in which the player could move around freely, and which resulted in other classics like Dark Side, Total Eclipse, The Sphinx Jinx, Castle Master and Castle Master II: The Crypt. And Myst. Because Myst. And heck, I think Descent also deserves an honourable mention, as the game that took Doom-like 3D in a true 3D direction. I had one of those! Ah, the memories...
As does the sequel, Zombie Zombie: you had to build traps for the titular undead by moving and destroying blocks in an isometric world, making steps for them to climb and cliffs off which they would tumble. Basically a big chunk of Minecraft long before voxels were ever a thing. And yes, Mercenary was fantastic.
The more interesting question, arguably, is what games released in the past five years have moved the industry forward?
From an industry standpoint, probably stuff like Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity and Elite Dangerous and the rise of crowd-funded games. From a gameplay pov - the first batch of motion games - like stuff on the wii, kinect etc. Were they particularly good games? not really [imo], but they demonstrated that video gaming needn't be a 'sit down, veg out' affair and form a stepping stone to VR proper.
Metal Gear Solid, and particularly MGS2, caused a fad of having stealth sections shoehorned into games. It pretty much created the 3D stealth genre.
IIRC Metal Gear Solid was released first [September vs November 98 from a quick Google], but it's a Dredd vs The Raid thing as they'll both have been in development at the same time...
Thief was a good PC game, though notably in first person, but Metal Gear Solid was huge. Thief sold 500,000, MGS sold millions. I remember in 'best game of all time' lists it was always that and Goldeneye in the top 2. MGS2 was the one that created a swathe of PS2-gen games with stealth sections.
Planescape Torment - still the forerunner for me of story over everything but without breaking the game. The others around the same time were great, I still have and play the majority of the D&D licensed ones, but they couldn't quite touch what Torment did. Laser Squad - the first turn based shooter I remember and the precursor to UFO Enemy Unknown, the game which probably took up most of the time I was supposed to be studying at uni. Wing Commander - pushed accessible space games with a story. Elite is still a fond memory and a fantastic achievement but those of us who played it to death were few and far between. In contrast the Wing Commander series was played by everyone and his dog and formed a relatively happy middle ground between the action, sim and story groups.
I still have two 12MB Voodoo 2 cards in a 486 DX2 80 box. I'll have you know that I upgraded the HDD to 420 MB and it has 32 MB of RAM! I'd have to open up the box to check the exact model but it's a full length VESA card, not one of these little bods.
