Ahead of its time, before its time, right on time - The Bear and Badger

Facewon

So Bill Simmons/Grantland/The Ringer is the king of overthinking lists/rankings/categories etc for sport and pop culture.

One of my favs of his categories when discussing best basketball players of all time and where they rank is asking the question were they ahead of their time, before their time or right on time.

Been thinking randomly just now of a similar thing with games.

The mutliplayer of project snowblind randomly popped into my head, which got me remembering splinter cell's very excellent asymmetrical MP. Feel like it was a bit before it's time. I want to say early days of 360/live? Or was it first Xbox. Either way, thought it was a very impressive bit of content that possibly wasn't played as much as it should have been. Mayber.

I recall project snowblind having an Mp component. I'd imagine it was one of many many fpses from the era that had online Mp tacked on.

Anyhoo, games that because of circumstances, technical or social, or whatever that came at the right time or too late or too soon. In your opinion etc.

(The Ringer also do overrated, underrated or properly rated. But fuck me, that'd be a mess.)

davyK

Ahead of its time:

The Atari 2600 game download service.

https://kotaku.com/you-could-actually-download-atari-2600-games-on-an-ata-5822897

This service was offered by a company called CVC which would go on to become AOL.

Speedhaak

I feel like this entire exercise is applicable to the Dreamcast's online infrastructure. So many good titles lost to the woes of the dial up era. Power Stone, PSO, Sega Rally, SMB...

Aside from this though I would say maybe The Divisions 'Survival' expansion was pretty far head of it's time and hasn't really been emulated to this day (maybe games like Hunt:Showdown come close?)

davyK

Yeah - the DC just arrived too soon. DVD playback didn't help either.

But my counter argument to that is that DC offered the arcade at home which isn't what the mainstream wanted.

mk64

Ahead of their time

Dreamcast
MAG
N64 DD

Bang on time
Tetris

poprock

I think Xbox One was ahead of its time, with the idea of a console being the all-in-one entertainment box. It was never going to work while it relied on cable TV (dying industry, focused only on the US, etc). Fast-forward to the days of streaming services and it would have been a great idea. Now we’ve passed that point too - smart TVs are good enough to run their own native apps and you don’t need a set-top box at all. But there was a window there where the Xbox One could have dominated the living room - unfortunately it arrived too early and bombed instead.

LivDiv

The Virtual Boy and pretty much any other 90s VR tech.
Technology just wasn't good enough yet to deliver a good experience.

davyK

Heh. I've played Crossy Road using my Amazon Stick.

Sorcery.

poprock

Rez was ahead of its time. It needed hi-def VR for its final form.

davyK

Black Box was Ride on Time.

LivDiv

Those 90s videophones that they used to give away as a consolation prize on The Generation Game.
Every week "Yeah but who are they gonna call on it apart from each other".

davyK

Remember that Amstrad phone that let you email and play Spectrum games?

Those Psion personal devices were all pretty much anachronistic. They were interesting things to play with though. Not sure they were ever practical.

davyK

After its time was the Atari 7800. A rather spiffing console that Tramiel sat on for years before letting it limp out to face the rampaging NES.

stonechalice

Halo 3.

Halo infinite still can't get close to what Halo 3 offered and that was nearly fifteen years ago.

Yossarian

What did Halo 3 offer that Infinite can’t aside from Forge and Co-op, both of which we know are coming soon to Infinite?

Verecocha

Speedhaak wrote:

Aside from this though I would say maybe The Divisions 'Survival' expansion was pretty far head of it's time and hasn't really been emulated to this day (maybe games like Hunt:Showdown come close?)

What an absolutely awesome bit of MP survival was. Absolutely loved it.

Kow

How would a basketball player be considered ahead of his time?

Moot_Geeza

Yossarian wrote:

What did Halo 3 offer that Infinite can’t aside from Forge and Co-op, both of which we know are coming soon to Infinite?

The aqueduct?

mistercrayon

Their skills don’t fit with current paradigms and is either unplayable or skilled in a way that doesn’t make sense and becomes under-utilised.

LivDiv

Second Life.
Too early for people, interacting through digital media was considerably less popular back then and a game of that type would be limited to PCs and laptops.
Being early wasn't its only issue but a big one.

We are starting to see some of the possibilities it offered appear on other platforms.
Things like Fortnite's events, user made items in Roblox amongst others, even games like GTA Online have features that would feel at home in Second Life.
Of course Metaverse is coming and as far as I can tell wi be basically Second Life all over again brand deals and all. Major difference will be censored sex and rampant racism.

Honourable mention to that PlayStation Home thing as well, although that was really just a Second Life attempt.

poprock

VR is still ahead of its time. Oculus, Vive, HoloLens, the lot. It won’t properly come of age until you can do it without a headset. It’s a niche/gamer activity until then.

And because of that, shit like Second Life and Meta’s metaverse won’t go mainstream until then either - because it only makes sense in VR.

Facewon

Kow wrote:

How would a basketball player be considered ahead of his time?

mistercrayon wrote:

Their skills don’t fit with current paradigms and is either unplayable or skilled in a way that doesn’t make sense and becomes under-utilised.

Pretty much. Changes to rules over the years have had a big effect. 3 point line is the obvious one. Rules around physicality over the years have impacted how important small/skilled vs big/strong has been valued.

Facewon

Also, DC and dial up is a good shout.

As is MAG.

Division survival mode is an interesting one. It's freakin great. Unsure if it's ahead of its time though? Surely with div 2 still going they could just bring it back?

Kow

The N-Gage, trying to do something that the hardware wasn't yet capable of really.

digi

poprock wrote:

I think Xbox One was ahead of its time, with the idea of a console being the all-in-one entertainment box. It was never going to work while it relied on cable TV (dying industry, focused only on the US, etc). Fast-forward to the days of streaming services and it would have been a great idea. Now we’ve passed that point too - smart TVs are good enough to run their own native apps and you don’t need a set-top box at all. But there was a window there where the Xbox One could have dominated the living room - unfortunately it arrived too early and bombed instead.

Na, behind the times imo.

Everyone had Netflix, Amazon, nowtv, YouTube apps on there PS3+360 and no one wanted tv.
(Except maybe a few people here).

Speedhaak

Facewon wrote:

Unsure if it's ahead of its time though? Surely with div 2 still going they could just bring it back?

I dunno man, think it was pretty far out there for 2015/2016 - Marrying rogue-like features with asymmetrical multiplayer and battle royal type objectives. Like Verecocha said, it was fucking awesome - shame no one really played it!

digi

Speedhaak wrote:

Facewon wrote:

Unsure if it's ahead of its time though? Surely with div 2 still going they could just bring it back?

I dunno man, think it was pretty far out there for 2015/2016 - Marrying rogue-like features with asymmetrical multiplayer and battle royal type objectives. Like Verecocha said, it was fucking awesome - shame no one really played it!

I funking loved it.

afgavinstan

Ahead of its time - DC

Right on time - Wii

Before its time - PSP, kinda.

poprock

PSP really did feel like something stolen from the future, when it first launched. Mostly just because of how gorgeous the screen was.

davyK

poprock wrote:

PSP really did feel like something stolen from the future, when it first launched. Mostly just because of how gorgeous the screen was.

Atari Lynx was even more ahead of its time.

Roujin

Ahead of its time: Street Fighter 2

Right on time: Street Fighter 4

After its time: Street Fighter 5

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