I’ve been gaming since the late 80s, starting with the BBC Micro and Amiga 500, and so seeing the development of gaming since then has been nothing short of astonishing. Lately I’ve been thinking about videogame firsts, those moments, big or small, that introduced a new gameplay or graphical element that we’d never seen before and which are now so commonplace we take them for granted. I’ll start with a few that, as far as I remember (but could be wrong!) were gaming firsts:

Destructible terrain in a 3D game - Red Faction

I know we had destructible terrain in 2D games before (I’m thinking primarily of Worms but there must be others) but it was incredible playing Red Faction for the first time and literally being able to blow holes in the environment to create new paths.

Glass shattering after being shot - Goldeneye 64

Not absolutely sure if this is the first but remember it being so cool at the time, especially on multiplayer in levels like Archives. I also remember when Timesplitters came out and the glass shattered relative to where you shot it. Amazing.

Player reflection in mirror - Duke Nukem 3D

I presume this was the first? It was wild seeing that for the first time on the C64.

Clothes getting wet - Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

I think the demo came out soon after the ps3 was released and it was such a nice touch the first time you drop into some water and he comes out with his clothes wet, even only up to the point where he was submerged.

Hopefully that will get the ball rolling for some discussion and debate on gaming firsts. I really love reminiscing about these tiny moments that just blow your mind when you see them for the first time.