System Shock, running on PCs in 1994, has:
- Destructible, full-3D objects which can be pushed around
- Ramps
- Real-time security monitors
- The ability to look all the way up and all the way down with correct perspective
- Dynamic lighting that can pulsate and be toggled on and off
- Translucent doors and bridges
- Bridges
- Security
- Relatively long draw distance
- A slick physics engine that allowed things like:
* The player character being a full 12-jointed bipedal model, which moves realistically (such as your head jerking forward a bit when you stop running) and responds to external forces (like being shot in the face) without having to hardcode these things in)
* Climbing walls
* Climbing hand-over-hand on the ceiling
* Riding roller skates (with everything that implies, such as launching yourself off ramps to cross a chasm)
* Leaning in multiple directions
* Jumping
* Throwing things, with realistic physics
* Lying down
* Shooting an enemy on higher ground, and having him fall down and crush an enemy below him
* Variable gravity
* Weapon recoil
There's a ton more, so let's just say that the game did far more than pretty much every PC game of the era did, except for liquids and 16-bit colour. Now keep in mind that this came out about six months after DOOM, and could run a mere
4 MiB of RAM. You should all take your hats off take a deep bow to the programmers at LGS.
For comparison:
DOOM:
System Shock:
