10 FORGOTTEN FRANCHISE-STARTERS

Everything has to start somewhere... even this sentence, which began with the word "everything". And also ended with it. 

However, some of the biggest game franchises in the world are now almost unrecognisable from the games which started them. Here are ten such examples.

​That's right, kids: it's another exciting Digitiser listicle! 

MARIO BROS

The debut of Luigi. The debut of Mario hitting enemies from below to upend them onto their backs, and punching blocks (or one block in particular anyway). And the debut of the iconic, green, turtle-disgorging, pipes. These are just some of the elements introduced in the first game Mario ever properly headlined - which, lest we forget, was released in 1983, initially in arcades only.

In every other respect, it shares few similarities with his later games. Compare this single-screen nonsense to, say, Super Mario Odyssey, and your trousers will literally fall off, and blow away down the street!

"Come back, my trousers!" 

"What's going on here, sir?"

​"I'm sorry. officer, but my trousers fell off when I compared Mario Bros. to super Mario Odyssey - and now they've blown away!"

"Could you come with me, sir?"

Interestingly, the game wasn't a hit upon its initial release - which coincided with the 1983 games industry crash. It was ported to home systems - the Apple II, Atari's assorted consoles, the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and, of course, the NES - but it wasn't until Super Mario Bros. that the character really became an icon, and his future trajectory was locked in.

You know: locked in like a bunch of late-night pub-drunks.

STREET FIGHTER

Pretty much everyone played Street Fighter 2. Hardly anybody played Street Fighter. In fact, so obscure was Street Fighter that Street Fighter 2 wasn't even considered a sequel by most people, who somehow ignored the very obvious Roman numerals in the title. 

The structure of the original Street Fighter was similar, superficially, to its successor; playing through as Ryu, you had to defeat a sequence of enemies in best-of-three bouts. There were special moves, and six-button controls (though deluxe versions featured two pressure-sensitive attack buttons, which responded to how hard you hit them). In the two-player game, fights took place between Ryu and Ken - with their identical move sets ensuring an evenly-matched "ruckus".

There were also a few enemies who later recurred in the franchise, but in almost every other respect, Street Fighter is now exposed to be exactly what it was; a massive nude (a faltering, tentative, less-good version of Street Fighter 2)!

DUKE NUKEM

Before Duke Nukem 3D there was Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem 2; a pair of MS-DOS platform shoot 'em ups, which made little impression on anybody. Beyond the main character, and an assortment of weaponry, they bore almost no resemblance to their 3D descendent, with none of the over-the-top humour and now-outdated misogyny.

Duke Nukem: the Roy "Chubby" Brown of video gaming. But less racist.

METAL GEAR

The original Metal Gear, released long before things got Solid - solid as a rock! - was a top-down stealth shooter for the MSX2.

​Though bearing little graphical resemblance to the more recent entries in the series, there are many elements which carried over to Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation; the exclamation marks above the enemies' heads when they detect you, the slightly peculiar plot, the weird character names, and moments where the characters break the fourth wall and address the player directly...

It was, of course, later ported to the NES - as well as the Commodore 64. Betcha didn't know that, you knowledge-less freaks.

RED DEAD REVOLVER

Released in 2004 for the PS2 and Xbox, Red Dead Revolver now feels like the predecessor to Red Dead Redemption... albeit only in sporadic bursts.

The main thing lacking was massive, open-world scale of its sequel, being divided into a more traditional, linear, video game structure, with levels (in several of which you controlled other characters) and boss fights. It was relatively well-received, but not to the degree that anybody was crying out for a sequel. Consequently: not everybody realised that Redemption even was a sequel. 

Check out my cool cowboy song:

Cowboys, cowboys,
Taking Indian land by force!
Why are you even called cowboys,
When you ride around on a horse?
​Yee-hah!

CALL OF DUTY

Released in 2003, the biggest innovation of Call of Duty was the clever it handled your computer-controlled teammates, and the scale of the battles. Unlike later instalments in the series, it was much more arcade-y in its approach, but its big, set-piece moments - spread across three campaigns which focused on British, American and Soviet forces - are the most memorable element. For the time, the number of enemies it featured on screen was unprecedented.

While it certainly strived for the epic scale that the series would become known for, what it lacked were the later ham-fisted attempts to wring emotion out of its combat. Here you're just dropped into the fight, and everyone you meet is fairly featureless cannon-fodder.

"Oh, boo-hoo... isn't war sad?"

Not here it isn't. It's well wicked, guy!

FALLOUT

1997's Fallout clearly links to its later, more visually grand, sequels, being set in an alternate, mid-20th Century post-apocalypse. You played a Vault-dweller - just like the later games - and could recruit team members, tackle quests and side-quests in multiple ways, while radiation and mutants were a constant cause for concern. 

Obviously, its isometric viewpoint is starkly old-school in comparison to the lush, 3D, open world of the later games, but you don't need a geneticist to tell you that the series' DNA is all-too apparent.

FIFA INTERNATIONAL SOCCER

Developed on the Mega Drive under the name EA Soccer, before Electronic Arts acquired the rights to use the FIFA brand for the rest of forever, FIFA International Soccer bears little resemblance to the later games in the series. Apart from being, y'know, a football game.

There was no 3D here, but an isometric viewpoint, which made it markedly different to most other football games. Furthermore, the license didn't extend to local teams and players. Even the international teams featured players with made-up names (such as Ken Trifle, Ben-Bob Danube, and Trenchington Campus). Foreshadowing what a cash cow the series was to become for EA, FIFA International Soccer was the best selling game of 1993, shifting half a million copies - 200,000 more than EA had estimated. 

Get this: did you know that "soccer" is actually a British word? It's a contraction of the term "association football". We should all be thankful they didn't shorten it to "asso".

GRAND THEFT AUTO

You wouldn't have expected 1997's Grand Theft Auto to spawn one of the biggest-selling game franchise of all time, but the free-roaming nature of the ultra-violent gameplay - here depicted from above - was irresistible. It was only a step towards the unbridled freedom the series would go on to offer, still being tied to such old-fashioned conceits as lives and levels, but it pointed the way like a helpful local.

The graphics were basic, even for the time, but the game's sound - it boasted multiple radio stations, just like its successors - was singled out by reviewers for being well good, brah.

BATTLEFIELD 1942

2002's Battlefield 1942 - at least, visually - was a long way from the games which followed it, but it multiplayer focus, and co-operative, team-based, gameplay, were a signpost towards the future of online shooters. Notably, whereas later instalments in the series have strived for some sort of vague realism, 1942 was unashamedly bold and tongue-in-cheek. 

No plots here, sir!

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