#9: Jurassic Park: Tresspasser
Platform(s): PC
Year: October 28, 1998
Why Did it Change Gaming? (Physics):
While the game overall received harsh reviews from critics it had some unique features and went for high expectations, especially for its time. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, even stated it inspired Half-Life’s physics engine. The game featured no HUD which required players to look at a tattoo on the player’s chest to see health progress, conjointly containing no pre-animated characters, every animation used inverse kinematics which depicted odd enemy AI behavioral movements. Tresspasser was additionally the first game to use rag doll physics and happened to be one of the first engines to successfully portray exterior environments full of hundreds of trees not many computers could handle it at the time, causing frame-rate drops for players and reviewers. The game was even celebrated by John Carmack (co-founder of iD software) as an inspiration for Doom 3’s audio logs, earning this game a 9th spot on the list.