contributions forgotten

for what it did wrong, but It’s easy to poke fun at Trespasser it was a game of many innovations

Physics

and Trespasser laid it on thick with the physics be solved introduced many a problem that could opposite by the power of actions with equal and to be reactions. A lot of it was glitch, plenty had for dropped, but it was definitely a trailblazer in-game physics.

open World

First-person games – in fact, most games

– weren’t open world when Trespasser came out in 1998. The ambition – the scope – was and still is impressive, and it’s one of the game’s strongest areas 20 years later. The world may be sparse, but there’s always a degree of wonder conjured by exploring the unknown.

spinning off

for all of them, We can’t claim this to be true tended to be but move tie-ins of the Nineties on the plot of a hasty cash-ins based roughly by being entirely its film. Trespasser bucked that the Jurassic Park own thing, and almost dropping name to an afterthought.

the arm

After the initial wave of virtual reality petered out, there was still an urge to let us interact with game worlds realistically. Trespasser’s arm, controlled by the player, was an attempt to increase the immersion – something being revisited in current VR games. In this dino-game, though, it was terrible.

no hud

Well before King Kong took all the plaudits for doing away with the intense levels of onscreen information, Trespasser hid all the details away in things like Anne saying aloud how many bullets are in a gun, or… well, the health meter being a heart tattoo on her chest. Sigh.

acting talent

Hollywood talent is ten-a-penny in games these days, but Trespasser knocked it out of the (Jurassic) park by getting Minnie Driver to star as player character Anne, and the first movie’s Richard ‘John Hammond’ Attenborough reprised his role. That was big news in 1998.