Sporting goofy wax teeth, implausible floppy shoes, and a flamboyant orange ruff, Newton was the very picture of levity. Moreover, he had teased his already sizeable bouffant into a monstrous sphere — a hirsutely self-conscious parody of his own early theory on light particles.
When the murmuring finally died down, Newton executed an expert backflip, and then demonstrated several incipient gags which seemed to anticipate the double-take, spit-take, and pratfall respectively — then one that seemed to anticipate all three at once. Indeed, a full two centuries before vaudeville, Newton had mastered most of the comic techniques of the twentieth century, not the least of which was an overblown and high-pitched Nazi accent. In no time the room was in a state of pandemonium, and there appeared to be no end in sight.
At several points during his fantastical demonstrations, Newton paused to carefully remove an egg from his mouth.
Wearing the various hats of author, statesman, printer, inventor, diplomat and scientist, Benjamin Franklin embodied the very spirit of early America — but in the grand vision that fueled these pursuits, he remained thoroughly unfettered to the constraints of the age: We know from some early notebooks that no less than years before Karl Benz completed his plans for a gasoline engine, the young Franklin was formulating a detailed system of hitch-hiking etiquette, the echoes of which are with us to this day.
Franklin achieved similar successes with natural gas and hot water, for a utilities hat-trick. He insisted that at the highest levels music and mathematics were intertwined, and he once told Niehls Bohr that late at night, while working out difficult quadratic equations, he felt an urge to dance. More and more he devoted himself to this passion, frequenting nightclubs and eventually purchasing a shiny tenor saxophone.
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When the sax broke Einstein turned to the familiar tools of mathematics and quantum physics, which he applied to contemporary music theory with typical Einsleinian gusto. In time he would predict nearly every musical development of the next century, including Mama Cass, Abba, and the Eurythmics. Many of his critics insisted that his predictions were purely theoretical, but time and time again the pop charts bear him out.
His earliest efforts in this direction led him to the premature discovery of rockabilly, and then to the home Carl Perkins, who was only eleven at the time and building a tree fort. It is worth noting that in addition to his many Top 40 calculations Einstein ventured other speculations.
Some of his more complicated calculations even postulated the probable existence of a sixth and seventh Jackson. There are yet among us today certain individuals whose vision extends beyond the present, often into the very future itself. I am thinking again of Cher, as well as of various other vocalists. Such occurences are extremely rare, however, and thus far the only known instance of such an event involves an obscure Nostradamus quatrain on Ted Koppel.
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What the game pioneered: The combination of fog-of-war, micromanagement of units, and resource gathering. It's hard to imagine a gaming world without RTS games. The idea of exploring a map, collecting resources, and building an army to destroy your enemy's base seems so standard nowadays. It all came from here, making Dune II one of the most influential games of all time.
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No Warcraft 3 means no Dota! It basically means esports today wouldn't exist without Dune II. It's a bit hard to play the original Dune II as it's not really available. You can try playing it in browser at Archive. Sounds like something that would be in the works today but Populous: The Beginning brought RTS and god-game together in a very innovative way. What the game brought: Combining a god-game with an RTS was one thing, having units that didn't just fall of the edge of things as volcanoes rose out of the earth or ramps made and unmade across cliffs in a real-time multiplayer game was another.
Thinking back, it's amazing such a game was able to be made in the first place, let alone in the 90s. The success of Populous: The Beginning didn't go unnoticed. You can find the game now available on GOG and you can play the game in HD with a still active multiplayer community through popre. Myst was the best selling game of all time throughout the 90s. Survival games are all the rage nowadays. Combine these two points decades apart and you get Biosys, an amazingly realistic looking game that's a first-person point-and-click puzzle game where you have to survive against the elements while also controlling the environment itself as you solve a mystery.
Well this was and it was a total commercial failure. What did this game do that's so special: Amazing graphics, survival gameplay, and the ability to modify weather and change your environment. A glance at this game and it already looks way beyond but it is cheating a little bit. All the visuals are pre-rendered, so it's not exactly Crysis, but gameplay-wise you had a full suite of survival mechanics including hunger, thirst, energy, and health; you could forage for food and hunt; and once you gained access to the computers you could change the weather like how much rain and airflow there was, which actually affected the plants and animals in the environments you explored.
All this on top of the fact that it's a puzzle game and kind of a murder mystery centred around genetic experiments, this was just a game in another league. So why does nobody know about this game? Well it cost way too much to make and it was never published in the US, only in Europe, probably because of budget limitations. Despite its commercial failure, it's still a technological achievement and having played it recently I can say it's a great game.
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Biosys is probably the hardest game to get running on this list. Because it's so unknown it doesn't have a community to support it. You'll need to either buy an old CD from somewhere or get the files off Archive. Oblivion was talking about 'radiant AI' and NPCs having schedules, here's a point-and-click first-person murder mystery that was entirely based around timelines and people going about their daily lives. What did this game do to set itself apart: Real-time gameplay in the truest sense as every character in the game followed their own schedule and events happened regardless of your presence.
Before Deus Ex made you actually care about reaching your objective on time; before Hitman had you missing your kill window by being late, The Last Express experimented with time in gameplay like never before, opening up multiple paths, choices, and missed opportunities all wrapped up in a murder mystery story set on a train. Everything was voice acted and rotoscoped too, another rare thing for the 90s.
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As this is a time-based game and I mentioned rotoscoping, you might not be surprised that this is also from Jordan Mechner, the creator of the first game on this list, Prince of Persia. He seems to be all about using time as part of gameplay mechanics and his work influenced many games down the line that wanted to use time as well.
It's generally a fun game though it can get a bit convoluted or draggy at times, though walking around the train eavesdropping on conversations can be rather captivating. You can find this game on Steam or GOG nowadays. A first-person shooter with a sci-fi setting and a story.
Sounds like one of the most popular game genres today, right? This is where it all started. Deus Ex and Bioshock are called spiritual successors to System Shock.