u/Jaccblacc203

I had this thought for a while. I've seen many beloved games that removed license music whenever it gets a rerelease 10 years later, like GTA IV and Sonic 3's tracks that were composed by Michael Jackson. Is it possible to pay the label company to have a permanent use of license music without paying or renewing a contract for future rereleases?

https://preview.redd.it/b83gc1920j1h1.png?width=2736&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa51e99a5234bdd2ca960a06f06e6b29fa4c5485

Gameplay

Playing a lot of retro 90's/early 2000's third person shooter games like Tomb Raider and Max Payne lately made me question myself: "What was the first game to use an over the shoulder camera?" It's a camera style that would later became the standard for third person shooters. People credit Resident Evil 4 (2004) for popularizing it, but it wasn't the first game to use it. The ones that were released before RE4 that I know of are Splinter Cell (2002) and Manhunt (2003).

I dug deeper and found games like Fade to Black (1995), WinBack (1999), Army Men: World War - Final Front (2001), and HeadHunter (2001). Fade to Black isn't exactly what we think of when it comes to an over the shoulder camera, it's more like over the head. WinBack is close, but not really. Army Men and HeadHunter on the other hand, especially the latter, use what we'd consider a modern over the shoulder aiming camera.

Still, knowing the insane amount of games released during the 80's and 90's and how experimental they were, even the most obscure game could've done it first. It's hard to track down the actual first game to use a specific genre or camera style. Devs from back in those days just did whatever they wanted with how games played and controlled because there were no standards to follow. It was like the Wild West.

However, I managed to find what might be the EARLIEST game to use this camera, and that is Robocop 3D for DOS, released in 1991 (1992 in North America), developed by Digital Image Design. This game actually came out two years before the movie it's based on.

What's interesting is that it uses multiple camera angles that you can switch between, like first person, a camera behind his legs for some reason, and one that's clearly over the shoulder. You change them by pressing F1, F2, and F3.

You move using directional keys instead of WASD like most DOS games back in the day, and shoot by pressing the space key. It takes a while to move around, and you have to stop and aim at enemies before shooting. It's very interesting and honestly ahead of its time, especially with the way it lets you switch camera perspectives.

Again, it's hard to say which game truly did it first, but this one rarely gets brought up whenever I search about the topic, so I wanted to share it here to preserve this piece of gaming history.