[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohan:_Immortal_Sovereigns]Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns[/url] - a timeless jewel of an RTS. It introduced several new concepts and mechanics still pretty much unique in the genre today. It was freaking awesome to play when it first came out and it still is.

Well Tetris an Colums are the birth of Casual Games.

Jagged Alliance 2 X-Com was before but JA2 was the Masterpice nothing comes close, still today many try but fail to make something like that

Hack I don´t think I have to say something about this.

Thinking about it, there was another simulator of an organised crime, something like proto-Mafia. Action-based, but with some adventure elements, free roaming on the streets, getting the money and shopping for ammo.
Crime Does Not Pay (1991).

And there is a game called Sea Rogue (1992). Fun thing, it was so ahead of its time, that there is still nothing like it made to this day, to my knowledge. =)

How so? Looks like a variation on Space Rogue and similar to Ports of Call.

Birthright: gorgons alliance.

The idea of the game is that you have an overworked strategic military game with heroes. The heroes can join combat, or you can send them on adventures through dungeons. You can use loot found in the dungeons in the big battles and/or on more adventures.

The game didn't pull it off too well. But I'm still waiting for a game just like it to come around some day.


Hardwar
This one came out, nobody liked it, and then it disappeared. Being ever frugal, I picked it up for a penny just as it was leaving the shelves. I played and loved that game. It's an open world flight simulator that takes place on Titan. The evil corporations left a bunch of people on Titan when mining operations stopped being profitable, so you're stuck on the moon until you can find your way off - which is the ultimate goal.

After several years, a bunch of other people played and loved it. Suddenly, pirated copies of the game were everywhere. It really caught on fire. But the developer was already long bankrupt from its failed project. One of the original programmers started talking to fans and he made patches so the game ran with better resolutions and a few bugs were fixed.

It's still the best open world flight sim i ever played.
This and empire Earth are the most blown away I've ever been while playing a game. They were such leaps and pulled everything off perfectly.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002) (PC version)
Tons and tons of great adventure and fun. The lightsaber combat system is still considered the best one out there. There are four different stances (I think it's three without cheats) whom have their own style and combat. To spice things up, there is a simple cheats which will turn the lightsaber into a flaming butter knife which cuts everyone (except the player) like butter. The game is vast as well. Many missions (both without and with lightsaber) and a nice story and some references to the original trioligy and minor jests. If you play this, do not be afraid of using cheats. What I'm trying to convey here is that this truly gem of a game becomes a shiny diamond when cheats are on. Also, there is a FX mod which makes it HD/resolution friendly.
It was indeed ahead of its time.

Not sure if they are comparable. Space Rogue is a space sim with some adventure elements. And Port of Call is business sim with some mini-games. Memorable, but not unique. Sea Rogue, on other hand, is one-of-kind game, with no direct analogs.

Wasteland 1, this game is able to overwritten itself. Therefore, not one single game would de the same than your fist experience.

Again, how was it different or ahead of its time? Just curious.

Imagine a game in a fantasy desert world that became that way due to sorcerer kings/queens abusing their power and destroying the environment where you start out as gladiatorial slaves and then escape helping various villages of former slaves join together to fight the army. Now imagine having multiple solutions to some scenarios and once you escaped and got the desert you had a huge open world. I just described Dark Sun which came out in the early 1990s.. Oh you could also transfer your characters to the sequel which was interesting but was very bugged/glitched Couldn't beat the last battle as a kid of the game but besides Planescape: Torment never had nearly as much fun in a D and D RPG computer game. Also Dark Sun was probably the most amazing WRPG i played til the Fallouts came out. (I never played the original wasteland which to be honest is probably the most ahead of its time WRPG from waht i read about it though)

Addendum didn't see a post already mentioned Dark Sun and made the point even more clearly how ahead of its time it was.


Imagine a point and click and rpg hybrid series where depending on your class you have different ways to solve puzzles with various places to explore. Each game taking place in a different fantasy setting- first relative generic medieval setting, then fantasy Middle Eastern, then Egyptian/African Setting, then a horror fantasy setting, THEN a Greek/Roman mythological sting. And being able to use your save to save your character for the next game in the series. Just described Quest for Glory series...(Games from like 1989 to i think 1995) I think this game series in some way is still ahead of the present time, and besides the excellent free Heroine's Quest and the decent Quest for Infamy, no games have came anywhere close to the QFG games that i have played combining RPG and point and click adventures. Such a great forumula of choosing tte generic fantasy classes of thief, mages, and fighters, but then having in the same scenario having each one having different ways to solve puzzles or encounters. Like let's say a door, if you were a fighter bash it open, thief picks the lock, wizard uses an open spell, etc.



(note the only reason why i haven't bought these on gog cause i have most of them still on disc)

About importable characters:
Wizardry II(1982) have supported this feature.
However, the game is more like an DLC of Wizardry I, by today's definition.

The Bard's Tale(1985) could import characters from Wizardry and/or Ultima III.

Well, it's different by being a unique, one-of-kind game. Offer it to anyone, and you can bet, what that person never played a game such as this.
As for being ahead of it's time, I got a feeling what gaming technology from 1992 struggled to keep up with the game's ideas.

Turbo Esprit on the Spectrum, A full city to drive around with working traffic laws and the ability to run over innocent pedestrians many years before the release of GTA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CIEHfVIEMM

My vote for game ahead of its time would be Mean Streets by Access Software released in 1989/1990.

Moby Games Link

I had a version on 3/12 floppy disk for the PC and was astounded at the animation in the cut-scenes whilst talking to characters but, more importantly, SPEECH! On a floppy-disk game! Yes the specch came through the PC's internal speaker so wasn't the best but it blew my 10 year old mind at the time. Why there wasn't a slew of games that followed it using the "RealSound" system I'll never know.

Anyway, it hooked me on the whole Tex Murphy series and I'm still a fan now. The interface is clunky from a modern perspective which is why Access Software remade it (effectively) in Overseer.

Despite my love for this game, I never did complete it. 10 year old me didn't have the patience it seemed.

Because RealSound(1988) come to the market one year after the AdLib sound card(1987).
King's Quest IV(1988) have supported MIDI, so game developers just follow the AdLib/Sound Blaster/MIDI route.

Before RealSound, Castle Wolfenstein(1981) have had digitized speech without sound card.

Crime Wave(1990) is my favorite RealSound game.