History of "Gods Eye View" 3D Game Perspective?

Milo_Mindbender asks: "A lot of games today feature a 2D or 3D 'instant replay' system that lets you watch the game you just played on a map or from a third person 3D view. Some multi-player games also let you watch live games in play this way. I'm trying make a time-line on the history of this feature and was hoping the Slashdot crowd could help me out with names, dates and other info on games that had replay features. I think the Army SIMNET tank simulator was the first to have this (called the 'flying carpet') sometime in the late '80s early '90s. References to games with replay are harder to find because it usually wasn't advertised. I'd particularly like to find the first game with user controlled 2D and 3D game replay/spectating and the first replay systems with automatic camera controls creating cinematic 'wide world of sports' quality real-time movies of the game."

Re:First racing game with the feature...?

[DaveJay]

Oops, looked through the linked site above and found that Papyrus's own release "Indycar Racing", released in 1993, also appears to have had the god-view replay feature. Never owned the game, myself.

Re:Stunts

[Dephex Twin]

That game was great! Yes, it definitely had a special replay view where you could see it from all different angles (I think the computer decided the angles). I remember that was half the fun, watching the replays.

PLATO IV

[sakusha]

I vaguely recall that the old 2D RPG "Empire" on the PLATO IV system had a god's eye view, and that was back in the early 1970s. Don't remember if it had replay though. That surely must have been the first god's eye view, it was probably the first online gaming system ever. We used to call it the PLAY-TO system because of all the great games.

I have a vague recollection of some early Apple ][ sidescroller game that had a replay, also some early Amiga game. Maybe someone else will remember..

Re:Stunts

[Liberator1]

Stunts (a.k.a. 4-D Sports Driving in Europe) came out in 1990, according to MobyGames [mobygames.com]. I had a ton of fun with this game. I remember the following camera options during replay. For each one, you could select which of the two cars to follow:

• Helicopter (follows behind and way above selected car)
• Track cameras (view transfers from camera to camera along the track, each one following the selected car as it passes by)
• In car (same view as during gameplay)
• Choose your angle (similar to the helicopter, but you choose the angle relative to the car. You could even pause and change the angle in the middle of the replay)