Over at Games Radar they have a huge list of gaming firsts, from the first game to get an AO rating to the first real boss. Everything in gaming had to begin somewhere, and they sure found a lot - they list a total of 84 gaming firsts. It’s really interesting to take a look back at the roots of so many aspects of gaming (and even some more recent firsts), and to see how much has changed over the years.

I’ve selected some of my favorites after the jump, but there are a lot of other fascinating firsts in the full list.

#03 So which game first introduced us to the concept of end of level bosses? That’ll be the 1980 arcade game, Phoenix, in which players had to shoot their way through a mothership’s defences to get a clear shot at a tentacled alien. Score a single hit on the extra-terrestrial and further progression was secured.

#14 When it was founded in 1979 by four disgruntled Atari employees, Activision became the first third-party developer and publisher.

#20 In 1988 Electronic Arts became the first major publisher to release an ‘online’ multiplayer game. Dan Bunten’s Modem Wars allowed two players to sit at their own computers and play over a telephone line. Fascinating stuff? You can read more from Dan Bunten right here.

#21 Wii is the first Nintendo console to be sold outside of Japan that doesn’t feature the company’s name as part of the trademark.

#29 Thought Mass Effect’s galaxy was big? That’s nothing. Back in 1984 space trading masterpiece Elite gave players eight galaxies (each containing a staggering 256 planets) to explore and is widely regarded as the first ever ‘open-ended’ game.

#40 Nintendo mascot Mario made his first appearance in the 1981 arcade classic, Donkey Kong. However, the moustachioed plumber was known as Jumpman in the game. Mario’s green-dungareed sibling, Luigi, made his debut in 1983’s Mario Bros.

#58 The 1996 Phillips CD-i version of popular shagging manual, The Joy of Sex, was the first game to receive the ESRB’s Adults Only rating.

#81 You might think that bagging gaming ‘achievements’ is a new-gen concept, but not so. You could easily argue that Activision first introduced the idea back in 1980, when it would award special patches (the ones you sew on clothes) to gamers that achieved some magnificent score. To receive their tangible achievement prize, players would have to take a photo of the TV screen showing their score and send it to Activision.

There are a lot of other great and interesting ones over at Games Radar (it was diffucult to keep my list of favorites slimmed down, and I excluded a lot of good ones), and it’s a well done and well researched article so make sure to check it out for all 84.