If we're talking coin-ops, the first Sega game I encountered was Turbo... the sit-down version in an enclosed cabinet. 1981. Amazing game. Replaying it recently, I was struck by how ambitious it was... you go through multiple different environments... downtown cities with buildings as tall as the screen (a vertically oriented screen, no less), open fields, curving alongside the sea, through snow (with adjusted physics), over hills. Pole Position came along over a year later (perhaps the first example of Namco's unstated mission, to see whatever Sega is doing and try to best them at it a year or two later) and had smoother scaling, but nowhere near the ambitious variety of environments. Steve Hanawa, the lead programmer, said he had to be hospitalized after completing Turbo because he was so exhausted.
