12 Games That Defined Their Genres

[Lyndraco]

I love all Roberta Williams games. I still own all the King's Quest and Quest for Glory games on the original floppies (both 5" and 3.5"). Whether or not they made an impact on anyone else, those games are what got me into computer gaming. Which also makes me feel kinda old...

 

[pumpkinetics]

As an extra point of contention to calling Guitar Hero the "defining" music game, the Escapist's reasoning is that Guitar Hero was the first to include the player in music playing. I find this laughable; rhythm games have been doing this since at least 1997 to my knowledge, (and perhaps 1996, sorry for my uninformedness regarding Parrappa the Rapper). Even Guitar Hero's immediate inspiration Guitar Freaks made the correct playing of the song dependent on its sound, and that dates back to 1998. A more correct reason to include Guitar Hero would be "it spawned the great Music Game bubble of 2007-2009."

On the more opinionated side of things, to put Guitar Hero over Dance Dance Revolution is like putting Halo over Doom. Doom and DDR took an established idea and made it accessible. Halo and Guitar Hero brought it forth to the great unwashed.

 

[Xanthious]

Was kinda expecting to see Everquest or maybe Ultima Online on the list.

 

[Guest_Star]

I was honestly expecting Grand Theft Auto to be on this list. Don't know what to think now that it's not there. meh.

We specifically only wanted to highlight specific genres in our genre wheel. While Grand Theft Auto 3 was definitely a game that spawned many imitators, it is a mixture of different genres like driving, brawler, shooter and RPG. Open world or sandbox games aren't a genre but more of a quality that some games have.

Also, odds are that the Ultima-series would be the answer here too.

 

[Acalla]

Ahem... Wolfenstein 3D did it. Not Doom. Doom had the multiplayer, so you could say it was the start of FPS Multiplayer. But Wolfenstein 3D was the "put you inside a person's head".

We're differentiating from the first true one and the one that *defined* the genre. It's why we chose, say, Street Fighter 2 over Street fighter.

But wasn't Doom basically a slight expansion on Wolfenstein?
I personally don't see any huge difference in them, expecially not in the whole "inside the dudes head" thing, that was already done in Wolfenstein.

Although then again listing the first true ones which created the genres in the first place would probably be a hell of a lot boring.
Like putting down a bunch of very early games that noone has even heard of.

I think that Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss came out right before Wolfenstein 3D and allowed you to look up and down. Personally, if you want to talk about shooters, then Wolfenstein is the way to go, but if you are talking about putting the player in the character's eyes, then Ultima Underworld beat id software to the punch.

I know that Ultima did not define the genre, but I just wanted to put a little love out there for Looking Glass.

 

[Acalla]

First off, great list and article! After reading through some of the comments here, I would love to see the OP could do a follow up article to include a few more games for different genres that they missed. Games like Wing Commander defined space sims for a long time. Sandbox games are defined by GTA3 (not sure if I remember a game like GTA3 before it). And, while not a favorite of mine anymore, what about driving and flight sim games? I remember setting up a boom box around my computer and playing cassette tapes (to simulate the radio) to Test Drive way back in the day. Or Microsoft Flight Simulator.. well, that was pretty boring.. never mind

 

[Bobbovski]

Nostalgia =3

 

[Kestril]

I think they missed one:
Shining Force

Shining force was an Adventure, TBS/RPG cross that defined the Fire Emblem type of play we see today. With a color cast of characters, it encouraged the player to not only get to know their teammates, but to venture out and find new ones. On my first playthough, I found that talking to npcs in hopes of picking up another character increased my understanding of the fictional world on a whole, and added a sense of gravity to the battles and events taking place.

All in all, it's a great game, here's some clips if you have had no Idea what I was talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1MCLMRKklQ

 

[oppp7]

Is artillery something forgotten, or is it one of the smaller genres that you ignored?

As for everything else, I've pretty much only played SMB and Doom. I feel like a failure...

Also, wasn't Maze War the original FPS?

 

[Grey_Focks]

A couple of other genres might need defining: The scrolling shooter, the MMO (as differentiated from the RPG), the JRPG (which I see as completely different in design from Western RPGs), and the Action-Adventure game. (Which has become a pretty standard, unique, and easily-identified game type, despite being an amalgam of multiple other genres)

Eh, to be fair, those are all essentially sub-genres of the main ones on the list. MMOs and JRPGs especially, as both of those originally were heavily influenced by the Ultima games, and the games that it inspired. Scrolling shooter is just that, a shooter, though to be fair they aren't very comparable to "Doom", so I could kinda see that being it's own "full" genre, and as for action-adventure, well you said it yourself, it's a genre comprised of other genres, and it also got most of it's influence from RPGs and the like.

EDIT- only games on the list I've played are Resident Evil and X-Com, but I'm currently looking for a way to run Dune 2 on my system...then again, it's probably gonna be more trouble than it's worth. Eh, may as well stick to SC2, as it really looks like a modern version of it.

 

[repeating integers]

The fanboy part of me is sad not to see Homeworld on that list, as the originator of 3D RTS games or something. But that's basically a genre within a genre which didn't receive much attention after Homeworld, so the non-fanboy part of myself is now chastising the fanboy part for its own supreme idiocy.

And no, I'm not schizophrenic.

Nor am I.

Also: I feel bad, the only game of those I've played is Tetris. 'Tis what comes of being young, I guess. Even those considered "classics" by most of the people I know aren't nearly as old as the ones on that list.

 

[veloper]

Pretty decent homework Escapist.

 

[Jenx]

Ultima? Seriously? Like, not Ultima 4 or 5, but the first one? Come on now...

 

[omicron1]

A couple of other genres might need defining: The scrolling shooter, the MMO (as differentiated from the RPG), the JRPG (which I see as completely different in design from Western RPGs), and the Action-Adventure game. (Which has become a pretty standard, unique, and easily-identified game type, despite being an amalgam of multiple other genres)

Eh, to be fair, those are all essentially sub-genres of the main ones on the list. MMOs and JRPGs especially, as both of those originally were heavily influenced by the Ultima games, and the games that it inspired. Scrolling shooter is just that, a shooter, though to be fair they aren't very comparable to "Doom", so I could kinda see that being it's own "full" genre, and as for action-adventure, well you said it yourself, it's a genre comprised of other genres, and it also got most of it's influence from RPGs and the like.

EDIT- only games on the list I've played are Resident Evil and X-Com, but I'm currently looking for a way to run Dune 2 on my system...then again, it's probably gonna be more trouble than it's worth. Eh, may as well stick to SC2, as it really looks like a modern version of it.

The way I see it, they're about as dissimilar to the "other" genres on the list as the various strategy genres are from one another - especially tactical vs. turn-based strategy. So if X-com can have its own genre, why not Ultima Online or Final Fantasy VI?

 

[AmzRigh]

As an extra point of contention to calling Guitar Hero the "defining" music game, the Escapist's reasoning is that Guitar Hero was the first to include the player in music playing. I find this laughable; rhythm games have been doing this since at least 1997 to my knowledge, (and perhaps 1996, sorry for my uninformedness regarding Parrappa the Rapper). Even Guitar Hero's immediate inspiration Guitar Freaks made the correct playing of the song dependent on its sound, and that dates back to 1998. A more correct reason to include Guitar Hero would be "it spawned the great Music Game bubble of 2007-2009."

Ah, you beat me to it. I was going to point out this very thing. But I suppose I can still expand on it.

Beatmania was, I'm pretty sure, Konami's first music game. And, just as with so many of its successors, the music was influenced by the player's performance.

In addition to Guitar Freaks, Konami also released drummania and Keyboardmania, all of which were able to be linked to each other and played as a group. Sadly, Keyboardmania was a rather shortlived series, but Guitar Freaks and drummania continue to be playable in tandem.

Now, the inclusion of Guitar Hero in the article, I won't argue at all. It made the music genre popular in the US (thanks in no small part to employing popular music, rather than originals), and for that, it deserves recognition. But really, about all the innovation it did was add two buttons and a whammy bar to Guitar Freaks.

 

[dead_but_smiling]

Hmm, how to put it - I am disappoint, Escapist - X-Com was a mere continuation of the great ideas and execution of Laser Squad!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad

 

[kannibus]

RIP Origin. We will never again fly as a space fighter pilot in another Wing Commander

Preach it brother.

Yup, as expected not a single flight sim on the list. Hell, I could point all the way back to Microsoft Flight Sim 3 which... Jesus I don't think that even took up a single floppy disk...

 

[Grey_Focks]

A couple of other genres might need defining: The scrolling shooter, the MMO (as differentiated from the RPG), the JRPG (which I see as completely different in design from Western RPGs), and the Action-Adventure game. (Which has become a pretty standard, unique, and easily-identified game type, despite being an amalgam of multiple other genres)

Eh, to be fair, those are all essentially sub-genres of the main ones on the list. MMOs and JRPGs especially, as both of those originally were heavily influenced by the Ultima games, and the games that it inspired. Scrolling shooter is just that, a shooter, though to be fair they aren't very comparable to "Doom", so I could kinda see that being it's own "full" genre, and as for action-adventure, well you said it yourself, it's a genre comprised of other genres, and it also got most of it's influence from RPGs and the like.

EDIT- only games on the list I've played are Resident Evil and X-Com, but I'm currently looking for a way to run Dune 2 on my system...then again, it's probably gonna be more trouble than it's worth. Eh, may as well stick to SC2, as it really looks like a modern version of it.

The way I see it, they're about as dissimilar to the "other" genres on the list as the various strategy genres are from one another - especially tactical vs. turn-based strategy. So if X-com can have its own genre, why not Ultima Online or Final Fantasy VI?

Oh, I think you may have missed my point. I'm not arguing that they are all the same, I'm arguing that they all drew influences from the same games. Without Ultima, WRPGs, JRPGs, and MMORPGs would all probably be very different than the ones we know of today.

 

[ElectroJosh]

Funny, as big RPG fan, the only game on the list I haven't played is the first Ultima (I have played others in the series though).

The list is very good on the whole although, like most things, there is some disagreement I am pretty happy with it.

I agree completely with Doom beating Wolf3d. I owned both but Doom was, for many people, their first fps - or at least the first they cared about and it was the one that spawned many, many clones.

 

[Weaver]

I would have picked Wolfenstein over Doom. Also, battlezone was not the originator of the FPS, technically Maze War in 1974 was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_War .

I was very happy to see X-Com up there. In fact the first thing that popped into my head when I started reading was "I sure hope X-Com appears in here!"