Most Influential Games (in your opinions)

[oliveira8]

Half-Life 1 executed the genre into a whole new level, unlike Quake it seamlessly intergrated action and puzzles sequences. Halo basically took gunplay into a whole new level.

Doom definitely popularized the genre to the mainstream audience, but I can't say the game was particurly innovated or revolutionary. Don't get me wrong though, I love Doom.

Before Doom the only FPS's were Wolfenstein 3D(made one year before think by the same company as Doom) or if you want Maze War. And also Doom if not wrong introduced Multiplayer.

 

[Fraught]

Can I ask, how in the pink moon is Sonic the Hedgehog influencing?

 

[oliveira8]

Can I ask, how in the pink moon is Sonic the Hedgehog influencing?

Sonic the Hedgehog influenced the Sonic Team making bad Sonic games years after its release.

 

[veloper]

1 Doom -> FPS genre
2 Dune 2 -> RTS
3 Rogue -> CRPG
4 Street fighter -> beat em ups
5 civilization -> 4-X and similar TBS genres

honorable mentions for declined genres (therefore not influential enough):
Pitfall -> platformers
King's Quest -> adventure games

 

[oliveira8]

age of empires
Total war
Arcanum
i hate to say it but world of warcaft

While I can see the Total War series important in the RTS business for making RTS and TB go hand in hand. I gotta disagree with Age of Empires. Dune 2/C&C/Warcraft came before AoE and established the RTS genre.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I can't believe how far down this topic I had to go to see GTA3. Not the best GTA but definitely one of THE most influential games of all time.

Also, Phantasy Star 1.
I don't think enough people realize that PS1 spawned a whole 'nother kind of RPG. Their dungeon diving was revolutionary at the time. Probably the best Master System game.

 

[veloper]

I can't believe how far down this topic I had to go to see GTA3. Not the best GTA but definitely one of THE most influential games of all time.

Really? How many GTA clones can you list?

 

[oliveira8]

age of empires
Total war
Arcanum
i hate to say it but world of warcaft

While I can see the Total War series important in the RTS business for making RTS and TB go hand in hand. I gotta disagree with Age of Empires. Dune 2/C&C/Warcraft came before AoE and established the RTS genre.

because....

In the case of Dune 2 it came 5 years before AoE1, C&C and Warcraft 2 years before. If not wrong AoE was the first RTS to do historical battles, but not the most influential.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

How has it gotten this far with nobody (even JC Denton) not mentioning Deus Ex? That was one of the most influential games of the hybrid generations (FPS/RPG) along with system shock 2.

 

[Simriel]

Half Life 2.

 

[jebussaves88]

By genre, my picks are as thus:
FPS
Wolfenstein 3D- Pioneered the genre
Doom- popularized it
Goldeneye- made it possible for consoles
Half Life- Introduced decent plots
Unreal Tournament- Made online play what it is today.
Halo- perfected and popularised console shooters. Intergrated vehicular combat seemlessly
Half Life 2- Perfected physics
Far Cry- not just pretty, but gave an air of freedom and non-linearity which can be seen in many shooters today, and is seriously underrated.
F.E.A.R- to my mind, boasts the finest AI in any game atm.

Action Adventure
Super Mario Bros- popularised and perfected the 2d Platformer
Sonic the Hedgehog- gave hope to other developers that it was possible to compete with Mario
Super Mario 64- added a dimension seemlessly
Grand Theft Auto III- not the first 3d sandbox game (Rockstars earlier work Body Harvest can be thanked for that, and provided the basis for GTA III's sandbox) but the one that made the genre what it is.
Fahrenheit- love them or loathe them, this gave birth to quicktime events.
Metal Gear- pioneered stealth (later Metal gear Solid games could be said to merely be more complex versions of this predecessor)
Max Payne- brought us the best bullet time feature, possibly only contended by FEAR on PC
Tomb Raider- Released around the same time as Super Mario 64, this did many things for many genres.

Racing
Sega Rally Championship- before this game, 3D racing was a joke. Introduced drifting and manual transmission
Moto GP: URT- finally changed the running joke that was motorcycle sims.
Mario Kart- followed by many clones, this pioneered racing for those who didn't give two flying fucks about ground clearance, or even know what that meant.
Gran Turismo- was for those who did no what ground clearance was.

Fighting
Street Fighter II- for obvious reasons. (I would include MK, but that and this just go hand in hand)
Soul Calibur- sped things up, and was possibly one of the most tactile and complex fighting games, which is yet to be surpassed by its sequels.
Dead or Alive 2- Introduced multi-tiered arenas and a perfected counter system (and tits! *sigh*)

 

[oliveira8]

Half-Life 1 executed the genre into a whole new level, unlike Quake it seamlessly intergrated action and puzzles sequences. Halo basically took gunplay into a whole new level.

Doom definitely popularized the genre to the mainstream audience, but I can't say the game was particurly innovated or revolutionary. Don't get me wrong though, I love Doom.

Before Doom the only FPS's were Wolfenstein 3D(made one year before think by the same company as Doom) or if you want Maze War. And also Doom if not wrong introduced Multiplayer.

Catacomb 3D was creaed before Doom, I've never played Doom's multiplayer and I've just recently discovered MazeWar {The actual first first-person shooter}

Right forgot about Catacomb 3D if not wrong it was also made by id software? The same company that made Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

 

[spyrewolf]

hmm so many to choose from, Im gonna choose 1 from each category that influenced me into the genre

FPS - doom/heretic
Platformer - mario
stratergy - dune II
action/Adventure - Another world/out of this world, (nod to flashback also).
Pure adventure - monkey island series.
Fighting - SF2
Driving - test drive (years old c64 ver lol)
racing - gran turismo
other (mainly for artistic merits) - SotC, ICO, katamari damacy
multiplayer - netwarz

i'd say these are well respected titles for various reason, one way or another

 

[Valiance]

For RTS I would like to suggest Dune 2. It was the first successfull RTS made. Then maybe C&C series or Warcraft for defining the genre.

Yeah, was about to mention that. I actually "ctrl-f" 'd dune 2 to make sure that someone already mentioned it.

Perhaps SupCom for revolutionizing RTS again, and Duke Nukem 3D for being the first FPS game (as far as I know) where your character actually had a personality and talked, reacted, interacted with items (drink from a water fountain, use a toilet, blow holes in walls, etc.), and brought some humor to an otherwise 'srs biz' genre.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

Okay, since not one person has put forward a proper argument for why Half-Life should be included I guess I'll have to do it myself.

Half-Life was the first game where story was truly implemented into the game world which you are exploring. For the first time ever in first-person shooter games there was a real story which was told through the events which occur in the game. You are never taken out of Gordon Freeeman's perspective, making everything that happens to him that much more immersive. Remember being ambushed by the guards? Waking up half asleep as they drag you into the trash compactor and take away all your weapons?

Half-Life was also one of the first FPS games to feature characters within the games that weren't your enemies and were often needed to complete puzzles and to help you at certain points throughout the game.

Through the use of scripted events, Half-Life introduced a gameplay mechanic which has been implemented in nearly every action game since. Whilst Halo is an undeniably influential game for popularising FPS's on consoles, Half-Life is the game which nearly all of the best FPS games of the past ten years have based their set-pieces on. Call Of Duty took Half-Life's set-pieces and ramped them up to 11. Dead Space used the anonymous player routine. Nearly every game that uses set-pieces based upon events unfolding around the player within gameplay has been influenced by Half-Life. So which games does that include?

Halo 1-3
Gears Of War 1&2
Call Of Duty
Quake 4
Soldier Of Fortune
Red Faction
Dead Space

...and so on and so on. Also, it came out before System Shock 2 and that game used a very different, but still very effective, means of storytelling.

 

[Vlane]

1 Doom -> FPS genre
2 Dune 2 -> RTS
3 Rogue -> CRPG
4 Street fighter -> beat em ups
5 civilization -> 4-X and similar TBS genres

honorable mentions for declined genres (therefore not influential enough):
Pitfall -> platformers
King's Quest -> adventure games

Why Street Fighter? That game was terrible.

 

[Lunars Shadow]

Battletoads. Need I say more? Just kidding.

The Final Fantasy Series brought a new depth to games, a depth that no other games developer had ever dreamed of doing.

My favourite series has been the Shenmue series, Shenmue completely defined what I truly wanted in a game. I wish they would hurry and make the third though.

 

[Fraught]

Can I ask, how in the pink moon is Sonic the Hedgehog influencing?

Sonic the Hedgehog influenced the Sonic Team making bad Sonic games years after its release.

Oh. Now I see it too.

Anyway, I think the most influential games are mainly Super Mario Bros., because without it, playformers wouldn't be what they are today, and consoles would've died (or atleast Zelda would be the biggest Nintendo mascot then)

 

[oliveira8]

Okay, since not one person has put forward a proper argument for why Half-Life should be included I guess I'll have to do it myself.

Half-Life was the first game where story was truly implemented into the game world which you are exploring. For the first time ever in first-person shooter games there was a real story which was told through the events which occur in the game. You are never taken out of Gordon Freeeman's perspective, making everything that happens to him that much more immersive. Remember being ambushed by the guards? Waking up half asleep as they drag you into the trash compactor and take away all your weapons?

Half-Life was also one of the first FPS games to feature characters within the games that weren't your enemies and were often needed to complete puzzles and to help you at certain points throughout the game.

Through the use of scripted events, Half-Life introduced a gameplay mechanic which has been implemented in nearly every action game since. Whilst Halo is an undeniably influential game for popularising FPS's on consoles, Half-Life is the game which nearly all of the best FPS games of the past ten years have based their set-pieces on. Call Of Duty took Half-Life's set-pieces and ramped them up to 11. Dead Space used the anonymous player routine. Nearly every game that uses set-pieces based upon events unfolding around the player within gameplay has been influenced by Half-Life. So which games does that include?

Halo 1-3
Gears Of War 1&2
Call Of Duty
Quake 4
Soldier Of Fortune
Red Faction
Dead Space

...and so on and so on. Also, it came out before System Shock 2 and that game used a very different, but still very effective, means of storytelling.

Being a Half Life fanboy myself I still think Doom is the most influential FPS. It brought proper 3D for the FPS(in that time this is), support for custom maps, the WAD was the first SDK to be released for the public and multiplayer! After Doom only Half Life can match Doom's influence in the FPS genre.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Computer Space. First "video game" ever.