Assassin's Creed, Portal, Mirror's Edge, Braid, Far Cry 2, and Little Big Planet are all innovative and they're great steps in their own right.
Assassin's Creed was truly amazing. Sure it was a bit repetitive and the guy who voiced Altair was horrible, but it made a ton of great steps in the right direction. The free-running gameplay and the control scheme were near perfect and the animations were the best I've ever seen. The combat was beautiful, but not difficult. The three cities in the game and the kingdom that connected them worked so well with the whole free-running thing and the cities were so accurately created. I still play Assassin's creed since I love running on the rooftops, making massive jumps, killing a peasant or two, and climbing up to a high place to do a leap of faith. The replayability depends entirely on the player and for me, it's nearly unlimited.
Portal was magnificently innovative. Using portals to solve mind boggling and extremely unique puzzles is something that I don't think anyone had thought of before (except the guys who made the game that it was based off of, too bad i forget the name of that game).
Mirrors Edge was extremely flawed and didn't have much replay value, but the way it handled the free running was genius. It was definitely a step in the right direction, now all the need to do is work on making the levels more varied and the combat less clunky and painfully awkward.
Braid is a game that I still play every once in a while. The way it uses the classic rewind and fast forward time mechanic to solve increasingly difficult puzzles is pretty innovative. I mean we've all played at least a few games in which the main protagonist has the ability to rewind, stop, and fast forward time, but Braid was the first game to use that to solve puzzles.
Now, many of you may be wondering why in purpleplots name did I mention Far Cry 2. One of the reasons it's on my list is because of the way it handles the classic FPS. It's like the original Far Cry, but with better graphics (unless you're on the 360 lol) and a more realistic-ish health system, but that's not the main reason why it's on my list. The main reason why I think it's innovative is the map editor. Far Cry 2 has the most comprehensive and complete map editor for any console game and I think that's pretty damn special. If you get the 360 version and go into the map section, you'll see a map with a space station above mars and a bunch of shuttles and rovers on the surface, you'll see Helms Deep, there's a Jurassic Park map, there's one extremely disorienting 4d map, there's the Eiffel tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, an alien space ship, an amusement park with a roller coaster and a water slide, there's venice, etc...
Little Big planet is the most unique platformer I've ever even heard about. It's got unlimited replayability because the editing tools are so extensive and the community is so well done and easy to navigate. Add that with it's undeniable charm and you've got one great game and very innovative game.
Also, I think Crysis is worth mentioning here. The graphics are the best in any videogame ever and the way that the graphics directly influence the open world gameplay is something special. So yes, I do think games are starting to get extremely innovative; however, for every innovative and great game that comes out, there's at least 5 crappy generic "samey" ones.
Assassin's Creed was truly amazing. Sure it was a bit repetitive and the guy who voiced Altair was horrible, but it made a ton of great steps in the right direction. The free-running gameplay and the control scheme were near perfect and the animations were the best I've ever seen. The combat was beautiful, but not difficult. The three cities in the game and the kingdom that connected them worked so well with the whole free-running thing and the cities were so accurately created. I still play Assassin's creed since I love running on the rooftops, making massive jumps, killing a peasant or two, and climbing up to a high place to do a leap of faith. The replayability depends entirely on the player and for me, it's nearly unlimited.
Portal was magnificently innovative. Using portals to solve mind boggling and extremely unique puzzles is something that I don't think anyone had thought of before (except the guys who made the game that it was based off of, too bad i forget the name of that game).
Mirrors Edge was extremely flawed and didn't have much replay value, but the way it handled the free running was genius. It was definitely a step in the right direction, now all the need to do is work on making the levels more varied and the combat less clunky and painfully awkward.
Braid is a game that I still play every once in a while. The way it uses the classic rewind and fast forward time mechanic to solve increasingly difficult puzzles is pretty innovative. I mean we've all played at least a few games in which the main protagonist has the ability to rewind, stop, and fast forward time, but Braid was the first game to use that to solve puzzles.
Now, many of you may be wondering why in purpleplots name did I mention Far Cry 2. One of the reasons it's on my list is because of the way it handles the classic FPS. It's like the original Far Cry, but with better graphics (unless you're on the 360 lol) and a more realistic-ish health system, but that's not the main reason why it's on my list. The main reason why I think it's innovative is the map editor. Far Cry 2 has the most comprehensive and complete map editor for any console game and I think that's pretty damn special. If you get the 360 version and go into the map section, you'll see a map with a space station above mars and a bunch of shuttles and rovers on the surface, you'll see Helms Deep, there's a Jurassic Park map, there's one extremely disorienting 4d map, there's the Eiffel tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, an alien space ship, an amusement park with a roller coaster and a water slide, there's venice, etc...
Little Big planet is the most unique platformer I've ever even heard about. It's got unlimited replayability because the editing tools are so extensive and the community is so well done and easy to navigate. Add that with it's undeniable charm and you've got one great game and very innovative game.
Also, I think Crysis is worth mentioning here. The graphics are the best in any videogame ever and the way that the graphics directly influence the open world gameplay is something special. So yes, I do think games are starting to get extremely innovative; however, for every innovative and great game that comes out, there's at least 5 crappy generic "samey" ones.
