Other examples:
- Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Herzog Zwei
- Dune (PC)
- Dance Dance Revolution
My list of games that changed everything.
- Pong - uh of course
- Pac man - made gaming mainstream
- Super Mario Bros. - without question the most important, most revolutionary game in the history of our medium and I doubt anything will every top it. It changed game design forever. It controlled better than anything before. Perhaps it didnt invent the side scroller or the platformer but it set the template that is still being followed today. Just look at the games before Mario and the ones after, everything changed. Its also the main reason our generation is so gamer crazy.
- The Legend of Zelda - an action adventure game with an open world, woah. Uses of items for combat and puzzles. A save feature?! Did for action adventure what Mario did for platformers.
- Tetris - the puzzle game to end all puzzle games, well it started them but its still the best.
- Dragon Warrior - the father of all JRPGs.
- John Madden Football - changed the what we expected from a sports game, true full simulation. And created an insane cult.
- Street Fighter 2 - practically invented the 2D fighter.
- Doom - not the first FPS but the one that put the genre on the map. The one that set all standards. The one that still is better than crap that this genre has become over the years. It also is part of the mature game explosion that started in the early 90s.
- Resident Evil - the game that started the cinematic gameplay revolution. For the first time ever it actually felt like you were the part of a movie. Full voice acting, cinematic camera angles, haunting music, crazy jump scares. It of course started a parade of survival horror clones.
- Super Mario 64 - You can move mario in a 3D space. For every single gamer the first time you played this game is etched in your memory. It was one of the most mind blowing moments in game history.
- Legend of Zelda OoT - Once again did for action adventure what mario 64 did for platformers. Lock on targetting, the way the camera works, and general 3D combat has been copied by almost every 3D action game.
- FFVII - changed JRPGs forever for better or worse. It introduced JRPGs to the masses but also turned them into giant cinematic epics which is a bad thing for some.
- Virtua Fighter - created the 3D fighter.
- Gran Turismo - started a car simulation revolution. Now racing was to be very realistic and not arcadey.
- Half-Life - Created the cinematic FPS that is basically the standard of today.
- Halo 2 - matchmaking, woah. And console online games were never the same again.
- GTA 3 - Set the standards of all open world sanbox games and made video game hugely popular to all.
- Wii Sports - casual crap for all! At least it started with a good game. Motion craze is dying though.
- Angry Birds - sucks having to put this but you cant ignore the craziness that is going on with IOS games and this game is being played by more kids than any Nintendo game now.
- WoW - yeah everquest was first but it wasnt until WoW changed the genre that it started the gigantic MMO craze.
And I am sure I am missing some PC games that I dont care about.
Dvader said:And I am sure I am missing some PC games that I dont care about.
- Minesweeper - Messing up stats about how many people are gamers for over 2 decades.
Metroid- it was already mentioned, but this is the game that really started the exploration type genre in video games-my personal favorite type of game to play. Without this game, would we had the Castlevania games (the good ones, at least), Arkham series or any of those incredible indie games from last gen? Metroid Prime and Super Metroid did it better, way better, but the original started it all.
I think I would also throw Plants vs. Zombies in there. Although it started as a little throw-away, casual game for PC and Mac, when it was released to the App Stores, it quickly gave everyone playing Angry Birds on their mobile devices something else to play. This "something" happened to be a Tower Defense game with incredible depth, compared to one that has you flinging birds at crap as --ITS-- main gameplay element. In my eyes it was the first baby steps a lot of casuals took towards being Gamers!
phantom_leo said:I think I would also throw Plants vs. Zombies in there. Although it started as a little throw-away, casual game for PC and Mac, when it was released to the App Stores, it quickly gave everyone playing Angry Birds on their mobile devices something else to play. This "something" happened to be a Tower Defense game with incredible depth, compared to one that has you flinging birds at crap as --ITS-- main gameplay element. In my eyes it was the first baby steps a lot of casuals took towards being Gamers!
I love it.
It also was the only time (many times over) when a game was the topic of conversation with a non-gamer friend of mine
Archangel3371 said:E.T. for the Atari 2600.
'Nuff said.
Very true! Landfills were NEVER the same again!
One thing to keep in mind when talking about JRPGs in the US: Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System came out about a year before Dragon Warrior on the NES! Phantasy Star was popular but didn't have the marketing campaign Dragon Warrior had behind IT. I'm sure you all know about the free copy that came with Nintendo Power subscriptions, right? That prolly put DW into the hands of a lot more fledgling gamers than Phantasy Star, despite the year's lead time. It's often cited as being the first (DW), but it wasn't!
phantom_leo said:One thing to keep in mind when talking about JRPGs in the US: Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System came out about a year before Dragon Warrior on the NES! Phantasy Star was popular but didn't have the marketing campaign Dragon Warrior had behind IT. I'm sure you all know about the free copy that came with Nintendo Power subscriptions, right? That prolly put DW into the hands of a lot more fledgling gamers than Phantasy Star, despite the year's lead time. It's often cited as being the first (DW), but it wasn't!
But didnt Dragon Quest come out first? It doesnt matter when in what region the game comes out in its which game influenced the others.
No. Not at all! These are games that had unique ideas or innovations, that stood apart from the crowd and did something so dramatically different, they affected pretty much everything else that came out after them! Thet were either pioneers into new frontiers or were soooo good they became the yardstick against everything else was measured!