Top 10 most important of all time

[Hendo]

While everyone’s making lists of their favourite games, this popped into my head the other day.

 

What do you think are the 10 most important games of all time?

Not your 10 favourite, not the 10 that still stand the test of time. You might even pick games you actively hate or have never played, but the ones that have had the most impact.

 

I’ve had a few thoughts but I don’t have 10 to start off with, but I thought I better post the idea before it leaves my head.

[Rikzilla]

I'm actually planning a podcast on this subject so if it's ok I'd like to use the info from this thread.

[Hendo]

Not a problem.

[Rikzilla]

Cheers, Hendo. Appreciate it.

[AndyKurosaki]

10? Hmm, well I’ll have a start...

 

Super Mario World. One of the best platform games ever made, and certainly inspired plenty of others.

 

Doom. There’s a reason so many games were classed as ‘Doom clones’. As it’s an iconic, bloody amazing game.

 

Half-Life. Don’t think I need to say much about it, really. It’s legendary.

 

Pokemon Red/Blue. A phenomenon that pretty much took over the world, and continues to bring joy to many people. Go brought the fun to people that may not even play “regular” games. 
 

Tomb Raider. I didn’t really get into it back in the beginning, it wasn’t till the first Xbox 360 instalment that i committed to the franchise. But the original definitely had an impact. Lara was everywhere, from lads mags to Lucosade ads. She brought attention to gaming, maybe not all positive. But it’s hard to deny that she had an important part to play in raising the PlayStation playerbase.

 

Donkey Kong. I’ve never been massively into it, preferred Pac-Man myself. Still, this definitely catapulted Nintendo to becoming one of the most important companies in gaming history.

 

Anthem. I’ve never played it, I don’t intend to. But the reason I think it’s important, is that it showcases all that’s wrong with modern gaming, and that things need to change to avoid repeating its mistakes. It chased the ‘live service’ gravy train, despite the developer having no experience in that genre at all. It was crunched to buggery, with the attitude being that “BioWare magic will save it”, an arrogant attitude that proved to be completely wrong. It promised a ‘road map’ of content, then failed to deliver on it. And basically fell flat on its arse. 
It was an undeniable failure. And an important reminder of what happens when you chase a trend you know nothing about, and completely waste a talented studio.

[shinymcshine]

From the arcades:

Space Invaders

Pac Man

Donkey Kong

Defender

Star Wars (sit down cab)

Gauntlet (4 player)

Galaga

Dragons Lair

Outrun

Super Sprint (3 players)

 

Each offered a different take on the genre, and different player experience

 

It was bizarre at the back end of 80s - early 90s when things like Super Sprint started appearing in pubs*, and later Time Crisis etc. Wonder how much that contributed to the PlayStation boom and acceptance of gaming into 'cool' culture?

 

 

* There'd been video game in family rooms before, but these started moving into the main bar alongside the slotties.

 

 

 

[mfnick]

I’ll have to come back to this to fill out and after more thought but off the top (and mostly more recent stuff):

 

Half Life (narrative & atmospheric games)
Metal Gear Solid (cinematic style games)

Halo (FPS on console)

Mario 64 (3D movement and camera)

DOOM (FPS in general)

GTA 3 (open world games)
Call of Duty 4 (MP progression)

Overwatch (mainly for lootboxes. I hate this one)

PUBG (BR genre. May be too soon to call this though, may be a fad)

 

[DANGERMAN]

I'm not sure how many of them I rate personally, and obviously this isn't everything, but Space Invaders, Super Mario, Sonic, Doom, Croc (here me out with this*) Resident Evil 4, Call of Duty, Minecraft, Wii Sports, Farmville

 

Space Invaders is fairly obvious, it, along with Pac-Man, makes gaming viable, we're still conceptually playing Space Invaders today, just expanded and iterated on. I was going to put Donkey Kong instead of Mario because it creates that world, but Mario itself establishes what platformers are and sets Nintendo up, which makes Sega respond.

Sonic, and this will probably raise a few eyebrows, makes gaming cool. He became iconic in a way Mario didn't (lack of personality on Mario's part, not that he isn't popular or iconic, it's just different), that leads to Sony targeting the demographic who had aged out of the 16 bit generation

 

Doom shouldn't need an explanation, it sets pc gaming as a thing, establishes a genre, plus leads to interest in online gaming years and years before the games more famous for it.

 

Croc, now stay with me here, it came out after Mario 64, however it is the game that inspired it. The developers pitched it to Nintendo as a Yoshi game, Nintendo eventually rejected it, but took inspiration from it for Mario 64

 

Resident Evil 4 shaped modern gaming, I don't think anybody disputes that. An awful lot of games spawned from it. Call of Duty wasn't the first military shooter, and certainly its early forms aren't influential, but it definitely shaped the industry as we have it today, both from a design point of view, the linear, simple, and intuitive approach to game design (compared to Doom), this spread across genres. Also the more insidious side of map packs, skins, loot crates, corporate tie-ups, streamers, customers as whales etc. It's the foundations Activision are built on, which shapes EA, Ubisoft, Warner, Take-2 etc

 

Wii Sports brings in a new market, not the first game to do it, but thanks to Wii Sports every generation has a game console, gaming is accepted. It shapes Nintendo's model from then on, plus Sony for a while, and Microsoft, which then lead to them handing this generation to Sony. Farmville, while a Facebook game played on PC, forms the model and design that shapes everything from FPS games, Star Wars games, to thousands and thousands of mobile games. It's not the first cynical game ever made, but the Skinner-box game design stems from Farmville's success

 

And then Minecraft. Huge indie hit, that shouldn't be understated, but it was the game that streaming was built on. It wasn't the first game to be streamed, it wasn't the first game to appear on Youtube, but it launched PewDiePie and that has shaped modern gaming like arguably nothing else. It's a game that can exist in its own bubble, you'd hardly know it was successful if no one told you and you don't have kids. It's this that then leads to Fortnite's success, a failing game that pivoted to free to get the young market and streamer attention that PUBG was missing

[shinymcshine]

Need to consider MMOs too:

 

Ultima Online, Everquest & Asheron's Call were the popular 'founding fathers'.

 

Then RuneScape, Guild Wars, WoW, Phantasy Star Online (bringing MMOs to consoles, DC) and Second Life.

 

Eve Online, Star Wars Galaxies more recently.

 

 

 

 

 

[mfnick]

Just thought of a couple more, I’d probably remove PUBG for these as BR is still unproven as a long standing thing. 
 

Rogue (The rogue-like genre. Which has been absolutely massive for a while now to the point when I see a new indie game I have to check it’s not a roguelike before getting excited) 

Demons Souls (Souls games, the willingness to create more challenging games again and the whole recollect ‘currency’ following your death thing) 

[one-armed dwarf]

I think WoW could be one of the biggest influential games of the modern era tbh, not just for MMOs but for how open world games got designed with lots of MMO-lite elements like endless crafting trees and sidequests.

 

Also there is DMC1, for action titles. GoW for breaking the hard exterior of that kind of action and making it more broadly accessible.

 

I don't really have a list of ten games but those are some that come to mind.

[shinymcshine]

I suppose it really depends on what the focus of the question is, and which game typically represents that. 

 

i.e. start with a list of 10 groundbreaking phases or events in videogame history, and then pick the game that fits.

 

EG:

 

Breakthrough arcade game - Space Invaders

First Home Console - Pong

UK Home Computers - Elite

Japanese Console in West - Super Mario Bros

16 Bit era - Sonic

Early MMO  - Ultima Online

DLC - Oblivion Horse Armour.....

etc

 

But then I'm pretty sure Edge / GamesTM have done these sort of lists in the past.

 

 

 

 

[shinymcshine]

How about, Top 10 Weird Controllers:

 

Atari Mind Link

NES Power Glove

DJ Hero Deck / Beatmania Controller

NeGcon (Namco twist)

GameTrak

Wii Sports Accessory Kit (non-functional shapes, tennis racket, golf club  etc)

Eyetoy/Kinect

Rockband Keytar

WuTang 'W' Controller

Guitar Hero DS Grip

[OCH]

Can't think of a list of 10 off the top of my head, but I will add Dragon Quest to the mix. The importance of which to the RPG genre can't be understated.

[DANGERMAN]

I'm not going to say any of these are wrong because there aren't just 10 games etc that have been hugely influential. I didn't mention Pong, it's arguably the single most important game, it still gets referenced today, that's how important it is.

 

for the sake of conversation though, and Nag has mentioned Xbox Live, I do think Halo, and Xbox Live are a little overstated (more the former than the latter). Halo gets credited as the biggest influence in console FPS games, but I think we were heading there anyway. We'd had FPS games prior to Goldeneye, but that was maybe the game that showed the console audience wanted them (if you ignore the various Doom ports that had preceded it). It wasn't even the first online FPS (it wasn't online enabled), Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the first Xbox Live deathmatch game iirc, and the Dreamcast had Quake 3, Unreal, and Outrigger, I think we'd have got their without Halo even though it was obviously hugely influential

 

Live I don't want to understate the importance of, I'm less sure we'd have got where we are today without it. But I would point to modems on the Mega Drive, SNES, Gamecube and PS2, both predating and running along side the formative version of Live. However, none of those really compare to even the early versions of Live, with the PS3 launching without a comparable service (and Nintendo still struggling with it). However, Sega had put together Dream Arena. Easy to use, simple to set up, with chat functions, high scores, even downloadable content (Sonic Adventure and Samba de Amigo spring to mind). Dreamarena was incredible, and must have influenced Live hugely. 

[OCH]

When I think of Dreamcast's online stuff, I only remember Chu Chu Rocket (The best Free game ever) And that uncomfortable cat noise. It was really ahead of its time, unfortunately Sega were legendary for shooting themselves in the foot.

[Jimboxy]

I brought in the new millennium playing quake 3 arena on the Dreamcast online.

[DisturbedSwan]

Here’s my crack at this in no particular order:

 

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - The game that kept me going when I was at my lowest point in life, it’s no exaggeration to say it saved my life.
2. Sonic the Hedgehog - The first game I ever played at my childminders house at 5 years old, without this I’m not sure I’d be into games in the first place.
3. Halo: Combat Evolved - My first console FPS and the first that felt as fully functional (and in many ways exceeded) the PC FPS’ of the era. 
4. The Last of Us - Gaming’s Citizen Kane moment. The first time for me that a games story was every bit as good (if not better) than TV shows/movies, with fully realised, real, relatable characters, fantastic performances, dialogue and voice acting. It showed that games can be elevated to a level higher than just aping Hollywood popcorn action flicks.
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Revolutionary at its time, pretty much invented the modern PvP multiplayer experience we know today.
6. League of Legends - Created the MOBA genre.
7. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - One of my first and easily the most impressive 3D games I played. I’ll never forget the moment I left Kakariko village and saw the huge expanse of Hyrule in front of me was a truly phenomenal awe inspiring moment.
8. Wipeout - Helped put gaming into the mainstream consciousness with the PlayStation. 
9. Wii Sports - Once again brought gaming to the forefront of the mainstream consciousness, this time showing that gaming can be for everyone and not just for the young males.
10. Pong - The catalyst for gaming to become as popular as it is today.

[spatular]

don't think i can come up with 10 so far, and these maybe not the most influential but i think they are somewhat influential.

1. - i guess the first video game has to be one, i thought this was something called space war, but apaprently there's a tenis game older than that.
2. - more recently pubg started this battle royale thing, influenced itself by the film itself i guess.
3. - loads of people mentioned halo and i agree, i don't know if it created any of these things but i think it brought together and made popular a lot of great ideas that other games still use and made a game that still plays well today - where the console fps became more like the modern fps games we play today - recharging shield, limited 2 weapon slots, auto aim, enemy AI that was fun to fight against, the well balanced weapons, the warthogs were ace too. halo 2 as well might have been late to online play but the way it handled it with the party system and matchmaking and all that online stuff seemed like the way forward.
4. - the first bullet hell game is apparently batsugun, after that came donpachi, then dodonpachi - you can see the link between these games and how they evolved but personally what i see as a bullet hell game is much more in line with the later dodonpachi, with the many slow moving bullets it's much more like what we see in bullet hell games later on, it's the defining one. and it's still great today (the others probably are too but not really bullet hell, for me). battle garegga came out before dodonpachi and that i think qualifies on amount of bullets but it's more unique, it's features are not copied as much and only really games by the same guy, of which there are a lot to be fair, are really similar.

 

i looked up some stuff like the first open world game - i'd never heard of it. and the first platform game - apparently donkey kong - but you'd probably say mario was more influential i guess. and again mario 64 for 3d platforming. early fps games i'd have thought wolfenstein, but then apparently there was stuff before that, but then maybe all that stuff is too old and doom was more influential. i don't know.