Most Revolutionary Games?

[StaceyPowers]

What games do you think were most revolutionary when they came out, changing the way that developers made games in the future?

Half-Life springs to mind immediately for me. When I played that game, I was really blown away by the fact that the game play and the narrative were so well woven together. I don’t remember that really being a common feature of FPS games before that.

[DylanC]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion blew my mind when I played it back in the day. When you step out from the sewers at the beginning and see this massive open-world to explore... it was just, wow. Definitely felt super revolutionary for me.

[Demon_skeith]

Super Mario 64 my time, further backed by Zelda OoT. Both games turned the game industry upside down for what games can really do. I actually miss that time of gaming.

[Alyxx]

Doom
It is impossible to imagine the modern gaming landscape without Doom. The game popularized the first person shooter genre, greatly expanding upon the blueprint that was set with id's previous Hovertank 3D, Catacomb 3D, Wolfenstein 3D and Spear Of Destiny games. It also was the first FPS that truly invented multiplayer modes such as deathmatch and team deathmatch. Its importance cannot be understated. Without Doom a few of the other games on this list would not exist. Most importantly, Doom was also a game to popularize modding as people eventually got to work on modding the game, a practice that nowadays is commonplace.

Quake
Up until Quake, most shooters relied on 2.5D engines that used tricks to simulate a 3D environment, and often relied on 2D sprites for objects in the game world (the exception being games like Blood and Shadow Warrior which used voxels to simulate 3D objects). Quake brought the FPS genre firmly into true 3D with fully 3D environments and objects. Its codebase was used for a ton of other games, and parts of it is even used in games we play today. Like Doom before it, Quake also became a popular platform for modding and creating custom content. Team Fortress started out as a Quake mod as the most popular example.

Half-Life
Half-Life wasn't groundbreaking in its story or gameplay. In fact, it wasn't much more than a rethread of Doom and Quake. Rather, it was groundbreaking in the way it told its story. Unlike previous games that would present the story in cutscenes or, in the case of Doom and Quake, barely have any story at all, it presented the story through the eyes of its protagonist. Half-Life never left the perspective of Gordon Freeman. Every second of the game was experienced through him with the events unfolding around you as you played. This way of storytelling went on to become the norm in FPS's and its reliance on scripted events became the basis for stuff like Call Of Duty and Battlefield. Half-Life also presented a seamless narrative in that levels were interconnected, making you feel like you were exploring a larger world and not just single levels. While still fairly linear, this approach gave the game some scope similar to games like Super Metroid.

Deus Ex
Games like Thief, System Shock and System Shock 2 were critical darlings but never really mainstream hits. Warren Spector definitely changed this trend with Deus Ex, a cyberpunk amalgamation of his previous ideas. Deus Ex was like nothing before it. It mixed the RPG elements and environmental storytelling of System Shock with a fairly epic cyberpunk story that blended real life conspiracies with a fictional near future. The most groundbreaking idea in Deus Ex however was consequences. Everything you did in Deus Ex had a consequence later on, affecting how people reacted to you and how missions played out. It also featured entirely open ended gameplay, giving the player tools to tackle missions how they saw fit. It was a huge hit, becoming Game of the Year when it released. To this day it remains a favourite among gamers.

Command & Conquer
The RTS genre undoubtedly reached its peak in the 90's with the release of Command & Conquer, a strategy game taking place in a near future where united nations ally against the Brotherhood of NOD, both aiming to seize control over a new alien resource, Tiberium. C&C featured some extremely high polish for its time, telling its story through FMV's that utilized real actors and featuring some of the best music of the decade. The modern combat setting undoubtedly went on to influence a lot of other games such as the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series.

System Shock
While not any mainstream success, System Shock was so ahead of its time that playing it nowadays feels almost anachronistic. It was undoubtedly one of the first FPS's that utilized environmental storytelling, telling its story through terminals and videos you'd find exploring the environment. It also was more of a survival horror game, before Resident Evil was even a thing, in that resources were sparse and you're often outnumbered and facing a terrifying enemy.

Space Invaders
A simple concept, you move from left to right, taking cover and shooting badguys. Even today most shooters still rely on concepts that Space Invaders invented. Its gameplay also inspired games like Galaga and had numerous arcade clones in the 80's. Easily one of the most groundbreaking arcade games of the space age.

Legend Of Zelda
A lot of modern games would probably not exist without Zelda. While it did not exactly invent the idea of exploring an open world (games like Adventure on Atari 2600 and several DND games on PC more or less did that years before it), it did help bring that open ended gameplay to the mainstream in a bigger way and popularized it. It's not so much fun to play today without a guide, with all the cryptic shit going on but it's needless to say it was an important game.

[Reality vs Adventure]

I have to say Assassin's Creed games starting with Origins where you can actually soar over the land in a bird's eye view and being able to climb pretty much everything with great character movement from walking to climbing. And taking open worlds to another level through exploration, along with the 360 photo capture ability, and taming wild animals. Even the theme among the series is pretty good. It almost makes me think that maybe some of it is a possibility where you can use DNA to track memories of ancient ancestors and visualize it in VR. In the games, they even flirted with the idea of making video games using that technology. And here I am playing the games, getting lost in history and the environments as if I was there. Maybe I still am there. Wait a minute, someone pinch me. Uh oh. I better get out of the animus before the bleeding effect takes over. 

[killamch89]

On 10/23/2018 at 3:20 AM, Alyxx said:

Doom
It is impossible to imagine the modern gaming landscape without Doom. The game popularized the first person shooter genre, greatly expanding upon the blueprint that was set with id's previous Hovertank 3D, Catacomb 3D, Wolfenstein 3D and Spear Of Destiny games. It also was the first FPS that truly invented multiplayer modes such as deathmatch and team deathmatch. Its importance cannot be understated. Without Doom a few of the other games on this list would not exist. Most importantly, Doom was also a game to popularize modding as people eventually got to work on modding the game, a practice that nowadays is commonplace.

Quake
Up until Quake, most shooters relied on 2.5D engines that used tricks to simulate a 3D environment, and often relied on 2D sprites for objects in the game world (the exception being games like Blood and Shadow Warrior which used voxels to simulate 3D objects). Quake brought the FPS genre firmly into true 3D with fully 3D environments and objects. Its codebase was used for a ton of other games, and parts of it is even used in games we play today. Like Doom before it, Quake also became a popular platform for modding and creating custom content. Team Fortress started out as a Quake mod as the most popular example.

Half-Life
Half-Life wasn't groundbreaking in its story or gameplay. In fact, it wasn't much more than a rethread of Doom and Quake. Rather, it was groundbreaking in the way it told its story. Unlike previous games that would present the story in cutscenes or, in the case of Doom and Quake, barely have any story at all, it presented the story through the eyes of its protagonist. Half-Life never left the perspective of Gordon Freeman. Every second of the game was experienced through him with the events unfolding around you as you played. This way of storytelling went on to become the norm in FPS's and its reliance on scripted events became the basis for stuff like Call Of Duty and Battlefield. Half-Life also presented a seamless narrative in that levels were interconnected, making you feel like you were exploring a larger world and not just single levels. While still fairly linear, this approach gave the game some scope similar to games like Super Metroid.

Deus Ex
Games like Thief, System Shock and System Shock 2 were critical darlings but never really mainstream hits. Warren Spector definitely changed this trend with Deus Ex, a cyberpunk amalgamation of his previous ideas. Deus Ex was like nothing before it. It mixed the RPG elements and environmental storytelling of System Shock with a fairly epic cyberpunk story that blended real life conspiracies with a fictional near future. The most groundbreaking idea in Deus Ex however was consequences. Everything you did in Deus Ex had a consequence later on, affecting how people reacted to you and how missions played out. It also featured entirely open ended gameplay, giving the player tools to tackle missions how they saw fit. It was a huge hit, becoming Game of the Year when it released. To this day it remains a favourite among gamers.

Command & Conquer
The RTS genre undoubtedly reached its peak in the 90's with the release of Command & Conquer, a strategy game taking place in a near future where united nations ally against the Brotherhood of NOD, both aiming to seize control over a new alien resource, Tiberium. C&C featured some extremely high polish for its time, telling its story through FMV's that utilized real actors and featuring some of the best music of the decade. The modern combat setting undoubtedly went on to influence a lot of other games such as the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series.

System Shock
While not any mainstream success, System Shock was so ahead of its time that playing it nowadays feels almost anachronistic. It was undoubtedly one of the first FPS's that utilized environmental storytelling, telling its story through terminals and videos you'd find exploring the environment. It also was more of a survival horror game, before Resident Evil was even a thing, in that resources were sparse and you're often outnumbered and facing a terrifying enemy.

Space Invaders
A simple concept, you move from left to right, taking cover and shooting badguys. Even today most shooters still rely on concepts that Space Invaders invented. Its gameplay also inspired games like Galaga and had numerous arcade clones in the 80's. Easily one of the most groundbreaking arcade games of the space age.

Legend Of Zelda
A lot of modern games would probably not exist without Zelda. While it did not exactly invent the idea of exploring an open world (games like Adventure on Atari 2600 and several DND games on PC more or less did that years before it), it did help bring that open ended gameplay to the mainstream in a bigger way and popularized it. It's not so much fun to play today without a guide, with all the cryptic shit going on but it's needless to say it was an important game.

Doom, Quake, Deus Ex, Command & Conquer and Legend Of Zelda are pretty good choices as these revolutionized their respective genres. I'd also add Mortal Kombat to the mix as it was one of the early games that mixed gore with compelling combat mechanics and revolutionized the fighting genre. There have been many games that have tried to copy but few can compare to the Mortal Kombat franchise.

[m76]

Half Life

This was the game that had shown that narrative and gameplay does not have to be detached from each other, there can be a symbiotic relationship between the  two. Most action games before this neglected the narrative completely, maybe showing a few lines of badly written text between two missions as context. This was the first game where I truly felt immersed in the game world.

While there were other games that took storytelling seriously like Wing Commander 3, and IV, the actual gameplay always felt like intermissions between scenes of a movie.

Gran Turismo

The game that changed simcade racing genre, before this games used to have five or six cars to choose from, if a game had 10 cars that was a miracle. Then came Gran Turismo and shortly after Gran Turismo 2 that offered hundreds of cars. This was a revolutionary feat, that nobody would've though possible before.

1nsane

The first commercial game (afaik) that used soft body physics in place of the traditional rigid body physics. It boggles my mind that some developers still refuse to embrace this revolutionary tech that allows infinitely more realistic physics interaction on screen.

L.A. Noire

Everybody laughed when Bondi games tried to use motion scanning on actor's faces. And yes their first attempt did fall a bit into the uncanny valley, but nowadays it's common practice for every major title to scan actual actors for animating in game characters realistically.

The Last of Us II

This is a controversial title and as such the technological feats crammed into it often get overlooked, but I can't help but be amazed at the animation quality, the attention to detail that seems almost like ocd level. The way the game switches animations seamlessly, it has never been implemented this well.

[Heatman]

The Last of Us II, Gran Turismo, Doom, Legend Of Zelda, and Deus Ex are definitely going to be my pick for games that revolutionized the gaming industry. 

[Family sedan]

I believe you're right about Gran Turismo.  I can't think of a game that was like it before it.

[Heatman]

4 hours ago, Family sedan said:

I believe you're right about Gran Turismo.  I can't think of a game that was like it before it.

Yeah right, and I'm sure it's part of the reason why you simply can't get enough of it. Your affection and addiction for it is very close to my brother's with Dragon Age: Inquisition. 

[Family sedan]

I can't think of a racing game that had passenger cars in it before GT other than Cruisin' U.S.A.

[killamch89]

On 7/26/2021 at 10:36 PM, Family sedan said:

I believe you're right about Gran Turismo.  I can't think of a game that was like it before it.

It's true - it was a pioneer for realistic racing games or rather the first successful one and it was one of the first racing games I remembered having genuine licenses from different car manufacturers and auto service providers.

[Family sedan]

There was a previous game by the same creator with all Japanese cars, but no one remembers it.  I only just did.  I forget it's name though.

[Razor1911]

3 hours ago, Family sedan said:

There was a previous game by the same creator with all Japanese cars, but no one remembers it.  I only just did.  I forget it's name though.

I only remember Grand Turismo and Tokyo extreme racer. I guess the latter one is what you are talking about. 

I hadn't purchased TER, but I had played on my friend's console, and it had most of the Japanese vintage cars. 😊

[Heatman]

On 7/27/2021 at 3:50 PM, Family sedan said:

I can't think of a racing game that had passenger cars in it before GT other than Cruisin' U.S.A.

I never really tried out Cruisin' U.S.A. I'm not that too much of a racer to play all of them out there but I do appreciate good racing 🏁 🏎 games.