25 Most Influencial Games

    One of my colleages at IO recently made a picture to portray his opinion of the most influencial games made (heres his: http://binarybonsai.com/archives/2005/0 ... ial-games/ ), and while taking a break from some massive gaming I decided to follow his lead and do one myself.

    Keep in mind that these might not be the best games (although most of these are classics anyway), but more importantly they are games that has made you think differently about games. One thing I kept thinking over was adding Doom, but Doom didnt really change my mind regarding first person shooters to be honest. Wolfenstein 3D was the one that made me fall in love with the gerne, and although Doom is probably a better game, it hasnt fundamentally influenced my look at games as much as Wolfenstein did.

    Anyway, heres mine

    [Blocked Image: http://www.mazy.net/pictures/mazy25mostinfluencialgames.jpg]

    I encourage you to make one yourself, its good fun when you really think back on memories of these games, and will probably end up wanting to playing them again

    I'll start working on one, I thought BB did a superb job on his, but I couldn't find enough photos for the games that influenced me. Time to go on a massive Google search!

    Shenmue. The most underappreciated game of the last five years. I remember getting it the christmas of its release and having, really, no idea what it was. Little did I know it would eat up the next few months of my life.

    Not only was it probably the most visually stunning game at its release (at least, in my opinion) but the amount of interactivity and detail was staggering. Day/Night cycles (Ryu has a watch!) and the weather system was awesome as well.

    I could go on forever, but it's sad that they bascially canned the series after the second one. They decided to create an MMO out of the franchise instead of finishing it off...

    Anyhow, good list.

    I really like Mazy's list, it looks a lot like how mine would look like. Nice to see games as Transport Tycoon and Outcast on the list! Those are/were indeed incredible games.

    good choices for the most part

    one change i would make is; swap mi2 for 1 or dott

    why you may ask? mi2 was the first lucas game to use iMuse which totally rocked me at the time for music

    also: what is the game to right of theme park? can't make it out

    Quote from ctswin

    also: what is the game to right of theme park? can't make it out

    Looks to me like Thief: The Dark Project, I could be wrong tho.

    There were many games that I enjoyed to play but they had no influence on my life.

    The only game that influences me is Half-Life. Not because I'm a fanboy, but because I'm a mapper...

    Maybe I misunderstood the word "influence", but for me it means influence on my life. There are some movies, books and also songs that actually changed the way how I view or think about some things.

    There are some games that get near that experience. For example I felt sad for Max Payne when he found his dead family, or I like Manny from Grim Fandango for being such a nice loser. There are even games with some messages within like the whole immortal-but-slave-thing in Half-Life 2 or the whole don't-be-influenced-by-your-gens-blah in Metal Gear Solid.

    All these games go in the right direction and I guess there are some other examples. But for me, not a single game that I've played so far has really left me a permanent impression besides "that was fun".

    Ok of course "fun" is, what games are all about, but it doesn't have to be this way. I think games have the same status like comics in the 50's. At that time comics were only some entertainment for kids, but nowadays comics can be an deep art form as well.

    /forgive me for my bad english

    This was a great idea Mazy!

    To bad i really see how old i am now

    Many of my games where played on C64 or Amiga which i think shows on the image so i decided to clarify with a little list after the picture with the games name in picture order.

    [Blocked Image: http://img66.echo.cx/img66/4897/25games4mx.jpg]

    Need For Speed 3 PC

    Prince of Persia Amiga

    Migh & Magic VI PC

    Sentinel C64

    Cybernoid C64

    Defender of the Crown C64

    Dink Smallwood PC

    Doom First time for a console

    Druid C64

    Elite C64

    Turok 2 The seed of Evil PC

    Quake PC

    Grand Thieft Auto PC

    IK+ Gold C64

    Monkey Island Amiga

    Legend of Zelda Second game on console

    Marble Madness Arcade

    Nebulus C64

    Paperboy C64

    Pirates! Amiga

    Populus Amiga

    Push-Over Amiga

    Rock'n Roll Amiga

    Giana Sisters C64

    Counter-Strike (AND Half-Life both but Mazzle choosed to show HL so i went CS) PC

    And you said 25 games but i really had to add these two games so i did a very own for them

    [Blocked Image: http://img66.echo.cx/img66/7148/2games8ei.jpg]

    Wizball C64

    uuh Zork! PC

    Spellbinder.

    Hehe, cool stuff. But yeah, you can see a difference in ages, especially since mine are mainly from the mid 90s and up

    I could've added alot of other older games, lots of master system megadrive games especially, thats the systems i first remember playing, but I wasnt very old back then, and lots of that seem more like a blur today D:

    im too lazy to make a colage but here are some of my most influential games, i probably forgot a bunch, mostly of the ps1 type, but i went over 25 anyway

    Math Blaster

    Wolfenstein

    Doom

    Heretic

    Hexen

    King’s Quest

    Dragon’s Lair

    James Pond

    Tetris

    Mario

    Pacman

    Sonic

    NBA Jam

    Toejam and Earl

    Descent

    Need for Speed

    Sim City

    Oregon Trail

    Gadgets and Gizmos

    Street Sk8er

    Medal of Honor

    Command and Conquer

    Warcraft

    Crash Bandicoot

    Syphon Filter

    Metal Gear Solid

    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

    Grand Theft Auto

    Driver

    Half-Life

    Rainbow Six

    Counter-Strike

    Mafia

    Halo

    SSX Tricky

    Battlefield 1942

    America’s Army

    Note that for almost all of them they count multiple times, for command and conquer that counts about all of them, the original, red alert 1 and 2, and half-life we have 1 and 2, and for battlefield we have 1942 and 2 etc.

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