Most Influential Video Games of All Time

[Space Moose]

Since we have covered the favourites of board member's, I thought perhaps that these would be of interest:

The Big 50 Most Influential Games of All Time!

15 Most Influential Games of All Time

I must say that I can't argue with many of those choices (except perhaps the sports selections) but I can't help but think that a few were missed out:

Final Fantasy - anything that spawns 10 or so sequels and a movie should be considered influential.

E.T. - a game that nearly kills the home console industry is certianly influential, although not in a postive way.

Space War - although they mention it as the first video game ever made, they don't think that was important enough to include it as one of the top 50. Huh?

Everquest - MMORPGROTFL (whatever) was cemented with Everquest. It is here to stay and deserved mention, especially since this game has effected people IRL. Marriages happen and degrade because of Everquest.

Mortal Kombat - This game spawned 3 or 4 sequels, 2 movies and a slew of controversy about violence in video games. How it missed the list and Dig Dug made it, I will never know.

Daikatana - Maybe Romero isn't the greatest thing ever.

Zero Wing - Ever hear of "All your base are belong to us"? It came from this game. This has had numerous spin-offs in the real world, although it has slowed down as of late. Perhaps could have made spot 50 instead of Sentinel.

Donkey Kong - Again a pile of sequels and Coleco used it to launch their system for goodness sake. How did Robotron 2084 make it if Donkey Kong didn't?

Windows Solitare - Perhaps the game with the widest distribution, it is on pretty much every Windows machine and everyone has played it. Far more hours of productivity are lost each year to Solitare than to M.U.L.E.

The Sims - How old is this game and it is still pulling in close to full ratail price? Something must make it good enough to get a pile of add-ons and such staying power.

I, Robot - First Polygon game ever. Pretty much everything is done that way these days, but few remember this classic.

[Pale_Horse]

I agree, Mortal Kombat should be there.

I would also put any of the TSR/SSI D&D games on the most influential list. I believe that because of these games, an surge in popularity for pen & paper RPG's occured amonst those who wouldn't have touched them otherwise.

[Space Moose]

Yeah, I could see that. The ones set in Forgotten Realms anyway, I don't think the Dragon Lance ones were all that great. I certianly wouldn't have been inspired to purchase Dragon Lance expansions based on those awful games.

[Sukato-San]

ET.... Oh my God!!! With the pit! And ET levitating!!!

AFRO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

(100 extra credit points to whoever can name the series where that came from)

WHAT??? NO LEGEND OF ZELDA????

[TheOracle]

Space Invaders should have been Number 1

It changed the World man

Ahhhhh....Those were the days

[Bizarro]

combat. combat was the coolest ancient game because you could try to kill each other with tanks and planes. i used to play the bouncy bullet one with my little brother and i have to say i loved that game.

i also liked ET. what a stupid game.

pitfall. it rocked. i remember trying to get the highest score and taking a polaroid of it so i could prove it to my friends.

pacman. how could you not list pacman?

diplomacy- that game was like the first 486 game that i played for hours at a time.

whats the name of that game made by Sierra where you are a cop and you wander around. it was like an RPG. Police Story? something like that. it was pretty cool, a bit too life like though.

castle wolfenstein- that was the predecessor of all the FPS shooters. i remember moving my stickman around and hearing the stick nazis make that fake "HALT" noise. i stayed up all night playing that one on several occasions.

ultima. the first RPG. it was a destroyer of relationships. my buddy got hooked on it one weekend when i was staying at his house and played it nonstop the entire time i was there. we stopped speaking afterwards. the first EQ. that was some powerful crack.

double dribble/blades of steel/bases loaded. the first big sports games that brought competition worthy of people gathering.

tecmo bowl/super tecmo bowl. took that competition to a new level. you can still play tecmo bowl and have a good time today.

i could go on all day. i love video games

[dust19]

I gotta say, in 'blades of steel' I couldn't get over the fact that it had that awesome ACTUAL voice sample in the intro. Especially in an NES 8-bit title. It sounded like crap, but was awesome!.

"blghgghgadewshhgh ofchchchc shshshshsteeeeeel"

[Saru]

whats the name of that game made by Sierra where you are a cop and you wander around. it was like an RPG.

That was Police Quest, I can remember when I first played that I tried arresting someone in a bar and got beaten to death by some yobs.

Inlfuential Games of all time, lets see, here'd be my list:

Donkey Kong ( the original )

Space Invaders

Pacman

Sonic the Hedgehog

Super Mario series

Zelda series

Wolfenstein 3d

Doom

Simcity

Civilization

Warcraft

Command & Conquer

and going back to the ZX Spectrum we have

Manic Miner

Jet Set Willy

Dizzy

Monty Mole

I'd say that these are all the games are genre-busters, they will always be classics, and they have all contributed to today's games in their own way.

[Sukato-San]

You forgot the old Lord of the Rings game.