Post your top 5 most influential games!

EDIT: Yes, Influential on you, games that introduced you to new things or that you just really loved.

#1: Rayman: Mom had this on the PS1 and was the first game I picked up and played ever. Origins is the only other Rayman game that can stand up to the original.

#2: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: Got this along with my Game Boy Color. First game that was truly mine. Spent hours replaying this amazing game.

#3: Wario Land 4: I remember going to the store a few months after the GBA launched and picking out this game since you could be Wario, the final boss of Mario land 2. This is one the greatest platformers ever made IMO and it's just weird and creepy.

#4: Pokemon Ruby: The game that got me into Pokemon, Parents later found Red and Silver for me too.

#5: Halo 3: Not the best Halo game, but I made a lot of new friends at school becuase everyone was looking for people to play with after this came out.

Influential for me personally?

1. Majora's Mask- showed me how unique, incredible and all around fantastic games can be

2. Ocarina of Time- Not my first game, but this was the game that got me into gaming as a hobby.

3. Super Mario Bros 3- My first ever game and still one of my favorites.

4. Super Smash Bros Mellee- Living proof that local multiplayer will always have a place in the industry.

5. Silent Hill shattered Memories/ 2- Showed me how amazingly deep and artistic video games can be. Plus the soundtracks are orgasmic.

Influential to me, personally.

1. Super Mario Bros. (NES): The very first game I've ever played when I was four years old. I was introduced into video games and knew that it was something I would be doing all my life.

2. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2): Showed me that video games have the capacity to rise above their reputations for being juvenile forms of entertainment with rich, engrossing content, an emotional story and an atmosphere that I had never seen before in any type of entertainment I've ever experienced at the time.

3. World of Warcraft (PC): The game that cracked open my shell of gaming only on Nintendo consoles and gave me a taste of what was really out there to experience. Huge game worlds, where tons of people can interact with eachother. Made some really great friends, and from then on, I only wanted to experience more.

4. Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC): Never have I played or watched anything so unbelievably atmospheric, something that really tested my emotions, my self-control and my ability to truly play and be immersed in a video game. A true masterpiece, even in all its terrifying, revolting glory. Because of this game, I always find myself referring back to it in one way or another when playing other games, and I almost always recommend it to people who are looking for good games to play. I also find it rather hard to be scared by any other horror games I play noawadays. :P

5. Fallout 3 (PC): Might be a bit of a looked down choice. Do you wanna help this guy which involves starting a side quest? You can do that. Want to instead decline the offer and tell him to go fvck himself? You can do that too. Want to travel the whole nine yards, tell him to go fvck himself and then promptly put a bullet in his head afterwards? You can do that too! The first game that I ever played at the time that involved that kind of mechanic. I understand that it's not entirely a new gaming mechanic, but it influenced me to look for more great games that do have that free-range kind of aspect that Fallout 3 had.

Super Mario 64: Set the benchmark for 3D platformers

Ocarina of Time: Loads of games have made games like that nowadays.

Street Fighter 2: The series that kick started the fighting genre.

Metal Gear Solid: Perfected stealth gaming

Super Mario Bros: It basically saved the gaming genre.

mmm...

#5 Legend of Kyrandia 2

My first propper adventure game, I loved mixing potions and seeing their results, loved exploring the towns and the colorful backgrounds, it was just a joy of a game

#4 Dune 2

The game that created the RTS formula as we know it, at the time the game seemed so advanced, original. I just couldn't stop playing it, I loved it almost as much as...

#3 Dune

...it's prequel, this is such a unique game, a mix of strategy and point n´click adventure, Dune felt like a huge planet and everything about it was so epic as you slowly conquered an entire planet

#2 Master of Orion 2

Civilization in space, only better. you could create your own race, choose the specs for your capital ships, build a web of alliances, or create political intrigue, destroy planets, brainwash entire civilizations into becoming your slaves. This game was amazing

#1 Star Control 2

This was Mass Effect before Mass effect an RPG where you could explore a whole galaxy, form alliances, build up a fleet, you had dialog trees with choices and consequences, i loved this game to death

Influential as in for me personally or as in most influential on the industry?

Mine would be

1. Super Mario Brothers 3= So many great memories, and a huge improvement over the first SMB which was already a great game and nearly took the place of this pick. Warp whistles, great level design, some genuine challenging levels (unlike most mario games since SMW). This was and pretty much still is the greatest platformer ever made. Brilliance on all levels, and before you say "but Yoshi isnt in the game!" Wait a second... who would have known that Yoshi is actually world 7's king before he transforms? lol

If you look it up however, it says a Yoshi didn't make an appearnace until SMW..

2. Marvel vs. Capcom 2= A TON of fighting greatness mixed in with well known, and less known characters you can choose from. In many cases this game helped bring some of the lesser known into the light and help regain some popularity for them. This game also led to several more great fighting games in a bunch of different formats. I give credit to this games "cult" following for keeping some of these super heroes "alive and well" and continuing with other fighting games and a SURGE in popularity once again! Look at the past few years and all the Super Hero movies and all the new games including MVC3 which many said would NEVER be made! If you are any kind of superhero or villain fan, you can thank this game for MAJORLY helping the popularity.

3. Double Dribble= Now, you might be thinking what does a crappy old basketball game have to do with anything being influential. Well, I'll tell you. When you went to slam dunk the ball it would cut to a decent cutscene of different types of dunks. This gave me hope for increasing graphics and cutscenes in general. It really opened my eyes to future possibilities and many games after that in all sports genres emphasized the way scoring happened when near the hoop/goal/wall/etc. At the time, that was one of the most revolutionary aspects in gaming!

4. Contra= This game not only introduced me to the possibility of codes, but also broke many game barriers. Included in these were fast paced action with no glitching. The game was built on a very stable base and has witheld the tests of time well. So many great shooters wheter they be 1st person, 3rd person, or side scrolling have taken elements of this game and improved (sometimes... lol) upon them throughout the years.

5. Morrowind= I admit to not having played any of the Elder Scrolls series before this game at the time it released for the Xbox. At the time I wasnt into cpu gaking at all. However, this game was simply amazing in almost every aspect. Sure it was glitchy as hell, but as far as awesome gameplay and a game that can draw you in... this had everything. You were the antagonist the hero the villain and EVERYTHING in between while saving the world. The greatness of the "everyman" really shined through brightly on consoles for the first time! This game is still much better than that steaming pile we got in Skyrim.... (I dont hate Skyrim, just read) Ok, Skyrim isnt a complete pile, but it does nothing to connect with that "everyman" mentality that I loved so much in the other titles (including arena and daggerfall). Being a man straight out of Mortal Kombat with the ability to dual wield spells while "shouting" like a dragon is jst stupid. With the others, there were often times that more than one (sometimes just 1) enemy was basically a HUGE threat. In Skyrim, you can pretty much tear through an entire army with the glitched high spots and ability to shout...

I could probably name about 100 other titles as well, but these were very influential to me.

Now if you are going top 5 industry, thats not really my expertise, because I generally disagree.

1. Super Mario 64 - The game I owe my status as a gamer to. I got this game for XMAS back in 1996 along with my N64 and it totally blew my mind. I played video games and owned consoles before playing Super Mario 64, but until then it was only a passive hobby of mine.

2. Final Fantasy VII - The game that introduced me not only to the RPG genre, but also sent my gaming interests into a whole new trigectory. Up until them, I was mostly playing Nintendo IPs and games made by rare, but this really opened me up to video games with far more deep, immersive storylines.

3. Sonic the Hedgehog - I played this game at my cousins house when I was 4 and wanted it so freakin badley. I eventually got my own copy along with my Sega Genesis when I was 5 and have loved playing video games since.

4. Halo 2 - when I thought of the most influential games on me, this one came as a surprise. The reason I put this one on here is because no other game was as fun in a social setting them this game. I used to go to and host lan parties that were probably the most fun I've ever had doing local multiplayer. On top of that, I used to love playing this with my little brother and it was probably the last thing we used to enjoy together before we kind of grew apart.

5. Shenmue 2 - While it is my favorite game of all time, it also set the standard for what a perfect game is and I've judged every video game experience since on this game.

1. Final Fantasy VII - Sony PlayStation (the game that stole my loyalty away from Nintendo, and remains my alltime favorite)

2. Legend of Zelda - Nintendo Entertainment System (the game that got me into gaming)

3. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Xbox (the game that turned my attention from JRPGs to WRPGs)

4. Silent Hill - Sony PlayStation (the first game to honestly scare the crap out of me)

5. Super Metroid - Super Nintendo (the game I've replayed the most, for whatever reason)

1. Super Mario Bros. - the game that got me into video games.

2. Tetris (GB and NES) - very addicting puzzle game that introduced me to the Gameboy.

3. Age of Empires - first RTS I played and the first online gamne I played. Plus I put in so many hours and it got me into better ones laterAlso it introduced me to hardcore PC gaming.

4. Goldeneye 007 - first fps game I played. Put in many hours into it with friends.

5. Shining Force - While Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow introduced me to RPGs, Shining Force really got me into the genre even though uit was a SRPG.

Honorable mentions: The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo World Cup Soccer (NES), Virtua Fighter 2 (Arcade and Saturn), Street Fighter 2, Driver, Daytona USA, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life 2.

In order of when they occurred:

First gaming obsession:

Turbo Esprit - Amstrad CPC.

-

First Simulator:

Grand Prix 2 - PC.

-

First experience of becoming totally absorbed by a game's atmosphere:

Unreal - PC

-

First online experience and also first clan/community experiences:

Delta Force 2 - PC

-

First RPG which completely changed my viewpoint that all RPG's were long-winded literary bores:

Summoner - PS2

-------------------

That's my 5. The following have also had slightly lesser degrees of influence, but still worth mentioning:

And for sheer terror:

The 1999 PC version. Playing as a Marine was so discomforting that i couldn't even face revisiting it after the first experiences.

Suikoden III

Final Fantasy XII

Zelda Twilight Princess

Resident Evil 4

Fallout 3

In order of when I played them:

Super Mario Land - I owned a Game Boy before I owned any other console, and Super Mario Land was the first game I properly played. I would play that game over and over and over, and I still love it today.

Streets of Rage - I didn't get to play this game when it came out because my parents thought it was too violent, but a couple of years later I would ride my bike down to the video place and secretly rent it out. I did this every weekend for months. I never got bored of this game, even now I could play it for hours and enjoy every second.

Final Fantasy VII - My first ever RPG. I read about it for months before it was released, all the Playstation magazines were talking about it and I thought it sounded amazing. I bought it on release day when I was 12 years old, and at first I had no idea what the hell was going on with this game. Being my first RPG I didn't properly understand the mechanics, but I played this game repeatedly until it sank in. I have so many fond memories of playing this game late into the night when I should have been sleeping, then being exhausted at school the next day. It got me into RPGs, now one of my favourite genres.

Resident Evil 4 - I took a break from gaming for a while around the time the PS2 was released. I went travelling and did a bunch of other stuff for a few years. When I came back home I was so out of the gaming loop, but I decided to spend my last £100 on a PS2. Resident Evil 4 was my first taste of 'next-gen gaming', and having played the first Resident Evil back in the day, this game completely blew me away. This game is pretty much responsible for getting me back into gaming.

Fallout 3 - This was the first game I played when I got my 360, and like Resi 4, it was my first taste of 'next-gen gaming'. This game was a complete revelation to me, being able to go anywhere and do anything in this vast open-world, it was incredible. I was also going through a really tough time when this game came out, and playing this game really helped me through it, as cheesy as that sounds.

Nice topic!

Being that this is a list of my most "influential" games rather than my "favorite" games, this list is gonna pretty much consist of 80s-early 90s games as that's when I was a young gamer. While Elder Scrolls games may be my obsession today, they're relatively new in comparison so you won't see them on my list, this time.

1. Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt (NES) - Some of you younger gamers are probably all like "Hey, you can't put 2 games in one slot!" But us older gamers already know that this was one game. It was the pack-in game that came with your NES and both were on 1 cartridge. Super Mario Bros. alone was probably the reason many of us even bought an NES. It was the reason I begged my mom over and over again for one. And I probably spent a couple of years worth of time playing that game in my lifetime. If it wasn't for Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, I probably wouldn't be a gamer today.
   
   
2. The Legend of Zelda (NES) - The first "serious" game I played. Back then, this game was an epic like nothing else gaming had ever seen before it. You had to draw out maps, figure out where to go next in this massive land, and find you're way through cleverly designed mazes and search out hidden doors. Yeah, this sort of stuff is common today and thanks to walkthrough and guides isn't all that challenging. But back then, unless you were a Nintendo Power subscriber, everything was figured out between you and your friends alone. So this game took months to complete and by the end of it you felt like you had gone on an actual quest. Even though it's not technically an action-RPG, it has enough elements of it in there and is the reason I'm such a big action-RPG fan to this day.
   
   
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade/NES) - I'm talking about the Arcade Game here, not the original NES TMNT game (although I had that one and played it a lot, too). This was the THE game at the arcades back in the day. Everyone was lining up to play it. The graphics and sound were awesome for the time. And the coolest part of the cabinet was the 4-players cooperative play. 4 friends beating up Foot Soldiers with sodas and a stack of quarters was a perfect afternoon back then. And then they came out with the NES version and we played it too much at home or a friend's house. This game is really the game that made me a beat-em up fan.
   
   
4. Star Soldier (NES) - This was the first shoot-em up I ever played, and I immeadiatly fell in love with the genre. I still have my copy today. I have yet to beat all 16 stages, but I have gotten to the final stage only to be beaten by the final Large Star Brain. Extra lives were very hard to come by in this game. Since then I've played many a shoot-em up and I'm still a fan of the genre to this day.
   
   
5. Resident Evil 2 (PS1) - I was kind of poor growing up. So as a result, I often had the last-generation system well into the next-generation's lifespan. This was the case with the 5th generation. I had a SNES, which I then traded for a Genesis up until like 1997-1998. That's when my mom bought us a Playstation finally. I was a little intimidated of it at first with it 3D gameplay and weird camera angles and controls. I had played 2D games for so long I wasn't quite ready to give it up. But then my mom did something that pushed me kicking and screaming into the 3D age, she got Resident Evil 2 with my PS1. Never had a game truly compelled me to keep getting further and further purely to see what was gonna happen next in the story or what crazy creature was just around the corner waiting to eat me. It really helped me get comfortable with 3D gaming because it was such a well made game that kept me coming back for more. And I'm still a Resident Evil fan to this day.

1) Doom

2) Metal Gear Solid

3) Resident Evil

4) Counter-Strike 1.6

5) StarCraft

Aaahh, here's a nice "list" thread that won't instantly demand everybody to mention the same bunch of SNES or PS1 games. :P

In chronological order...

1. Lunar: The Silver Star

2. Illusion of Gaia

3. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (played it on the Xbox)

If I really racked my brain, I could probably think of two more games, but the fact that I had to put a lot of thinking into it would imply that they didn't have as large an effect on me as the above three games. It's hard to even say how severely Lunar: The Silver Star must have influenced me in my formative years. :P Before I ever played it myself, I watched my brother play the game when I was probably 4 or 5 years old, and the whole idea of a kid on an adventure battling evil to save the girl he loves is something that has stuck with me ever since. I've spent most of my life conjuring up fantasy scenarios along those lines in various degrees; heck, it might have been one of the early elements that set me down my path as a writer.

Illusion of Gaia had a similar effect on me, though above being another boy's adventure, the game instilled a sense of empathy in me, teaching me that we really are "all in this together." We're better off playing co-op than constantly going into deathmatch, so to speak. Incidentally, all of that was something I attempted to inject into my novel as well. (Jeez, these games really did have a big effect on me, eh?)

As for MGS2... Well, that game just exploded my mind unlike any other game. That last hour of the game where the philosophy of information restriction/proliferation breaks out just rattled my brain, and that it was delivered via an awesome Metal Gear Ray fight/Solidus George Washington statue battle just amplified the effect several times over. Everything else about the game was just freaking great too. I started writing the most freaking bizarre YuGiOh fan fiction in middle school that somehow incorporated MGS/espionage elements. :lol: MGS2 is just... well, it's MGS2.

EDIT: Yes, Influential on you, games that introduced you to new things or that you just really loved.

#1: Rayman: Mom had this on the PS1 and was the first game I picked up and played ever. Origins is the only other Rayman game that can stand up to the original.

#2: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: Got this along with my Game Boy Color. First game that was truly mine. Spent hours replaying this amazing game.

#3: Wario Land 4: I remember going to the store a few months after the GBA launched and picking out this game since you could be Wario, the final boss of Mario land 2. This is one the greatest platformers ever made IMO and it's just weird and creepy.

#4: Pokemon Ruby: The game that got me into Pokemon, Parents later found Red and Silver for me too.

#5: Halo 3: Not the best Halo game, but I made a lot of new friends at school becuase everyone was looking for people to play with after this came out.

YoshiYogurt

Actually, I'm gonna go ahead and add a belated #4 to my list.

To reiterate:

#1. Lunar: The Silver Star
#2. Illusion of Gaia
#3. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
#4. Mother 3

There were a lot of odd choices made with the narrative of Mother 3 (I'm talking structurally; I'm not talking about all the hilarious and bizarre situations that litter the game), but the beginning and ending of that game were both just WOW moments. The campfire scene near the end of Chapter 1 was genuinely disturbing to witness and I experienced very specific emotions watching it--that is no easy feat with GBA graphics! Similarly, the final battle of the game was just... man. I feel like the narrative didn't properly build up to such a dramatic and incredible scene, but all the same, taken on its own merit, the final battle scene of Mother 3 is one of the most powerful moments ever captured in a video game. I only finished Mother 3 recently, but I have a feeling that game is going to stick with me for a long time.

1. Super Mario 64 - One of my favorite games of all times and the one that got me interested in video games.

2. Goldeneye - My cousin bought this on day one and we played it a full 6 hours until his sister broke her arm trying to get something out of her closet. Spent a couple hours at the hospital and I've been a classic shooter nut ever since.

3. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - I picked this game up 5 years ago, played it for 5 minutes, got stuck, declared I hated it because I couldn't hit anything, and tried to sell it back to Gamestop (who at this point had stopped accepting box games. First day they had that policy). It must have been some kind of divine intervention as I went home, popped it in again, and after a few hours of frustration, got the controls down and proceeded to play the most addicting game I've played to date with over 4000 hours spilled into it. This game revitalized RPGs for me, which I had stopped playing years earlier when Final Fantasy VII released (unlike most people, I never cared for it. I thought the characters were too annoying).

4. Pokemo Yellow - Pokemon is my favorite video game series. Ever. Period. My childhood was a cult-like devotion to them and I spent countless hours watching the TV show, playing the games, and collecting the cards. I have the largest Pokemon card collection in my area. When RPGs had died and gone away for me, this series just became more beloved, and this was the game that started it all.

5. Rush 2 - What I personally believe is the most underrated racing title in the N64's library, if not in gaming in general. I fell in love with it's smooth control (for me) and great multiplayer (especially the Stunt track). It was the title that made racing games one of my favorite genres and I still play it once or twice a week.

Super Mario Bros (NES)

Command & Conquer (PC)

Goldeneye (N64)

Super Mario 64 (N64)

Donkey Kong (colecovision)