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20 Games That Changed Gaming Forever

pcworld.com — From BioShock to World of Warcraft, see what games lead our list of ground-breaking titles that rocked the gaming world to its core.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 25, 2009

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  • AndrewDB, on 06/25/2009, -1/+180Save your self from going through 20 pages:

    #20: Portal
    #19: Street Fighter II
    #18: Dance Dance Revolution
    #17: Resident Evil
    #16: BioShock
    #15: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
    #14: Final Fantasy VII
    #13: The Sims
    #12: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
    #11: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
    #10: Super Mario 64
    #9: Half-Life
    #8: Wii Sports
    #7: Halo: Combat Evolved
    #6: LittleBigPlanet
    #5: Metal Gear Solid
    #4: Shadow of the Colossus
    #3: World of Warcraft
    #2: Grand Theft Auto III

    #1: Doom

    Or the printable version, http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,167229 ...
  • Soleanthia, on 06/25/2009, -4/+58Buried for 21 ***** pages.
    Thanks Andrew for posting all of them. :)
  • joenuck89, on 06/25/2009, -1/+51Where is Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye?
  • Khast, on 06/25/2009, -4/+45Hmm...I'd say the games that changed the gaming world should start with:

    Pong (It pretty much started video games...but no, everyone forgets grandpa)
    Pac-Man
    Donkey Kong
    Super Mario Bros.
    Wolfenstein 3-D

    No "Games that changed Gaming" list should be without these titles... PERIOD.
  • longlukey, on 06/25/2009, -0/+29Goldeneye changed the meaning of what a mulltiplayer game should be forever
  • inactive, on 06/25/2009, -1/+3021 ***** pages? Really?
  • mark076h, on 06/25/2009, -1/+25what about Sim City?
  • tobsterius, on 06/25/2009, -0/+22Where's Myst? It was the best selling game for quite some time and was pretty much the main reason for the rise in popularity of the CD-ROM
  • jmdwinter, on 06/25/2009, -0/+22I was also surprised at how many bases were covered. It did occur to me that several classic games should be on there:
    -Tetris
    -Super Mario Bros
    -Pong
    I think there is a constraint that the games had to have been released after a certain date.
  • Halsfield, on 06/25/2009, -0/+20Popular =/= changed gaming forever/innovative.

    This article can't seem to stick to its own criteria. In some cases they go with the original game of a certain genre/type that was the breakthrough game that started a whole host of other popular games (ie: dance dance revolution spawning guitar hero/rock band/etc). However in others they simply go with whatever one is most popular now(ie WoW instead of say..EQ1 or UO being the breakthrough mmo that started the mmo craze). Decide what you want to define innovative as and stick with it or your ranking means nothing.

    I will give WoW respect for grabbing the attention of the economic world at large and showing them that pc games can be serious money makers when produced and supported correctly. I still think eq1 and UO were a lot more innovative. I see WoW as a mash-up of EQ1's gameplay/basic interface/leveling system/etc (all admitted by WoW lead developers prior to launch) combined with warhammer's lore/character designs.

    They also focused mostly on Bioshocks morality system as why it was innovative when I think the game as a whole was pretty damn innovative(unique plasmid combination loadouts, world dripping with character, incredibly lifelike villains/denizens of rapture, creepy and terrifying while being intriguing, etc). Once again this game had a predecessor(systemshock) that broke out of the pack and delivered a unique experience that other games simply werent doing at the time so can we really give bioshock all the credit(they didnt even mention systemshock)?

  • Shazbuckle, on 06/25/2009, -0/+19Cod4 didn't change gaming forever.

    Everything in that game had been done before.
  • quamb, on 06/25/2009, -0/+19Yeah the list is pretty narrow minded, as if written by someone lacking common gaming knowledge.

    I'd say Quake, being the first mass-played online game with CTF, TF, DM + countless other mods is pretty damn game changing. Far more then COD4 or Bioshock ever were... I mean, they were great games, but far from shaking anyone up... hell, even Half Life or System Shock were more revolutionary then COD4 & Bioshock.

    And Zelda: Ocarina of Time was crazy revolutionary, and pioneered the way for games like Shadow of the Colossus to even exist.



    Why this person wrote this stupid ass list for pcworld.com I have no idea.

  • MizuhoChan, on 06/25/2009, -1/+19This list is an epic troll. Halo higher than Mario 64? No SMB3? No Zelda at all?

    I didn't even lol.
  • Jonathunder, on 06/25/2009, -1/+19Little Big Planet is NOT more influential than Super Mario 64, bull ***** list. Bioshock?
  • shillabus, on 06/25/2009, -1/+18Dugg for listing GTA3 instead of Vice City.
  • yocouchdigga, on 06/24/2009, -4/+21No Sonic The Hedgehog, what gives!?
  • Rhysbo, on 06/25/2009, -2/+18What happened to *Insert Game Title Here*?
  • Bindigit, on 06/25/2009, -0/+16Sid Meier's Civilization. 'Nuff said.
  • nebloof, on 06/25/2009, -4/+20Seriously? These are the games that changed gaming forever? This is the most horrible list ever made. F***ing World of Warcraft? Are you kidding? Yeah, because the NES with Super Mario Brothers had absolutely NOTHING to do with reviving gaming after the crash. That didn't change history, no not at all...

    This is more like "let's list my favorite games"

  • DuneAdx, on 06/25/2009, -1/+16Would you feel better if he said "miles ahead"?
  • newbay, on 06/25/2009, -2/+1720-11 were reasonable, stopped reading after Halo though and just checked the full list

    real top 10 would include:

    Pong
    Pacman
    SMB 1 and 3
    Wolf3d
    Quake/TF
    Tetris
    Pokemon
  • Dragonis, on 06/25/2009, -0/+14i personally think Deus Ex did more than Bioshock
  • beskurrd, on 06/24/2009, -2/+16Doom at #1 seems fitting.
  • brownsound00, on 06/25/2009, -0/+13You gotta have Diablo 2 on there... it set the stage for WoW
  • LordSubtle, on 06/25/2009, -3/+16Bioshock is not. Good vs Evil in games are a little more common, but Kotor did it first. Bauldur's Gate did it first. The art style is good, but yet to be immitated.

    Metal Gear, I would put in a similar boat. Its a wonderful game, but I don't think it's redefined anything ( I also don't think theres anything like it)

    Final Fantasy VII reinvited the console RPG. But they praise the amount of effort put into the game... that was not really something special about the game, but special about the new technology that enabled them to do that.

    GTA is much like FFVII. We all knew that sandbox games would come eventually, GTA was just the first to do it and hit home. Neither GTA or FF was really that groundbreaking, it was just the creation of something we knew was coming. World of Warcraft is like this too.

    Halo is a damn good game, but if you want to see the game that made FPSes work on consoles, look to Golden Eye.

    Overall, I would say this list is alot of *****.
  • Enlefo, on 06/25/2009, -0/+12Yeah ***** seriously... when I was reading about how Halo was the first good console shooter I thought "these people obviously never played golden eye"
  • ninjajaja, on 06/25/2009, -2/+13What happened to Counter-strike?
  • jjh941, on 06/25/2009, -1/+12With out Ocarina of Time there is no reason to live
  • quamb, on 06/25/2009, -1/+12hmm.. that's a pretty half-assed and biased attempt at a "Games That Changed Gaming Forever" list.
  • inactive, on 06/25/2009, -1/+12I don't see any implication of time in that. Distance would also convey the meaning he is aiming for.
  • iamausername, on 06/25/2009, -0/+11"20 Games That Changed Gaming Forever" translation "some guy/girl's favourite games put in a list"
  • dimension, on 06/25/2009, -0/+10Without Goldeneye there is no Halo.
  • zzz@tkz, on 06/25/2009, -0/+10"but Doom was miles ahead because..."

    still works as a unit of distance. Rage less plzkthx
  • DarkredDragon, on 07/07/2009, -0/+9TY dude
  • Slust, on 06/25/2009, -1/+10This list is definitely not a list of 20 Games That Changed Gaming Forever. This is a list of Some Games That Changed Gaming Forever And Some Other Good Games Too.

    Bioshock changed gaming? Hardly. Good game *at best* but only because it was received by a wider audience than System Shock 2, which was a better game that fewer people played.
  • Poochyfud, on 06/25/2009, -2/+11Pretty good list actually. Only complaints would be that they left out old games like Tetris, Super Mario Brothers, etc and that Bioshock and Halo didn't really innovate so much as pull together things that had already been done and put them into one complete package.
  • brownsound00, on 06/25/2009, -0/+9Pokemon was sick. The replayability on that game is ridiculous.
  • TheKitchenSinkX, on 06/25/2009, -0/+91. Uh, E.T. destroyed the entire industry for a while. I think that deserves mention.
    2. Bioshock was a "sleeper hit?" Uh.
  • inactive, on 06/25/2009, -1/+9Bioshock, Portal, and Little Big Planet are all relatively new games, and I see no evidence that they have "changed gaming forever". It might accurately be said about those games in 5 or 10 years, but including them now makes no sense at all.
  • uberduger, on 06/25/2009, -0/+8Swapping out Mario 64 for Tomb Raider and GTAIII for GTA:Vice was a bit silly IMHO. GTA Vice was much better than III, but III brought the revolution that has pretty much given birth to todays sandbox genre. And Mario 64 was definitely revolutionary.
    And I wouldn't agree that Half Life 2 has changed gaming all that much. It's fantastic, but I'd argue that Max Payne's bullet time did more to shift gaming than HL2 did.
  • GriffCo, on 06/25/2009, -1/+9super mario bro was an adrenaline shot into gaming.

    But to think that WoW didnt revolutionize it? Do you know how many people play WoW? Do you know how many more gamers are being introduced every week because of WoW even to this day?
  • heucuva, on 06/25/2009, -3/+11That was a terrible list. Here's a much less "ASS" version of the list and the reason(s) for each:

    #20: Portal - This one's a given, although it's really Narbacular Drop that induced the change.
    #19: King of Fighters - 2D fighters have been around forever, but this one stepped up EVERYTHING a few notches.
    #18: Dance Dance Revolution - This one's also a given.
    #17: Sweet Home - This game, although lame, started off the idea for Resident Evil.
    #16: Half-Life 2 - Bio-horror-fighter games with beautiful graphics started here, even if Quake was earlier.
    #15: Dune 2 - This was truly the first mainstream RTS game and was an amazing game.
    #14: Final Fantasy VII - This game, by itself, was weaksauce, but it did revolutionize the RPG genre in a number of ways that I enjoy.
    #13: The Sims - This game definitely revolutionized something... probably pedophilia, though.
    #12: Super Stardust - This was an amazing version of Asteroids, which is all that Geometry Wars is.
    #11: Goldeneye 007 - CoD4 is good and all, but this was the Original "where-it's-at" when it came to multiplayer warfare. (CounterStrike for more than 4 players, though)
    #10: Tomb Raider - 3D platform games made it big off of this game and not Mario 64, but the box art might've been a bit of the reason.
    #9: Quake 2 - Half-Life was good, but Quake 2 was longer lived and had more mods available for it.
    #8: Wii Sports - I personally would say that Hot Shots Golf was better when it comes to Golf, but for an all-in-one game, Wii Sports still wins.
    #7: Marathon - Without Marathon, there wouldn't be Halo, but you could say the same thing about Doom.
    #6: LittleBigPlanet - If you like that sort of thing....
    #5: Thief - The hide-and-sneak really didn't start here, either, but this is a game that everyone would probably agree did it best.
    #4: Shadow of the Colossus - Only because it is made of condensed win.
    #3: EverQuest - Although one would argue that Meridian 59 started it all (or maybe some random BBS MUD even before that), this started the mass revolution of MMOs.
    #2: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - GTA3 is ok, but Vice City really brought the game to mass audiences.
    #1: Wolfenstein 3D - This started the 3D FPS revolution, which sparked creation of titles like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Marathon, and Mech Warrior 2.
  • Haoie, on 06/25/2009, -0/+8Cmon, that's #3.
  • joejitsu, on 06/25/2009, -1/+9Where was Dues Ex, Fallout, thief, and Baldur's Gate?
  • U83RMENSCH, on 06/25/2009, -1/+8what games have sonic inspired that hasnt been ***** sonic sequels?
  • inactive, on 06/25/2009, -6/+13I think TimeSplitters honestly did more for Console shooters than Halo did.
  • Trumpetman4eva, on 06/25/2009, -2/+9I was kind of expecting Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be on here. That game pretty much took the world by storm. Other than that a decent list.
  • Klaky, on 06/25/2009, -0/+7I went into the article thinking it was claiming to be a list of games "That Changed Gaming Forever" like the title says, but they claim to be innovative.

    People need to learn to title their articles properly. Portal (as of yet) has not "changed gaming forever" but it is innovative.

    On a separate note how can it list World of Warcraft and skip Ultima Online or EverQuest, games that started that market.
  • inactive, on 06/25/2009, -1/+8Buried for half of the games on the list not actually changing gaming.
  • bamgrinus, on 06/25/2009, -0/+7Really questionable entries on there:

    Bioshock - Not seeing it at all. What exactly did this influence?
    Geometry Wars - Shooters are an ancient, and non-mainstream, genre. You're either going to have to go back a lot further or pick something pretty different to show something that changed the genre much (like maybe one of the Touhou games)
    CoD4 - Just cause it's a good game doesn't mean it changed anything.
    Wii Sports - Most of the evidence right now is that this *didn't* change gaming, although it's easy to see how people would think it would have.
    LittleBigPlanet - Sony wishes this changed gaming forever.
    SotC - Well respected game. But I don't think anybody really took much in the way of lessons from it.
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