Rules: just pick 1 and explain why.
I’ve been playing since the NES and despite being from a low income family I had the luck of being able to play and own many consoles over the 3 decades of my life, plus some pc.
If you ask me right now? Resident Evil 4 (2005).
A before and after in gaming, to this day still extremely fun to play even for casuals but 20 years ago it was THE masterpiece. And everyone took notice of it, everyone played it, even players that didn’t cared about resident evil. The gameplay was so good that it got photocopied by everyone right after in the action genre.
Arguably the last big innovator in videogames minus Minecraft and… PUBG (Fortnite did it better I know).
Just cause three. blow shit up, kill bad guys, just enough story to explain it all. even better, it strikes a good balance of minimal story and compelling story, which a lot of games like that kinda suck at.
And everything that you are supposed to target is red, as it should be.
I remember “learning” many years ago that all barrels that are red are obviously explosive. Just Cause dialed that up several notches.
Grand Theft Auto 3.
You had to be there to see how absolutely groundbreaking that was at the time. Gaming had suddenly grown up.
It was like all the obvious limits in other games all just got pulled away at once. Explore a full city in 3D, drive around, shoot people, steal a tank.
And the sequel only improved on it, but I’ve honestly never been so awed by a game before or since. It’s like they were the first dev to finally figure out what the PS2 hardware was for. Everything before just felt like a slightly nicer version of what had come before. This was new.
I didn’t even look in this direction but I think you’re right
the greatest, highest earning, and most influential game of all time is Clash of Clans. It earns about $5mil a day.
Titles like Elden Ring, Zelda, Bioshock, KoTOR, God of War, Skyrim and the Witcher are obscure also-ran games that titans of the game industry (people who fund video game development) consider them failures.
EDIT: I changed some stuff.
I’ve had the same clash of clans base since I was like 9 lol
Skyrim and Zelda obscure?
Also I’m not going to challenge the earnings of Clash of Clans, but, why is it the most influential?
Because it’s taught everyone that the cash cow is low effort, microtransaction laden “free” to play games loaded to the gills with slot machine and gatcha mechanics and other psychological manipulation tactics.
If you as a game publisher want to make big bucks, you have to make one of those. Which is why everything is becoming exactly that nowadays.
Halo 2
Maybe Halo 3? The amount of content, the custom games, the competitive gaming, all of it was just so good and loved by so many people.
Concord.
…what? I liked it. 😉
Quake 1.
The game is kinda meh, but the modability spawned an endless amount of awesome stuff to this day. Even Half-life is basically just a Quake mod.
Mario bros 3 - it felt like a SNES game
God I fucking loved that game.
I feel like the NES version was better than the SNES one actually
100% agree. SMB3 on NES just had so much more stuff going on compared to SMW on the SNES. Mini games galore, secrets up the wazoo, and the muthafuckin’ SHOE. For reals using that bad boy was like stepping into a goddamn Gundam.
I think they meant smb3 that was included in super mario all stars, not smw :p
Yup
That was one of my front runners for a long time, but after recently playing them side by side, SM World is much better.
Runescape. It’s been around for more than 20 years and still is one of the most active online games.
As someone who never played the games as a kid, I can be more or less impartial in saying that Mario Bros. was probably the gaming industry’s big break.
I’m tempted to say either The Witcher 3, Grand Theft Auto V, or Metal Gear Solid 5 (if you can look past the fact it’s unfinished).
All three are exceptionally polished, have huge, highly detailed world’s to explore, cinematic moments with blockbuster action scenes, smooth and balanced gameplay, are suitable for gaming noobs and veterans, and has moments to goof off and dick around.
It’s hard not to be biased, though I’ll state I don’t personally like GTAV, I think it’s perhaps too ordinary for my tastes and feels too restrictive in its mission structure.
Grandia II
Red Dead Redemption 2, no contest.
The game world is so close to feeling real… the physics and horse handling feel basically perfect. They took their time to make you feel like you were in 19th century America.
I’ll disagree with that, it’s sooo slow. Perhaps it’s just my ADHD but man it hurts to play sometimes 🥲
Yeah I agree. The world is incredible, but the missions and gameplay not so much.
Tedious gameplay almost ruins it
It has its flaws but I’ve never had more fun than playing halo 3 custom games back in the day. You could do and make almost anything! I haven’t felt that playing any game since.
XCOM
You better be talking about DOS X-COM UFO Defense or I’ll send a blaster bomb down your gullet :o
…I sadly didn’t know about the series until the new ones in 2012. I’ve played the hell out of them and do want to go back and play the DOS ones sometime.
The remakes are solid for sure but they’re pretty different games that don’t quite fully capture the spirit of open ended gameplay you could do in the originals.
For example:
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Grenade relay involving 5 soldiers passing across the map until it lands at the foot of a Muton your out of actions scout ended his turn next to
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Blow a hole in the roof of a landed UFO and drop your soldiers in behind aliens watching the doors expecting a conventional assault
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Drive a tank into a single family home to dig out an alien hiding in a closet
Amazing. Some of my favorite experiences in the new ones have also been creative problem-solving, like rocketing open a hole in a wall to allow my snipers to see through, or trying to carry my injured/dead soldiers with the good loot to extraction when I have to cut my losses and run.
Sounds like I should just go ahead and play the old ones too. I started one up earlier this year, but it wasn’t clear what all the buttons did, and I didn’t have the focus to figure it out. I need to look up the manual or watch a video or something.
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