The Essential 50

[Sophita]

I think Sim City should have been on there. Populous may have started the god game genre, but Sim City is what made it popular. I don't know many othe rpeople who hav eplayed Populous, but almost everyone i know has played Sim City at some point. That, IMO, makse it more important than Populous.

I also think Black and White should be on there, because it's "morality" gauge - where there were many solutions and things differed if you choose the "good" one (for example, saving a guy and helping him build his home) or if you choose the "bad" one (for example, saving a guy only to kill him in front of his wife and children and them destroy his home) seems to have been highly influential on a small subgenre of RPG games - the 2 KOTORs, Fable, etc. But it's small enough I also agree that it makes sense for it to be left out.

I also do not think GTA III is revolutinary. Other than introducing a functioning control system and going from one perspective to another, it does nothing for the genre. There were adult orientated games before it. There were games with humor and seriousness before it. There were games that delt with criminals/playing the bad guy before it. It is only revolutionary in the fact that a bunch of people bought it, and it was one of the first adult oriented games to sell well. (But if that is a proper condition for being included on the list, then why isn't Sim City there?)

I also think the Macintosh shouldn't have been on there. It's the fifty most innovative games; the Macintosh is, in terms of gaming, merely a console. It's a cheat to have it on there, even if it was revolutionary in terms of personal computers - it's not revolutionary in terms of games. They might as well have put in the powerglove, one of the first of many doomed accessories, or the original game boy (the first portable gaming device that held more than one game, as well as one of the first gaming consoles to be released in more than one form).
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[Krawnik]

Don't forget that GTA was pretty much the first series to offer completely open-ended gameplay. It just dropped you in a city and gave you the option of stealing anything, killing anyone, and going anywhere. GTA3 was just the title in the series that made it a household name, and also made the violence up-close and personal. GTA is basically a synonym for freedom in the context of gaming, and every game since to promise "open ended gameplay" is inevetably and legitimately compared to GTA. It removed linear gameplay restrictions and imposed an overwhelming type of freedom to choose how you play. Ignore the storyline altogether for all Rockstar cares. The point is that GTA is fun no matter how you play it, which is an example to game developers everywhere.

Let freedom ring!
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416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
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[Sophita]

Eh - was it? The Sims (in particular,and I'm sure there were others that I'm not thinking of) is a very open ended game, and sold more copies to boot, and earlier. It's just-barely-in-the-same-genre-and-perhaps-not-quite, but still. Of course, the Sims HAS no storyline unless you create one, so perhaps apples and oranges.

But again, if it's the most innovative games, then why isn't the first GTA up there? It's far more "revolutionary"; GTA3 just made the damn thing playable by getting rid of the top-down perspective and adding decent controls. I don't see it being innovative in terms of content or presentation, which leaves only sales as a factor.

It might have become a standard, but it's not the first title for that to happen either. Like it or not, every RPG is usually compared to Final Fantasy, and even new Final Fantasy titles are compared against old ones. Every action game is compared against Mario - or Sonic. Every fighting game is compared to Street Fighter or Tekken (sometimes DoA, and sometimes a passing reference to not being so deep a fighting game engine as VF).
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John Layfield wrote:

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[Krawnik]

Which is why most of those titles are up there O_o

Sales does have to be considered when deciding to grant a game with the title of "influential". Grand Theft Auto established the series' trademark violent/open-ended style of gameplay, for sure, but nobody played it. GTA3 was more influential on modern games because it marks the point at which open-ended gameplay became popular, and the market for open-ended games was established, or at least defined. It's the same reason Final Fantasy VII is up there but not Final Fantasy I or V or VI. FF established the role-playing saga and nigh defined the genre of itself. VI, many people believe to be the best in the series, or even the best RPG of all time. VII though, is what made the big splash. VII pioneered the way for Japanese RPGs to find a home in American libraries, so whether or not VII was better or more revolutionary, it's more influential because it reached more people. Same with GTA3. Just because GTA1 did it first and the Sims does it similarly, GTA made the biggest deal out of it, and because it established such a huge potential demographic, it became influential on the development of recent games.
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416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
RIP Ninjalicious

[fuji]

The list was alright, but I do disagree with a few of their choices. What we're looking at his revolutionary games that created or otherwise defined a genre. There's a few on there that didn't. One that did get recognition was Dragon Warrior. I'm so glad that's on there as I feel the same way they do. It was the father to Japan's console RPG market.

FFVI was the blue print used by almost every RPG released from Japan for close to a decade. But they included FF7 since more people have probably played that one and it did mark the jump to 3D and RPG's jump to mainstream...

Sid Mier's Civilization or Master of Orion defined the 4x strategy genre.

Dune 2 (from westwood) fathered the RTS genre which was later expanded on by Warcraft/Starcraft and Command and Conquer.

What about X-Wing, SimCity?

I really disagree with Halo. They even said it, Halo offered nothing more than Goldeneye aside from a better implementation. Goldeneye defined multiplayer FPS on the console.
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[Raze]

[Keriaku]

[Sophita]

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[Krawnik]