| Ajax said: Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Driver, Super Mario 64, Zelda OoT are open world games preceding GTA3. |
Yet it wasn't until GTA 3 and its unprecedented cultural success that pushed the open world era into what it is today. If we are talking about influence then GTA 3 wins (imo) for the fact that there seems to be much more demand for open world games than there are 3D platformers. Sandbox games will continue to get bigger and bigger thanks to the ambition Rockstar had with GTA 3. There have been MANY successes within the open world genre thanks to GTA 3.
Ever since GTA3, there have been loads and loads of successful open world games that don't have the name GTA in them. How many successful 3D Platformers have there been since Mario 64 without the name Mario? I honestly don't see why people are voting for Mario 64. Influence suggests an industry following but its Nintendo consistently releasing the Mario name with Galaxy series and SM3DW kind of games.
I could be wrong and not see the bigger picture or the amount of quality 3D Platformers but I'mm quite sure they are far and few between.
