| A_C_E said: GTA 3 had the bigger impact. Mario 64 showed everyone how to do 3D gaming correctly but we're talking about influence, not who's is better and who's is worse. Open world games are MUCH more popular and have only gotten bigger and bigger. GTA 5 just released last year to record-breaking sales smashing expectations. Mario 64 sold 11.89 million units and not many, if any, 3D platformers have passed the success seen by Mario 64. I just don't see the comparison, I'm sorry. Not to take anything away from Mario 64 considering it was the game that did everything right but I don't see the influence when 3D platformers are hardly ever released compared to open world games like ES, Fallout, Assassins Creed and the likes. I know there were many other factors at play during the PS2 days but for anyone who wasn't gaming yet at that time it was GTA 3 that helped PS2 absolutely dominate that generation. That is the influence that GTA 3 had. The PS2 was the console to own simply because GTA 3 was on it. Not only do sales reflect that but so do the amount of open world games that were released shortly after and are still being released plentiful to this very day. |
I think you're getting things a bit skewed in your perspective. So-called "open world" games have been around for a hell of a long time, dating back to The Legend of Zelda on NES and old school PC rpgs and adventure games. "Open World" is nothing new, and GTA certainly did not invent it whatsoever. What GTA did make popular (but didn't invent), was so-called "sandbox" gameplay, wherein you have a game world with a bunch of non-important stuff that you can dick around doing.
Furthermore, while you're certainly correct that GTAIII was popular and many people have tried to emulate it since, including Rockstar themselves, let's not get it twisted. Mario 64 didn't just influence one type of 3D polygonal game. It influenced most types. There is a very clear shift in 3D development before, and then after Mario 64 released. That game wasn't just a blueprint for 3D platformers, as you suggest, which, by the way, went on to influence Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Banjo-Kazooie, Sly Cooper, etc. (if we're just talking about platformers). It literally influenced almost every single genre of 3D gaming, because it showed developers how to do so many things the right way (as opposed to the, let's say, Bubsy 3D way), such as lighting, "camera" work, "camera" control, physics, how polygonal game elements should appropriately interact with each other so as to provide smooth gameplay and not look shitty, tight controls, depth of field design, how to handle air/flying, how to handle underwater action, how to account for things like emulated gravity and inertia in a 3D polygonal game world, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Mario 64 was, I know it's been said before but bears repeating, the Super Mario Bros. of 3D gaming. As much as SMB set the groundwork for all future side-scrolling games, Mario 64 did the same for 3D gaming. Not just platformers, but action games, sports games, fighters, arguably racers, etc. Ocarina of Time also deserves some serious credit, of course, for further illustrating what could/should be done in a 3D game environment. But M64 was the granddaddy.
GTAIII deserves all the props and accollades people want to give it, but I'm sorry, when we're talking about which game actually hd the bigger, wider, more far reaching impact/influence on future 3D game design, it's Mario 64. End of story.
