Veknoid_Outcast on 29 October 2014
| Shadow1980 said: Mario. This isn't opinion. It's objective reality. Super Mario Bros. is probably the single most important game ever released. After the Crash of '83, the console industry was knocking on death's door. Then came the NES. Nintendo's first console was hugely popular and single-handedly revived the console industry, and it attained its popularity primarily through SMB, which was the original pack-in game for the system. While there were other games early in the NES's life, none were nearly as huge as SMB. In addition to being the game that made the system that saved gaming, SMB also established the platformer as a mainstream genre, a genre that would diversify and proliferate, becoming the dominate genre for two consecutive generations. Several years later, SMB3 would prove to be the most anticipated new game of the 20th century. It was the best-selling game not originally bundled with a system until GTA: San Andreas unseated it 15 years later. The Super Mario franchise has generated more sales than any other game franchise, and every bit of those sales were highly deserved. Other influential games include: - Pong, the first commercially successful arcade game - Space Invaders, which took the arcade industry to new heights and kick-started the Golden Age of Arcades - Pac-Man, which in addition to being insanely popular introduced the concept of the mascot character as well as cutscenes and power-ups - Street Fighter II, which popularized fighting games - Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, which set the standard for JRPGs. Final Fantasy VII was also the game that made the PlayStation popular; sales were slow in the U.S. (and possibly Europe) until FFVII was released. - Doom, which popularized first-person shooters, and, along with Mortal Kombat, was responsible for the ESRB coming into existence. - Halo, which, in addition to making Xbox a household name, redefined shooters and is responsible for codifying mechanics that are now genre standards. Halo 2 also popularized online gaming on consoles. |
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I would also add The Legend of Zelda, for laying the groundwork for non-linear action-adventure games in particular and most modern games in general; Ultima, for successfully translating the tabletop role-playing game to home computers; and Grand Theft Auto III, for popularizing and codifying the open-ended sandbox game.
