1st: Pong

2nd: Space Invaders

3rd: Super Mario Bros.

4th: Street Fighter II

5th: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

6th: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

7th: Uncharted (set the standard for cinematic gaming) / Skyward Sword (best overall use of motion controls in a hardcore game) / Super Mario Galaxy (one of the most creative games ever) - Sorry, impossible to pick just one this gen.

8th: Final Fantasy XV?? We'll see about that.

Yeah, that's true. Though I also question if games that set standards were overall still well made. An example would be Mario 64, which I think did so for 3D gaming, but I've heard people say Banjo Kazooie managed to improve on that. So I don't know what game I would give it to. I'd need to think it over.

Some more impact full games were of course half-life, changing the way fps were made.

And MGS2, the first true cinematic experience. A friend of mine didn't want to play himself, just wanted to watch me play through it while enjoying it as a movie. A whole industry was born later from watching playthroughs!

Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games, but as a defining point for games as art it's a bit late to the party. The Myst series was more successful and is a much earlier example.

Set a trend for online console shooters.

And now Wii Sports is dead (thankfully) but the CoD franchise is still alive and kicking.

I understand SM64 was difficult for you but you call MGS 1 a better 2d-to-3d transition when your character in MGS is still very much grounded to a two-dimensional plane much like he was in old 2d Metal Gear games. Not to say Mario wasn't bound to a flat plane as well in SM64 but Mario's verticality had much more emphasis in SM64 than Snake's verticality had in MGS.

Put it this way: 2d mario games allowed movement up, down, left, and right. 2d metal gear games allowed a similar movement scheme: up, down, left, and right atop a map. All could be handled with a d-pad. Transitioning into 3d, much more vertical movement was allowed in SM64. Mario could move in any direction atop a map as well as jump and somersault and a winged hat allowed him to fly about the map in all directions and underwater levels also allowed similar freedom. MGS on PS1 doesn't exactly allow the same freedom of movement vertically and as far as I know, no underwater levels.

I would say SMB1, Sonic 1 and then a tie between SM64 and 007. People forget that Halo wouldn't have happened on console without 007 blazing the trail. After that, I have to go with GTA. Halo was big, GTA was bigger and more ground breaking imo. Sandbox was almost invented by that game whereas Halo was more an evolution of things before it. After that, I'm going to go with Minecraft. COD is huge, and was huge, but Minecraft is even bigger.

Hmmm yeeah it's too difficult to pick just one game a gen, for instance Call of duty 4 defined the pinnacle of consoles shooters, but Wii sports had a huge effect on gen 7 too, paving the way for kinect, and move.

So for me :

Gen 1 : Pong  (played a lot on mums work)
Gen 2 :  Pac Man  (played so much on my uncle house)
Gen 3 : Super Mario bros  (played a lot with my sister and friend, was my first console)
Gen 4 : Civilization  (played for like 5000+ hours)
Gen 5 : Final Fantasy 7  (have buy and finished the game in jap,english & french)
Gen 6 : Everquest  (played this for 6 years every single days)
Gen 7 : Last of us  (one of my top 5 games i played easly !)
Gen 8 : Not over but i would pick disgaea 5 (just because there is so much to do for a tactical rpg but could not win against everquest in gen 6)

so granturismo made an higher impact than FF7? it barley sold more and made the lesser impact

Street Fighter II sold more than Super Mario World if you count in the Aracdes and how much money they generated, it vastly outsold Nitendos franchises

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Street+Fighter+II&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

Destiny sold the most if you count in all the DLC