Decent list, tough there are some notable absences to... and at least 3 games that dont deserve to be on that list :|

@Esmoreit: The least I can say is that your list is several orders of magnitude better than the OP's...

Thanks NJ5 - I didn't put much thought in it and there where a lot of deserving titles that fell just out of my top 20. Wii Fit is one, as where Half Life, Mario Kart, Chrono Trigger, Micro-Machines, Alone in the Dark and Maniac Mansion

my disagreements as follows:

doom? maybe wolfenstien where they did it all first was more innovative.

Resident Evil? please go play alone in the dark. res evil improved the graphics and sound.

Bioshock? deus ex 1 and 2? system shock 1 and 2?

i agree with some of those, but some are obviously not the first.

lol maniac Mansion - first game that makes no sense and near impossible to beat, but you can fry hamsters in the microwave

If you are going to do a list of the most innovative games "EVER" you should know your gaming history...
There is so many games that better deserve to be in that list than for example FFVII. I'm talking about games that not only were innovatice compared to prequels or other games in that genre, but innovative for the gaming scene.

A very important game that hasn't been mentioned yet:
Defender (First side-scrolling game, what had gaming been without it?)

also howd simcity not make it?

i remember when that came out on mac . . .

mind blowingly different

I can't believe that there are MULTIPLE FPS games on the list for minor improvements of the genre, while whole genres are not represented, for example tycoon games, anything round-based, point and click adventures, sidescrollers, every racing, and nothing from earlier than the '90s.

It just looks like they listed some of the most popular games ever, (and I mean internet-popularity, not sales) and called them the most innovative.

There are so many games, that stretch the definition of gaming, like The Graveyard, The Path, or The Endless Forest, all from a single developer, or weird flash games like You Must Burn The Rope, The Game, or the Grow series, and thousands of others.

These games are truly weird, and by definition, different from everything else, new experiences. Of course, they are that weird, that they won't ever became popular, not even among the "hardcore".

I don't agree with a number of them. Especially putting warcraft in there instead of dune 2. Dune 2 is the mother of rts and invented the genre. Did it quite well too.

How can someone claim this for games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, and LittleBigPlanet when it hasn't been forever yet, let alone a few years.