Rabit’s Top 7 Revolutionary Games Of Our Time
by Rabit on Sep.04, 2011, under The Top 7 of Everything
There have been many computer games over the years that have changed the face of gaming permanently, some for the better and some for the worse. These are my top 7 of the better side of gaming.
7. Gran Turismo (1997 – Playstation)
To me this was the father of all driving sims. Now that I have a car and a driving licence I don’t tend to play driving sims at all, but I remember in my early teenage years playing GT for hours and hours and hours, it was purely immersive and a truly “can’t put down” game. It lead the way for some really awesome progression in driving sims, some great follow on games and some even better sequels. So this game should stand tall as one of the great innovators of gaming history.
6. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (1998 – PC)
Rainbow Six was a unique game in itself; yes FPS had been done before, but not in the way that Red Storm put this game together. I think the combination of deep tactics, man management, and special forces hints and tips was truly original but unfortunately doesn’t seem to have transpired through to the modern games of the series which are just boring FPS clones, they’ve lost the magic that the original had. I remember opening this game on Christmas morning and not seeing the rest of the family for the rest of the day… probably the rest of the week.
5. The Legend of Zelda (1986 – NES)
I can’t get through a list like this and not mention what is, in my opinion, the grandfather of RPG games. There are so many things that are great about the original Legend of Zelda, too many to list, but it lead directly to two of my favourite RPG games of all time; ‘Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’ and ‘Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’. These games were the stepping stone to almost all RPG games we play today, and so have to be given credit for leading us down such a great path.
4. Grand Theft Auto (1997 – PC)
GTA was a true original, going where no game had gone before, and each sequel took us somewhere new (well, most of them anyway). The original GTA took the violence nay-sayers by surprise and started them on a “liberal fairy” frenzy, but that didn’t stop sequel after sequel and GTA III was another true innovator of games and the first of a multitude of sandbox games to grace the gaming scene, so definitely worthy of a high place in gaming history.
3. Sid Meier’s Civilization (1991 – PC)
Civilization is a descendant of modern strategy games, and I think it’s one of the greatest of the genre and despite the boxy graphics (remember, this was a DOS game when it came out!) the gameplay and game mechanics still hold up today and make every game different and interesting. 20 years later and I still play this game with alarming regularity! Leading the way for micromanagement, researching tech trees, and great strategy and AI, this game was definitely a forefather to some great strategy games that have come out since and a well-deserved third place.
2. Super Mario Brothers (1985 – NES)
If anyone can remember the 80’s and didn’t own a NES or at least a SNES, leave now and close the door on your way out, yes I mean your door. Out. The Mario Brothers were, in my opinion, the dawn of great console gaming. They took a medium of mediocre entertainment and brought three of four more dimensions to it. So many games have lead directly from the Super Mario Brothers, too many to mention, including some of their sequels which are in themselves true gaming greats such as Super Mario World on the SNES. Without Nintendo, and in particular the Super Mario Brothers, we wouldn’t be where we are with gaming today.
1. Wolfenstein 3D (1992 – PC)
Many people cite Doom (1993) or Quake (1996) as the dawn of first person shooters, but they would sorely wrong. Their predecessor Wolfenstein 3D was the true dawn of the FPS that we know today. It was the first 3 dimensional shooter, and held its way for a long time to come, a simple yet addictive interface lead directly to the Doom’s, Quake’s, Duke Nukem’s, and their clones we see today. And where would we be without 3D worlds and enemies to shoot up on our consoles and PC’s when the mood takes us?
September 8th, 2011 on 4:12 pm
It’s funny because I thought Dune 2000 was the first RTS game! I do agree with GTA and Wolfenstein but personally I’ve never really got on with the platform genre, hence never particularly liked the Mario series. My strengths in gaming come in totally different genres, mainly fighting games, beat ’em ups and RPGs, which is why I was suprised to not see any this list! But then again this is your opinion! Good list though, surprised that GTA was not #1 though!
September 8th, 2011 on 5:50 pm
Dune as opposed to? Yeah the Dune’s came well before games like C&C, but I neglected them off my list as I wasn’t in a RTS frame of mind lol. And you’re right, I think although we play a lot of the same games, our gaming taste is very different at times! For example I never got on with fighting games, and love platforms! Super Mario Brothers ftw!
I got Zelda in there, the first true RPG I ever played, and ‘A Link to the Past’ and ‘Ocarina of Time’ are two of the best RPGs to come out. I might be a bit bias there as I’ve never really played a Final Fantasy game, if I had, no doubt they’d be in there too!
I struggled with where to put GTA, but the sheer number of hours I’ve played Civ over all the GTA games put together made it nip GTA past the post to third place!
I think Street Fighter should have got an honourary mention maybe? heh
September 8th, 2011 on 9:55 pm
That’s exactly what I was getting at…Street Fighter II for and possibly Streets of Rage 2. Final Fantasy VII (7) is the king of RPGs and possibly converted millions of people to RPGs when it first came out. Zelda is a different kind of RPG, a lot more action based rather than the turn based strategic RPGs we have these days. Another one I would put in would be the dual release of the EA 4-Way Play module for when FIFA International SOccer (1994) came out. Compared to Sensible Soccer, Striker and World Cup games, that was a total revolution as sports games went, especially as you could play 4-player on a console. Mortal Kombat was also the fore-father of video game “violence” as the portrayal of blood and gore was never really dabbled with until Kano started pulling people’s hearts out of their chests!
September 8th, 2011 on 11:05 pm
Yeah, unfortunately knowing nothing about the FF series I had to omit it 🙁 and not being a massive fighting fan, I left those out… and not playing many football sims pre Fifa 97, I left them out too. Actually, I lie, I had Super Soccer on the SNES, that was awesome! Not really a revolutionary game tho ha!
I think maybe you should do a counter top 7: “Synyster’s Top 7 Revolutionary Games Of Our Time” lol and we can compare notes!!!
September 9th, 2011 on 3:16 pm
I may do that, but I’d probably do it from the perspective of being influential rather than revolutionary!
September 9th, 2011 on 5:58 pm
Excellent, I look forward to it! You’ve played a lot of games that I haven’t, so it’ll be interesting what you put as the top few… might have to go out and buy a few of them to try them out! 🙂