The most influential video game

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-30 04:19am

Crayz9000 wrote:It's also one of the most modification-friendly games there is, something which has pretty much stuck to this day.

Don't kid yourself, there are tons more mod-friendly games out there. Yes, there are some modding tools, but mostly Half-Life just has a devoted (and talented) fanbase.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-12-30 04:23am

Howedar wrote:Don't kid yourself, there are tons more mod-friendly games out there. Yes, there are some modding tools, but mostly Half-Life just has a devoted (and talented) fanbase.

Well, now there are, yes, but at the time it was just Quake, HL, and Quake II. Half-Life was the only one to feature a semi-intuitive level editor (WorldCraft) and on top of that, Valve had a full SDK available for mod makers.

If we were talking about most mod-friendly games today, it'd probably be Quake III or any of the Unreal engine games. The only problem with Unreal is that not many people have bothered to learn it (probably partly due to its outside-in approach to level design)

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-30 04:34am

Oh, if you're limiting yourself to FPS games then Half-Life is one of the more friendly ones to mod, certainly.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-12-30 04:54am

Howedar wrote:Oh, if you're limiting yourself to FPS games then Half-Life is one of the more friendly ones to mod, certainly.

Yeah.

Well, if you want really easy to configure ones (if you're a programmer) then Angband is a great place to start. All the source code is available.

So, role-playing game wise, Rogue was probably the most revolutionary one. It started the whole RPG graphics boom--it had colored ASCII graphics, while all other RPGs at the time only had textual descriptions of the situations. This gave rise to more sophisticated ASCII games (Hack, Moria, Nethack, Angband) and eventually full graphical RPGs such as Diablo.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-12-30 05:04am

Mechwarrior 2 was the first computer game I played. Despite the fact that by the time I found the game it was many years old and had outdated graphics it still had enormous influence me. It also happens to be assosiated with my first computer.

Ouake 3 is probobly the game that had most influence on me. After buying the game I would spend hours in front of the computer. Slowly Quake 3 began to take too much of my time. It began to interfere with my school and my studies began to suffer.

Eventualy one day I uninstalled Quake 3, took the CD out and threw it out of the window of my room like a frisby. I have never played Quake 3 since then.

SHODAN · Post by **SHODAN** » 2003-12-30 06:18am

Nemesis. 18 years later I am still nuts.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-12-30 11:27pm

Archaic` wrote:I'd have to wonder if Dragon Quest, not Final Fantasy, had the greater influence on the console RPG market. While FF certainly brought the genre to the US markets, DQ may have had the greater influence on the Japanese, at least to begin with. After all, don't forget their law prohibiting the release of any new DQ game on any working day. The popularity of FF, while high, has never prompted something as excessive as this.
(And just as a side-note, IIRC, there is a similar law for Legend of Zelda games as well.)

Holy shit. Are you serious?

The Legend of Zelda. I believe it was the first game to feature a battery save system. Which allowed for longer, more immersive games.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2003-12-31 05:55am

[RANT]

Unfortunately, the "most influental games" don't always bring good influence to the games today, thanks to big corporate vampires who don't give a shit at all to innovation and originality, and completely ignorant about gameplay.

Take a look at Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. Yes, they are influental games in the action genre. And now almost every action game in the market is nothing more than 3D FPS blood-and-gore fragfest. Gone the days when games like Airborne Ranger, Karateka, Death Track, and Pirates! keep you glued to the screen because of its gameplay.

Strategy games also suffers from this kind of "influence". Dune 2, Warcrat, and Command & Conquer is a good game on their own. But alas, the strategy game now is flooded with shitty RTS which basically clone of each other. No longer strategy games keep us awake 'til the morning comes like Railroad Tycoon, Sword of Samurai, Master of Magic, or the original Civilization.

Myst was also an influental "adventure" game at its time. And those big corporate vampires was flooding the adventure genre with "Myst-clones" so excellent adventures like Full Throttle became such rarity like an oasis on the desert.

Today's MMORPG craze is influenced by games like Ultima Online or Dark Sun Online, and no one bothers to write innovative RPG anymore like Origin's Privateer or Star Control 2 (ok, Star Control 2 is not really "RPG", but has excellent gameplay, exciting arcade action, and such memorable characters that I'll feel those fuzzy, warm feelings of the good old days everytime someone mentions "Ur-Quan").

Falcon 3.0 was maybe the most influental game in the flight-sim genre. And now we see the dying of this genre because almost every[/i] publisher out there overly stresses on "painstakingly detailed flight model" so the market shrinks into few hardcore flight simmers. No surprise, flight sims become a rarity today because most publishers don't give a shit to the small market segment. It seems those corporate morons totally forget that flight sim is a GAME.

Take a look at Microprose's F-19. It doen's have detailed flight model, but it's gameplay is so excellent that it give you the real feeling of flying a Stealth Fighter. For instance, your success in the game comes from avoiding dog fight and enemy's radar detection. Also, there are "stealthy" missions where you have to land undetected at secret airstrip deep in enemy territory or secretly photograph enemy installations.

Call me some old geezer, but I'd rather be downloading abandonwares from http://www.the-underdogs.org rather than buying shits mercilessly labelled "games" by some big corporate vampires.

[/RANT]

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2003-12-31 07:01pm

As for the most influential, controversial game ever. My vote HAS to go to GTA 3 and GTA:VC. I mean, come on, Can you ever recall such a media uproar over a game? It absolutely set the benchmark for non-drug-induced catharsis. It is arguably the most immersive game ever created, allowing for unheard-of freedom of movement, actions. storyline, etc. The revolution belongs to Rockstar games. GTA3 and GTA:VC is, and always will be, IMHO, hailed as one of the greatest, most influential games (Console-wise) of all time.

HE'S a maniac, maniac on the floor.....