unmei
Member
Gaming has had some pretty significant advancements since the 90s, and by 2020 I'm sure we'll see even more stuff that we never thought possible today. Since 2010's almost upon us, lets take a look back at the past decade of gaming and remember just what made these past years great. these can be anything from games that are personally influential to yourself, or games you feel were influential to the industry itself.
10: * vs Capcom
Be it Marvel, SNK, Tatsunoko or whatever else they want to throw in. Cap's mash-up franchise has been a damn good success, with MvC2, almost 10 years old now, still being one of the most played fighters to this day. Be they arcade, online, or just in a party, these easy to pick up, impossible to perfect fighters just have the lasting appeal that will keep them in the hearts of gamers well into the next decade of games.
09: Shenmue
Today being the 10 year anniversary of the original Japanese DC release, what's more fitting than looking back at one of the most revolutionary titles of it's day. The first game for me at least that truly had that cinematic feel to it, like you were actually playing out a movie yourself. Combine gorgeous visuals with a complex story and nightmareish QTEs before they became a true gaming standard. That games were so immerse that they made sure, by the end, we all knew where the sailors hang out.
*Honorable mention to Ryuu ga Gotoku/Yakuza
08: Devil May Cry
Not the first of it's kind, but definitely the franchise that newcomers are held up to, DMC gave us insane combos and button mashing stress relief, through waves of fodder, followed by often times epic boss battles, tied together with (debateably) interesting story arcs and plot twists. Sure the series itself has been surpassed many times over by other franchises. But this is the one that let others know that this is a viable genre for best selling games.
07: Silent Hill
Sure maybe RE is a more universally accept Survival Horror title, but Silent Hill is known for doing everything it's own way. When RE was throwing endless swarms of zombies and Spaniards at you, Silent Hill was focused more on atmospheric horror. Sure they had their share of enemies as well, but the setting, literally the town itself, was your true enemy. That to me was what set the games apart from all other Survival Horror games.
06: Halo
I'll admit it. I'm not a huge FPS fan, I'm not even a good FPS player when it comes to competitive multiplayer, as anyone who's played Halo3 with me online can attest to (I'm decent in co-op games though... TEAMWORK!) even I can't deny that Halo reinvented the way console based FPS games worked. Tight controls and the ability for lan parties showed everyone that FPSs COULD be pulled off on a console if you do it right, and everyone else followed suit. Halo wars changed how console based RTS games were played, whether or not people follow that is yet to be seen.
05: WoW
I'm not a huge fan of the franchise myself, but like Halo, there's no contesting the influence the game has had on gaming culture. It sales crushed the competition at the time, and after several expansions continues it's path of destruction through pretty much every other world as well. Wile I myself am more partial to games like CoX and Champions Online, those likely wouldn't exist if Blizzard hadn't shown everyone how it was done. A deep world, steeped in lore, and easy to play mechanics. That's what you need to make it against the endless stream of Free2Play out there.
04: Left4Dead
Capcom taught us that that Gamers like shooting Zombies.
Romero showed us that Zombies can be anywhere.
Valve proved that Games like shooting Zombies who can be anywhere.
A simple concept. 4 player co-op playing through a string of back to back zombie movies. Result: Brilliance. What prevented the game from getting on, randomly generated zombies, we never played the exact same game twice, which kept people killing Zombies well into the waking hours of the morning, when they went into hiding, and we went back to our daily lives, only for the attacks to continue again that night.
03: Uncharted
More of a personal favorite than something that's really had a huge impact on the gaming world, Uncharted and Uncharted 2 simply rank in my my personal top 10 games of all time. They were just great games. Fanboyness aside, Uncharted was one of the reasons I got a PS3 to begin with when it first came out. I've always been a fan of those old pulp adventure serials and that was exactly what this is. An unrealistic over the top adventure, with average every day people. If only the Indiana Jones games were even half this good.
02: Mass Effect
Space RPGs never really caught on before, despite being a great setting for a lot of other games. Sure you had the KOTOR games, with their pre-established universe which were on the whole, a decent series, but never came close to their true potential. Most other space themed RPGs are just a combination of fantasy themed planets, with minimal space exploration. BioWare, following on the success of their KoTOR games went and created a new universe all their own. They heavily played the Sci-Fi settings, having people explore uninhabitable worlds for resources, fight your way through armies of alien mercenaries, and even save the entire galaxy from a terrorist threat. They created a universe, and then gave you the whole damn thing. Even if you couldn't visit a specific planet, you learned about it's history. The amount of lore created for this franchise was epic, and the western RPG communities ate it up.
01: Neverwinter Nights
Another instance of BioWare revolutionizing the RPG genre, they opted to pack in a complete developers kit with every game, birthing a huge User Generated Content community, not just modifications done to the game's campaign, but a complete kid for creating your own world, with the ability to adjust the games core rules to your specific settings. 8 years down the line and the original NWN is still getting regular new campaigns, as is NEN2. This string of content pretty much guarantees that these games will never get old, until the last parts of the community die out. The idea worked so well that they continued the trend with the PC version of Dragon Age Origins. A game while I loved in it's own right, but I love even more with the new classes and specializations and maps that the community are creating.
So that's my list, what about yours? Don't have 10? That's fine, let me know about one franchise you think helped to revolutionize gaming, or just held an influence over yourself, in the last 10 years. Be it a new franchise, or a old franchise that was revised.
10: * vs Capcom
Be it Marvel, SNK, Tatsunoko or whatever else they want to throw in. Cap's mash-up franchise has been a damn good success, with MvC2, almost 10 years old now, still being one of the most played fighters to this day. Be they arcade, online, or just in a party, these easy to pick up, impossible to perfect fighters just have the lasting appeal that will keep them in the hearts of gamers well into the next decade of games.
09: Shenmue
Today being the 10 year anniversary of the original Japanese DC release, what's more fitting than looking back at one of the most revolutionary titles of it's day. The first game for me at least that truly had that cinematic feel to it, like you were actually playing out a movie yourself. Combine gorgeous visuals with a complex story and nightmareish QTEs before they became a true gaming standard. That games were so immerse that they made sure, by the end, we all knew where the sailors hang out.
*Honorable mention to Ryuu ga Gotoku/Yakuza
08: Devil May Cry
Not the first of it's kind, but definitely the franchise that newcomers are held up to, DMC gave us insane combos and button mashing stress relief, through waves of fodder, followed by often times epic boss battles, tied together with (debateably) interesting story arcs and plot twists. Sure the series itself has been surpassed many times over by other franchises. But this is the one that let others know that this is a viable genre for best selling games.
07: Silent Hill
Sure maybe RE is a more universally accept Survival Horror title, but Silent Hill is known for doing everything it's own way. When RE was throwing endless swarms of zombies and Spaniards at you, Silent Hill was focused more on atmospheric horror. Sure they had their share of enemies as well, but the setting, literally the town itself, was your true enemy. That to me was what set the games apart from all other Survival Horror games.
06: Halo
I'll admit it. I'm not a huge FPS fan, I'm not even a good FPS player when it comes to competitive multiplayer, as anyone who's played Halo3 with me online can attest to (I'm decent in co-op games though... TEAMWORK!) even I can't deny that Halo reinvented the way console based FPS games worked. Tight controls and the ability for lan parties showed everyone that FPSs COULD be pulled off on a console if you do it right, and everyone else followed suit. Halo wars changed how console based RTS games were played, whether or not people follow that is yet to be seen.
05: WoW
I'm not a huge fan of the franchise myself, but like Halo, there's no contesting the influence the game has had on gaming culture. It sales crushed the competition at the time, and after several expansions continues it's path of destruction through pretty much every other world as well. Wile I myself am more partial to games like CoX and Champions Online, those likely wouldn't exist if Blizzard hadn't shown everyone how it was done. A deep world, steeped in lore, and easy to play mechanics. That's what you need to make it against the endless stream of Free2Play out there.
04: Left4Dead
Capcom taught us that that Gamers like shooting Zombies.
Romero showed us that Zombies can be anywhere.
Valve proved that Games like shooting Zombies who can be anywhere.
A simple concept. 4 player co-op playing through a string of back to back zombie movies. Result: Brilliance. What prevented the game from getting on, randomly generated zombies, we never played the exact same game twice, which kept people killing Zombies well into the waking hours of the morning, when they went into hiding, and we went back to our daily lives, only for the attacks to continue again that night.
03: Uncharted
More of a personal favorite than something that's really had a huge impact on the gaming world, Uncharted and Uncharted 2 simply rank in my my personal top 10 games of all time. They were just great games. Fanboyness aside, Uncharted was one of the reasons I got a PS3 to begin with when it first came out. I've always been a fan of those old pulp adventure serials and that was exactly what this is. An unrealistic over the top adventure, with average every day people. If only the Indiana Jones games were even half this good.
02: Mass Effect
Space RPGs never really caught on before, despite being a great setting for a lot of other games. Sure you had the KOTOR games, with their pre-established universe which were on the whole, a decent series, but never came close to their true potential. Most other space themed RPGs are just a combination of fantasy themed planets, with minimal space exploration. BioWare, following on the success of their KoTOR games went and created a new universe all their own. They heavily played the Sci-Fi settings, having people explore uninhabitable worlds for resources, fight your way through armies of alien mercenaries, and even save the entire galaxy from a terrorist threat. They created a universe, and then gave you the whole damn thing. Even if you couldn't visit a specific planet, you learned about it's history. The amount of lore created for this franchise was epic, and the western RPG communities ate it up.
01: Neverwinter Nights
Another instance of BioWare revolutionizing the RPG genre, they opted to pack in a complete developers kit with every game, birthing a huge User Generated Content community, not just modifications done to the game's campaign, but a complete kid for creating your own world, with the ability to adjust the games core rules to your specific settings. 8 years down the line and the original NWN is still getting regular new campaigns, as is NEN2. This string of content pretty much guarantees that these games will never get old, until the last parts of the community die out. The idea worked so well that they continued the trend with the PC version of Dragon Age Origins. A game while I loved in it's own right, but I love even more with the new classes and specializations and maps that the community are creating.
So that's my list, what about yours? Don't have 10? That's fine, let me know about one franchise you think helped to revolutionize gaming, or just held an influence over yourself, in the last 10 years. Be it a new franchise, or a old franchise that was revised.
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. I played 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter but they didnt feel right. This game blew my mind. The easy controls and depth in combos made this and the games to follow my fighting franchise of choice, and it has been ever since despite SF4.
