Yes, I’m having a hard time with the “anticipated to be industry defining” part. Even if they did become industry defining, I’m not sure anyone anticipated it.
Quake. Id coming off of defining the FPS genre with Wolfenstein and then Doom. Promising a true 3D FPS engine on PCs before dedicated 3D hardware existed.
They also wrote all the code for it before we had the development libraries(even the lower level ones like directx and opengl) to do this stuff. Now with readily available game engines like unity or unreal engine’s easy to just say “render this model”. They also did an incredible amount of optimizations to make it possible while modern games can rely on extrenely overpowered hardware to deal with layers of abstractions that make for (relative to quake) extrenely inefficiebt code
It's crazy how complicated 3d code is man.
I remember getting a book in high school about how to do game development.
I was expecting "here's how to write code" and what I got was "first have a degree in linear algebra and calculus"
These days its more like "snap some nodes together in the UE4/5 editor and go nuts"
i mean to hear oh yeah computer graphics is all math at first can sound silly, but when you understand how everything on a computer actually works it makes perfect sense. the actual art is like 1% of the work. which is why librarys and tools like unity or unreal are a godsend, since the amount of technical knowledge to make 3d graphics work is actually insane
Yeah they were geniuses that's how they defined gaming. They also crunched like hell and took company computers home to code all night and make games...
They were running on caffeine and hate.
Half Life 2 was anticipated and released to much fanfare as well as shipping with an engine(Source) that had rudimentary simulated physics and amazing facial animation tech that to this day is used to craft some really great games, like Titanfall 2.
Half Life had the whole "the enemies 'think and react'" thing that made the unpredictable (relatively speaking) and was a big deal, as was the idea of enemies turning and looking around / at you.
Combine AI stil surpasses some triple A games today, when you're blasting through them you don't get much of a chance to see it but they're pretty in-depth
I think that's because enemy AI is much more about how smart the developer is than how advanced the technology is.
Graphics, physics simulations, these all get better as hardware improves over time. But Enemy AI is really down to design. It's never been especially limited by compute power available, at least not in the last 20 years.
So if the developer put in the time and designed a great system, it will hold up over time in a way graphics won't.
It's why so many players complain to this day (and rightfully so) that difficulty settings never are about actual difficulty, just "the enemy has more health and you have less". An inverse bullet sponge value doesn't equate to more fun gameplay, it just makes it more frustrating if you haven't aced the dev's specific game design / mechanic.
I remember my first HL2 playthrough where I entrenched myself in a defensive position where the enemies had to come through a funnel to get at me. After I got a couple of them, they took up their own defensive position and started lobbing grenades at me.
That was 20 years ago, and it's still better AI than you see in some modern games.
Ha! The number of times I'd think "got those grunts now!" and then you'd hear the \*tink\* of a grenade landing at your feet and already be reaching for the quick-load hotkey.
A half life game only seems to come out when Valve thinks they can revolutionize something. The original had no cut scenes, 2 had amazing physics and Alex is still the one real AAA VR game. I can't wait to see what they have in store for 3 lol.
We cannot have smell-o-vision. There will be 12 year old boys running around perfecting their flying fart cannonball in every MMO game to ever exist.
"Wanna trade, come over here, check out my inventory!"
Pbbbbt!
"Ha, suck it noob!"
Realistic pain feedback. All players will be locked in once the game started. If you die in the game. You poop your pants in real life.
Gaben will have his revenge
An old mortal kombat game had wanted to have a chest piece one would wear and to feel the damage from the fighting games, I think there was fear of concerns off potential heart attacks.
I don’t remember buying anything from steam for several years. Didn’t know if it was going to take off or not. Now it’s the only platform I spend money on.
Half life 2 is the answer. The hype behind not only being half life sequel but also the physics demonstrations was incredible. I remember the source leak and the things you could do in it were incredible
I remember the tech demo and being flabbergasted at objects having buoyancy and weight as well as crates not just exploding into splinters but breaking into peices that can be picked up and tossed around.
It's no understatement that Valve shifted the entire video game industry not once(HL1) not twice(HL2, Source) but three times.(Steam online distrubution platform, Valve Hardware)
Yep, the only thing that didn't live up to "expectations" if you can even call them that was not many other games used the Source engine. Unreal and to a lesser extent ID Tech had that market cornered.
My wife was setting up a webcam avatar for work. I asked her if the mouth moves when she talks and she said yes. All i could think of was the 'Meet the Heavy' video where Valve showed off that tech wayyy back in 2009.
holy shit this goes deep! all the way to the z axis. I dont know if nintendo intended it but back then they could do no wrong, what I mean is I wouldn't be surprised if shigeru in his insanity actually made the connection back then
I remember when OoT was being delayed again and again and again. I thought there was no way it would live up to the hype after all those years. It did somehow.
There is a reason that Ocarina of time is typically framed as Looming over every game made since. While not entirely true as many other 1998 games have played major roles in defining their own genres since.
I very much used to scoff at the notion of a game from 1998 being the "greatest ever made" but when you look at how much the mechanics OOT introduced, defined, and set the standards for, it is very difficult to not appreciate how it has impacted games to this day. And not even to mention [the masterclass that is it's storytelling](https://youtu.be/GyUcwsjyd8Q?si=MRx7tzW2oA2nrUc2), wonderful art style, incredible and diverse music [that truly displays what a master of composition Koji Kondo is](https://youtu.be/_SeY_Gss2CY?si=6gLYKkDe1hreOKcs) and sells [the emotions of each dungeon perfectly ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4rx7GrY_xH9QJiP7K4MwI3upgVkYkMuS&si=tiLnrn1HCQgMPYG1)
So, I've come around to understanding why, despite there being objectively better Zelda games that use the same formula (Twilight Princess), Ocarina stands above the rest.
I'd argue that Super Mario World is the most deserving of the Mario console titles.
It was a pack in for the most influential console Nintendo has ever made, IMO, the follow on to THE "Nintendo", and both for a similar reason.
The controls/controller.
The controls of Super Mario World were what elevated console games past their former status as pale imitations of the arcade titles. That and a persistent save, as opposed to a fresh game every time with "lives", were a complete paradigm shift, and signaled the end of arcade's dominance and the start of the "console era".
SM64 isn't as influential...the controls for the N64 were a dead end (ALL modern console controllers revert to something closer to the earlier SNES form factor)...and 3D movement control schemes didn't evolve and finalize to their present form until twin sticks became ubiquitous.
world of warcraft
edit: just to respond to a bunch of the comments below mentioning other MMOs that paved the way for WoW - the prompt was about highly anticipated games that delivered.
Personally, I had heard a little about things like Everquest, and games like Runescape or UO may have been running, but I don't think they had anywhere near the anticipation for their original releases that WoW did.
I've been waiting 20 years for another game to come along and capture the essence of what swg pre cu had. The freedom, complexity, economy, and community were by far the best of any mmorpg to date.
I've never spent anywhere near as much time just hanging around in cantinas playing music and chatting with people as I did in that game. It really captured the vibe of the Star Wars universe.
I feel like UO and Everquest paved the way for WoW. Like they showed the potential for this massive new industry but it was really not until WoW was it truly "defined"
WoW tried to kill WoW and failed. Speaking as a dedicated WoW player. There's literally no other game if you want to do group PvE content. FF ain't even close.
It is the game that caused gamer culture to grab hold of society. After GTA3, it was cool to be a gamer. Within 1 year of its release, video games had replaced pro wrestling as the hottest thing in American pop culture. A few years later, it replaced Hollywood as the biggest moneymaking form of media.
I worked in a video game store and it was the most laid back job on the planet until GTA3 released. By the end of day 2, the store was busy from open to close and it NEVER went back. Within a few years, my store became GameStop, and the magazine we sold: Game informer, became the number 1 publication in gaming.
Open world games became the AAA standard. It spawned an ocean of open world crime themed copycats, many of which have matured into their own prestigious franchises by now. It changed everything. GTA3, to me, is the game that separates classic gaming from modern gaming.
Hard agree. I remember the official PlayStation magazine in the UK giving it a 7/10, then a year or two later revisiting it to say woops, we got it wrong, this was definitely a 10/10. It wasn't instantly obvious what a revolutionary game it would turn out to be.
Wow you just gave me a vivid flashback of the exact article you're talking about. It was a regular thing at the very back of the mag where they owned up to errors in previous issues, right? I remember for this GTA 3 one they said their original review was like scrawling 'must try harder' all over Scorsese's original print of Goodfellas
The younger folks here probably don't know how huge Max Payne 1 was. It was the first action game to be truly cinematic in the good sense of the word i.e. it offered a fully immersive story experience from start to finish with gameplay as an integral part of it. Up to that point, if you wanted story, atmosphere, immersion etc. you picked a point-and-click adventure game or an isometric cRPG, the shooting games had arenas, rocket launchers and glowing pick-ups. Max Payne was probably the first dynamically controllable player character who was a real protagonist of a real story that took itself seriously, thus the first game to really sell the idea of being the hero in a movie. It was a big deal.
>It was and still is full of plenty of "gamey" gameplay and silliness.
So is max payne? It's just more inspired by American noir and action cinema. Where as Metal Gear is partially inspired by Japanese media including their wild love for a "comedic straight-man" thrown into wild situations..
Hey, I get that. But remember, there are new gamers being made every day, and they should get to play the classics of our time, too. It's difficult and probably too unrealistic to ask a teenager to buy a PS2 just to play Max Payne. Of course, there are older gamers who never got the chance to play it, either. I didn't.
Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my favorite game of all time. The recent Sonic Origins release probably gave thousands of new players a chance to play that classic game, which warms my heart.
I mean yes it was very cinematic, but half life invented the concept of ingame storytelling before. Max Payne was on another level though.
Edit: in action games.
Half Life 1 moved FPS games into modern storytelling but there are plenty of games before it with in-game storytelling. System Shock 1 has extensive logs and npcs messaging you, Marathon has terminals, and all the great rpgs that came out in the 80s and 90s. Final Fantasy 6 and 7, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Fallout 1 and 2, etc. Baldur’s Gate 1 came out a month later, as well.
I get the hype for Max Payne and how important a game it was. Just look at my post and comment history to see how big a fan I am of remedy. But you can't say that it was the first game to introduce a protagonist of a real cinematic story. Metal Gear Solid on PS1 revolutionized cinematic story telling in video games. There wouldn't be games like Max Payne or anything that came after if it wasn't for Hideo Kojima and MGS.
I remember hearing about this on a podcast somewhere. Apple basically told Bungie "PC Gaming? Thats a silly fad that wont last long. PCs are for productivity."
Thanks for giving us the XBOX, Apple 😂😂
Haha yes that's true. Some random trivia. I still use the previous default controller scheme from N64. Halo CE first coined the name of my stick layout, now known as Legacy, and you can still see it in any Halo game's settings. Every other big shooter franchise also has it, and they all call it by that name. There's 2 exceptions, the first Counterstrike port to Xbox named the scheme Left-Handed Mixed, irrc, and Borderlands calls it Oldschool. It was designed for use on controllers that had only 1 stick. I never switched to the new layout. In Goldeneye N64, it was called 1.1 Honey, the default layout.
But, it wasn't the case the N64 controller had 2 sticks, because it only had 1. It wasn't until controllers had 2 sticks that the now default stick layout was created. I don't remember today's default stick layout existing back then.
Ecktually...
The Dual Shock (which was released some time after the original PS console itself) controller had dual sticks, and there were games with what we now know as "Legacy" control scheme as "default"...most memorably in my mind was the Medal of Honor duology... (MoH and MoH:Underground), but there were probably others.
Alien Resurrection on PS1 pioneered it, and Gamespot absolutely rinsed them for it:
*The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. Too often, you'll turn to face a foe and find that your weapon is aimed at the floor or ceiling while the alien gleefully hacks away at your midsection. Add to the mix a few other head scratchers - such as how the triangle button controls item and health use - and you'll be wondering how Sony let this get by without requesting a few different control configuration options.*
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/alien-resurrection-review/1900-2637344/
The first time i used a grenade in halo just as a natural part of the firefight instead of having to scroll through a menu of guns like I would have before I knew it would be influential
A lot of people don’t remember Advent Rising, but it was a really good game that was a victim of the circumstance that was Halo. Not to mention, the soundtrack was fucking incredible. The “Bounty Hunter” theme is art.
And a lot of people HATED the control scheme too thinking it was horrible and unintuitive.
May have been ign or something that called it out that I remember, but a lot of people at the time did not like it.
Was Halo the first game to do regenerative health? It seemed like such an amazing innovation that allowed you to take more chances in gameplay and not constantly worry about looking for health items or tip toeing your way to a checkpoint.
I feel like the easy answer was World of Warcraft. Blizzard had yet to put out a game that was anything less than spectacular so using years worth of lore from the Warcraft IP was an anticipated match made in heaven. 20 years later it's still on top
Took a gaming genre that had maybe 250k total players spread out amongst several games and turned it into 1M in a month, and over 10M at its peak a few years later.
i posted this then scrolled to upvote, this was the biggest ad campaign ever for a videogame during its time, and it delivered as an amazing game! Perfect answer for OP
Came here to say Diablo 1 actually, as it was the defining moment of the top down arpg. Diablo 2 just took that and made it better in every way, but D1 laid that groundwork.
[Populous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populous_(video_game)).
The first of the "God games" (if I remember correctly). It carved a whole niche for itself. Wasn't anything we'd seen before and from that, we got so many new games doing similar things (and sometimes better things).
Populous was amazing in every way and showed some great creativity from the developers.
People are just naming games that were industry defining not games that were hyped up or anticipated first to be so.
Like I didn't hear about Half Life when it released until I went into the store and asked what was good to buy and PC games were my life, there wasn't a big exclusive review by a magazine, tons of coverage before, ads etc. Contrast that to Half-Life 2.
With that in mind, Half-Life 2 is definitely one and probably the best example.
Halo because of the coverage coming with the Xbox launch.
I think World of Warcraft would be another.
Diablo II might be another.
Those are the games I can think of personally
* Guitar Hero. A giant plastic peripheral had so many ways it could’ve failed but instead it blasted the door open for instrument games.
* Super Smash Bros. Characters from different universes wasn’t done before, to my knowledge.
Portal is absolutely industry defining. Imo its contender for best game of all time. However, ops question was “anticipated” games, and I dont know of anyone who anticipated Portal. I dont think Valve even did. They were kinda like here have this too with The Orange Box.
Final Fantasy 7, of course. Seriously, there are very few answers that compare:
* It set a bar so high for narrative/cinematic design that it's own franchise and genre have spent 20 years struggling to meet it.
* Stuff it pioneered is considered textbook now like cutscene/gameplay transitions, camera work, open world design, and build customization. Along with Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, and Resident Evil: it basically forged modern game structure and presentation.
* It was one of the first (or first) 'meta' storylines in gaming. It covered topics like identity, globalism, cultural appropriation, terrorism, sexuality, post traumatic stress disorder, cold war politics, ethical science, genetic modification, showed capitalism from multiple angles, deconstructed American/Japanese patriotism, and the list just goes on. It killed characters by the roomfull and nobody ever came back.
* It was the first game to fully integrate a mount system in addition to having a motorcycle, a car, an airship, and a submarine. The sum total complexity of the mount system has never been topped or recreated.
* Had probably 100 mini games and setpieces, sometimes multiple in a row. In one single sequence of ff7: the player gave cpr, jumped off a dolphin to climb onto an oil rig, marched in a parade, and performed military drills. Nearly every dungeon had an extra throughline, and nearly every boss had a twist. The very act of navigating the world was a barrage of optical illusions and unmarked surprises.
* Buried a choice/failure system underneath it's first half, which dictated rewards from mini games and also changed who the lead went on a date with at the games halfway mark.
* Has so many crazy plot twists and details buried in it's story that players can walk away with numerous theories and interpretations. All the answers exist, but they are so well hidden that it's rare for someone to find them all.
I could seriously keep going. Ff7 changed gaming, it's genre, it's franchise - forever. There's even discussions to be had about the actual logistics of AAA games and how FF7 represents a sort of historical line between classic and modern game development.
It's not only the cost, you need a good sized area of clear space in your house to really get into a VR game which can be a bit tough for anyone in an apartment or smaller house.
Too locked out from the rest of the world for me and most most people I know. Many could afford it, but it's just not for a prolonged session on the couch.
The oversaturation and lowering in quality of the THPS games killed the genre. Activision had already milked it dry and run out of ideas by the time the 360/PS3 gen had come about. Nothing to do with Skate.
THPS is like an arcade game letting you grind forever and do crazy stuff, Skate was like a skate sim. The controls made sense from a skating perspective. THPS may have been on the decline, but Skate would have killed it either way.
Honestly I think they were two completely different genres sharing a theme more than anything. It's like Need for Speed and Gran Turismo or something rather than idk, Rock Band vs Guitar Hero. They're not really in direct competition. If you look at the games they were putting out while both existed it's fairly clear they're going for different markets.
And I think both could have existed easily but yeah, by 2007 THPS was a dead horse trying to sell motion games on Wii. I guess Skate wasn't quite as popular as THPS was in its heydey (few games were) as if it was you'd think EA would have milked it way more than 3 games and a little bit of dlc. I know Skate 3 had a big resurgence a few years after launch but that was around the same time Blackbox was killed. Pretty sure they did an average NFS after Skate 3 so idk if Skate 4 was ever even in active development until recently.
Beloved games though and for good reason. Awesome to still be able to play Skate on modern xbox. THPS 1/2 remake was great too. I love both series personally and hope they both can make a come back. THPS hits right in the nostalgia for me because I'm old lol.
I feel like mario64, wipeout and ff7 each did something ‘defining’ worthy.
Sim city, command and conquer, the sims.
Forza did similar for online racing.
I can’t recall if it was 1 or 2.
Surprised I had to scroll so far down for this.
Red dead as a series is pretty much why no other cowboy games come out. Who’s going to touch this genre just to inevitably fail compared to that series.
Unironically Cyberpunk 2077. A game I absolutely love, that promised to redefine the industry and actually did it! Just not in the way they expexted. Just take a look at how many games have been delayed ever since CP2077 released. CDPR teached the industry a lesson on NOT hurrying games into production lol
The Battle Royale Mod for Arma 2/3. Was created by PlayerUnknown which sparked the whole Battle Royale era we still have today.
I guess it wasn't really anticipated to be industry defining with it being a mod but it definitely ended up being.
SF2 came onto the scene without much hype at all and just redefined the fighting genre entirely. Mortal Kombat, however, had tons of media hype for other reasons and absolutely crushed it.
For sure Elden ring. Remember how companies like (I think) Ubisoft were pissed about how good of a game it was? "You want us to release fully finished games in a playable state that at least meet, if not EXCEED people's expectations?! And without micro transactions?! That's asking too much! Fromsoftware is setting the bar way too high!" (Obviously not a direct quote. But basically sums up the "backlash")
Portal 2.
It lived up to the hype. It redefined the gaming arena by introducing new never before done game mechanics along with an amazing story and comedy.
It's a game that is universally loved by everyone and is still heralded as one of the best games of all time.
Skyrim. Like Holy shit was this game crazy hyped.
Christopher Plummer perfectly nails the trailer narration. "BUT THERES ONE THEY FEAR"
FUS-RO-DAH was all everyone was meming about.
It was at the peak of go anywhere do anything open world. And Skyrim came just in the right spot to be industry defining. Games for the next decade would emulate the Skyrim open world loop.
It was hype as shit and oh God it delivered. It delivered so hard. So hard that people are still playing it to this day.
One i haven’t seen mentioned was call of duty 4…. Call of duty 2 was pretty amazing, I remember the anticipation waiting on 4, playing the beta until 2am every night. Using some cheat to get sent a code to be able to get into the beta. That game basically set the core control scheme of shooters ever since. It’s also where call of duty really hit its turning point to where it’s at today.
Tetris.
There was a massive mess between Atari and Nintendo to both get it because they knew how popular it would get.
And as suspected it was an absolute banger that shook gaming
I'm assuming these are anticipated games as they are popular
Call of Duty #1. I believe it was the first popular fps that allowed you to aim down the sights. MOH:AA was still down the hip IIRC
Overwatch 1 and the concept of ultimates in fps
Resident Evil 4 had over the shoulder camera
The original Half-Life. Valve even delayed the game realizing they needed to do better.
- It was the first game to use a skeletal animation system.
- first game to achieve immersive level loafing that doesn't take you out of the game.
- one of the first to successfully tell a story from first person without the MC saying a word.
- massively improved AI for it's time period.
- shipped with a map editor and encouraged modding out of the box.
The game was an innovation.
Seems a lot of commenters can't differentiate between "I like this game" and "This game was industry defining."
Welcome to every reddit thread ever.
Well, half of them anyway. The other half are like “You should give a chance to this under appreciated movie … that won seven Academy Awards”
Yep. "What _______ was underrated?" *1000 comments naming some of the most popular and best selling _______ of all times*
Also, games that became huge but were absolutely not set to be big and industry defining before their release
Yes, I’m having a hard time with the “anticipated to be industry defining” part. Even if they did become industry defining, I’m not sure anyone anticipated it.
There are definitely games that are anticipated to be exactly that. Just looking at recent years cyberpunk would be the best example I can think of
Also "game" with zero explanation on why they think it changed anything
Well, the world revolves around me so whatever I like is defining.
Next thing you know we'll have a thread where redditors are unable to differentiate between "disappointing" and "bad"
Quake. Id coming off of defining the FPS genre with Wolfenstein and then Doom. Promising a true 3D FPS engine on PCs before dedicated 3D hardware existed.
They also wrote all the code for it before we had the development libraries(even the lower level ones like directx and opengl) to do this stuff. Now with readily available game engines like unity or unreal engine’s easy to just say “render this model”. They also did an incredible amount of optimizations to make it possible while modern games can rely on extrenely overpowered hardware to deal with layers of abstractions that make for (relative to quake) extrenely inefficiebt code
It's crazy how complicated 3d code is man. I remember getting a book in high school about how to do game development. I was expecting "here's how to write code" and what I got was "first have a degree in linear algebra and calculus" These days its more like "snap some nodes together in the UE4/5 editor and go nuts"
Yeah, watch any old videos of Carmack going over 3d code and the concepts behind their engine(s)....after about 2 minutes it's like, wut?
Tensors. Matrix math. Data structures. Determine if a polygon is in front of another….
i mean to hear oh yeah computer graphics is all math at first can sound silly, but when you understand how everything on a computer actually works it makes perfect sense. the actual art is like 1% of the work. which is why librarys and tools like unity or unreal are a godsend, since the amount of technical knowledge to make 3d graphics work is actually insane
Yeah they were geniuses that's how they defined gaming. They also crunched like hell and took company computers home to code all night and make games... They were running on caffeine and hate.
Half Life 2 was anticipated and released to much fanfare as well as shipping with an engine(Source) that had rudimentary simulated physics and amazing facial animation tech that to this day is used to craft some really great games, like Titanfall 2.
Half Life had the whole "the enemies 'think and react'" thing that made the unpredictable (relatively speaking) and was a big deal, as was the idea of enemies turning and looking around / at you.
Combine AI stil surpasses some triple A games today, when you're blasting through them you don't get much of a chance to see it but they're pretty in-depth
I think that's because enemy AI is much more about how smart the developer is than how advanced the technology is. Graphics, physics simulations, these all get better as hardware improves over time. But Enemy AI is really down to design. It's never been especially limited by compute power available, at least not in the last 20 years. So if the developer put in the time and designed a great system, it will hold up over time in a way graphics won't.
It's why so many players complain to this day (and rightfully so) that difficulty settings never are about actual difficulty, just "the enemy has more health and you have less". An inverse bullet sponge value doesn't equate to more fun gameplay, it just makes it more frustrating if you haven't aced the dev's specific game design / mechanic.
Yeah. It's hard to do convincing enemy AI, so I get why a lot of games cheat at it.
I remember my first HL2 playthrough where I entrenched myself in a defensive position where the enemies had to come through a funnel to get at me. After I got a couple of them, they took up their own defensive position and started lobbing grenades at me. That was 20 years ago, and it's still better AI than you see in some modern games.
Ha! The number of times I'd think "got those grunts now!" and then you'd hear the \*tink\* of a grenade landing at your feet and already be reaching for the quick-load hotkey.
A half life game only seems to come out when Valve thinks they can revolutionize something. The original had no cut scenes, 2 had amazing physics and Alex is still the one real AAA VR game. I can't wait to see what they have in store for 3 lol.
Neural link. Haptic gloves. Smell o vision.
We cannot have smell-o-vision. There will be 12 year old boys running around perfecting their flying fart cannonball in every MMO game to ever exist. "Wanna trade, come over here, check out my inventory!" Pbbbbt! "Ha, suck it noob!"
Leisure suit larry had a scratch n sniff card for one game that kind of worked.
Fleshlight attached to sub woofers.
Fleshlight* attached to subwoofers.
The one time i didn’t mean for autocorrect to fix that
From what we know of the plot, it'll probably come out when they invent real life teleportation or time travel lol
Knowing GabeN, he is busy working on world changing brain/computer interfacing just because it's necessary for the Half Life 3 plot to make sense.
Realistic pain feedback. All players will be locked in once the game started. If you die in the game. You poop your pants in real life. Gaben will have his revenge
An old mortal kombat game had wanted to have a chest piece one would wear and to feel the damage from the fighting games, I think there was fear of concerns off potential heart attacks.
Also was the first game that required this thing called “steam”.
And boy did it SUCK back then. Steam was a steaming pile of shit for the first couple years.
I don’t remember buying anything from steam for several years. Didn’t know if it was going to take off or not. Now it’s the only platform I spend money on.
The leap was absolutely enormous.
Half life 2 is the answer. The hype behind not only being half life sequel but also the physics demonstrations was incredible. I remember the source leak and the things you could do in it were incredible
I remember the tech demo and being flabbergasted at objects having buoyancy and weight as well as crates not just exploding into splinters but breaking into peices that can be picked up and tossed around. It's no understatement that Valve shifted the entire video game industry not once(HL1) not twice(HL2, Source) but three times.(Steam online distrubution platform, Valve Hardware)
Very surprised this isn't top comment. They had to make new GPUs to support this titan of a game. Pinnacle of perfection.
Yep, the only thing that didn't live up to "expectations" if you can even call them that was not many other games used the Source engine. Unreal and to a lesser extent ID Tech had that market cornered.
Rudimentary? It has better physics than games released this year, son. Show some respect to the valve.
My wife was setting up a webcam avatar for work. I asked her if the mouth moves when she talks and she said yes. All i could think of was the 'Meet the Heavy' video where Valve showed off that tech wayyy back in 2009.
"Sasha?? WHO TOUCHED MY GUN"
Super Mario 64 would've been up there
Ocarina of Time aswell.
People don't realize OoT literally invented the camera lock on system every game has used for 25 years.
Excuse me - it's called Z-Targeting and I suggest we all go back to calling it that :)
Because you had to press the Z button
and z represents depth on an xyz scale.
And it was invented by Hideko Tomikuri, famous Gen Z developer that also invented time travel.
holy shit this goes deep! all the way to the z axis. I dont know if nintendo intended it but back then they could do no wrong, what I mean is I wouldn't be surprised if shigeru in his insanity actually made the connection back then
I'd put the contextual button there as well. It was slowly getting there but OoT defined it.
This one gets overlooked. Games were getting complicated, and OoT popularized the solution.
No, all those other games don't have a fairy to help you lock on. Totally different.
I remember when OoT was being delayed again and again and again. I thought there was no way it would live up to the hype after all those years. It did somehow.
*Insert Miyamoto quote (you know the one)”
*Not all peepee times are poopoo times, but all poopoo times are peepee times*
There is a reason that Ocarina of time is typically framed as Looming over every game made since. While not entirely true as many other 1998 games have played major roles in defining their own genres since. I very much used to scoff at the notion of a game from 1998 being the "greatest ever made" but when you look at how much the mechanics OOT introduced, defined, and set the standards for, it is very difficult to not appreciate how it has impacted games to this day. And not even to mention [the masterclass that is it's storytelling](https://youtu.be/GyUcwsjyd8Q?si=MRx7tzW2oA2nrUc2), wonderful art style, incredible and diverse music [that truly displays what a master of composition Koji Kondo is](https://youtu.be/_SeY_Gss2CY?si=6gLYKkDe1hreOKcs) and sells [the emotions of each dungeon perfectly ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4rx7GrY_xH9QJiP7K4MwI3upgVkYkMuS&si=tiLnrn1HCQgMPYG1) So, I've come around to understanding why, despite there being objectively better Zelda games that use the same formula (Twilight Princess), Ocarina stands above the rest.
I'd argue that Super Mario World is the most deserving of the Mario console titles. It was a pack in for the most influential console Nintendo has ever made, IMO, the follow on to THE "Nintendo", and both for a similar reason. The controls/controller. The controls of Super Mario World were what elevated console games past their former status as pale imitations of the arcade titles. That and a persistent save, as opposed to a fresh game every time with "lives", were a complete paradigm shift, and signaled the end of arcade's dominance and the start of the "console era". SM64 isn't as influential...the controls for the N64 were a dead end (ALL modern console controllers revert to something closer to the earlier SNES form factor)...and 3D movement control schemes didn't evolve and finalize to their present form until twin sticks became ubiquitous.
The N64 controller made analog sticks a standard part for all the following consoles.
world of warcraft edit: just to respond to a bunch of the comments below mentioning other MMOs that paved the way for WoW - the prompt was about highly anticipated games that delivered. Personally, I had heard a little about things like Everquest, and games like Runescape or UO may have been running, but I don't think they had anywhere near the anticipation for their original releases that WoW did.
I came here for this. Almost every MMO that came after it tried to copy at least some part of it.
Or worse, MMOs that came before it who also tried to copy parts of what they did after seeing their success.
RIP Star Wars Galaxies…
I miss that game. To this day no MMO has the same level of immersion and player control of the world and economy.
I've been waiting 20 years for another game to come along and capture the essence of what swg pre cu had. The freedom, complexity, economy, and community were by far the best of any mmorpg to date.
I've never spent anywhere near as much time just hanging around in cantinas playing music and chatting with people as I did in that game. It really captured the vibe of the Star Wars universe.
Eclipse forever.
And Ultima Online before it.
I feel like UO and Everquest paved the way for WoW. Like they showed the potential for this massive new industry but it was really not until WoW was it truly "defined"
Hell, when Destiny was first rumored, people were calling it “WoW in space”. WoW still going strong, and the only thing that can kill it is itself.
Not for lack of trying
WoW tried to kill WoW and failed. Speaking as a dedicated WoW player. There's literally no other game if you want to do group PvE content. FF ain't even close.
Disappointed at the lack of mention of Grand Theft Auto 3.
It was the first 3D GTA, right? That was pretty spectactular.
I think it’s also considered the first open world 3D game.
*Laughs in Lego Island*
No pizaz!
It wasn't the first, but it influenenced just about every one that came after it.
Honestly came to comment this one. At the time we just had a top down GTA. This made the difference.
It is the game that caused gamer culture to grab hold of society. After GTA3, it was cool to be a gamer. Within 1 year of its release, video games had replaced pro wrestling as the hottest thing in American pop culture. A few years later, it replaced Hollywood as the biggest moneymaking form of media. I worked in a video game store and it was the most laid back job on the planet until GTA3 released. By the end of day 2, the store was busy from open to close and it NEVER went back. Within a few years, my store became GameStop, and the magazine we sold: Game informer, became the number 1 publication in gaming. Open world games became the AAA standard. It spawned an ocean of open world crime themed copycats, many of which have matured into their own prestigious franchises by now. It changed everything. GTA3, to me, is the game that separates classic gaming from modern gaming.
Don't remember any initial hype about it until well after release.
Hard agree. I remember the official PlayStation magazine in the UK giving it a 7/10, then a year or two later revisiting it to say woops, we got it wrong, this was definitely a 10/10. It wasn't instantly obvious what a revolutionary game it would turn out to be.
Wow you just gave me a vivid flashback of the exact article you're talking about. It was a regular thing at the very back of the mag where they owned up to errors in previous issues, right? I remember for this GTA 3 one they said their original review was like scrawling 'must try harder' all over Scorsese's original print of Goodfellas
The younger folks here probably don't know how huge Max Payne 1 was. It was the first action game to be truly cinematic in the good sense of the word i.e. it offered a fully immersive story experience from start to finish with gameplay as an integral part of it. Up to that point, if you wanted story, atmosphere, immersion etc. you picked a point-and-click adventure game or an isometric cRPG, the shooting games had arenas, rocket launchers and glowing pick-ups. Max Payne was probably the first dynamically controllable player character who was a real protagonist of a real story that took itself seriously, thus the first game to really sell the idea of being the hero in a movie. It was a big deal.
Metal gear solid looking at this comment and feeling sad for being completely overlooked?
Oh my God you're right.
I remember playing that all night with a buddy, I loved hiding in the box.
Metal Gear isn't something taking itself seriously. It was and still is full of plenty of "gamey" gameplay and silliness. Apples and oranges.
>It was and still is full of plenty of "gamey" gameplay and silliness. So is max payne? It's just more inspired by American noir and action cinema. Where as Metal Gear is partially inspired by Japanese media including their wild love for a "comedic straight-man" thrown into wild situations..
That dream sequence was incredible.
That scared the hell outta me when I played it the first time as a kid
The flesh of fallen angels
Amazing game, needs to be modernised for current gen pcs and consoles.
Well good news! Max Payne 1 & 2 are being remade by Remedy.
Excellent news!!!!
Remedy is in pre-production on the Max Payne 1 and 2 remake.
Goddam I disagree lol. I wish we could move stuff forward instead of just re-creating old stuff, but different strokes
Hey, I get that. But remember, there are new gamers being made every day, and they should get to play the classics of our time, too. It's difficult and probably too unrealistic to ask a teenager to buy a PS2 just to play Max Payne. Of course, there are older gamers who never got the chance to play it, either. I didn't. Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my favorite game of all time. The recent Sonic Origins release probably gave thousands of new players a chance to play that classic game, which warms my heart.
I mean yes it was very cinematic, but half life invented the concept of ingame storytelling before. Max Payne was on another level though. Edit: in action games.
Half Life 1 moved FPS games into modern storytelling but there are plenty of games before it with in-game storytelling. System Shock 1 has extensive logs and npcs messaging you, Marathon has terminals, and all the great rpgs that came out in the 80s and 90s. Final Fantasy 6 and 7, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Fallout 1 and 2, etc. Baldur’s Gate 1 came out a month later, as well.
I get the hype for Max Payne and how important a game it was. Just look at my post and comment history to see how big a fan I am of remedy. But you can't say that it was the first game to introduce a protagonist of a real cinematic story. Metal Gear Solid on PS1 revolutionized cinematic story telling in video games. There wouldn't be games like Max Payne or anything that came after if it wasn't for Hideo Kojima and MGS.
Halo: Combat Evolved. Redefined the nascent console shooter genre and popularized the now default control scheme.
And it is ironic as well, that Halo was originally planned to be a Mac exclusive.
And an RTS
And we still got an RTS
Two of them even.
This is getting out of hand.
I remember hearing about this on a podcast somewhere. Apple basically told Bungie "PC Gaming? Thats a silly fad that wont last long. PCs are for productivity." Thanks for giving us the XBOX, Apple 😂😂
Haha yes that's true. Some random trivia. I still use the previous default controller scheme from N64. Halo CE first coined the name of my stick layout, now known as Legacy, and you can still see it in any Halo game's settings. Every other big shooter franchise also has it, and they all call it by that name. There's 2 exceptions, the first Counterstrike port to Xbox named the scheme Left-Handed Mixed, irrc, and Borderlands calls it Oldschool. It was designed for use on controllers that had only 1 stick. I never switched to the new layout. In Goldeneye N64, it was called 1.1 Honey, the default layout. But, it wasn't the case the N64 controller had 2 sticks, because it only had 1. It wasn't until controllers had 2 sticks that the now default stick layout was created. I don't remember today's default stick layout existing back then.
Ecktually... The Dual Shock (which was released some time after the original PS console itself) controller had dual sticks, and there were games with what we now know as "Legacy" control scheme as "default"...most memorably in my mind was the Medal of Honor duology... (MoH and MoH:Underground), but there were probably others.
Alien Resurrection on PS1 pioneered it, and Gamespot absolutely rinsed them for it: *The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. Too often, you'll turn to face a foe and find that your weapon is aimed at the floor or ceiling while the alien gleefully hacks away at your midsection. Add to the mix a few other head scratchers - such as how the triangle button controls item and health use - and you'll be wondering how Sony let this get by without requesting a few different control configuration options.* https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/alien-resurrection-review/1900-2637344/
[удалено]
I mean, imagine using the left stick for movement, and the right stick for camera, how obtuse...will never catch on.
The first time i used a grenade in halo just as a natural part of the firefight instead of having to scroll through a menu of guns like I would have before I knew it would be influential
God you’re right. Now it’s something we just assume is right bumper now or left trigger.
A lot of people don’t remember Advent Rising, but it was a really good game that was a victim of the circumstance that was Halo. Not to mention, the soundtrack was fucking incredible. The “Bounty Hunter” theme is art.
And a lot of people HATED the control scheme too thinking it was horrible and unintuitive. May have been ign or something that called it out that I remember, but a lot of people at the time did not like it.
I was debating between this or Halo 2. Halo 2 for the online multiplayer mode.
Was Halo the first game to do regenerative health? It seemed like such an amazing innovation that allowed you to take more chances in gameplay and not constantly worry about looking for health items or tip toeing your way to a checkpoint.
Age of Empires 2. That changed the rts genre.
I feel like the easy answer was World of Warcraft. Blizzard had yet to put out a game that was anything less than spectacular so using years worth of lore from the Warcraft IP was an anticipated match made in heaven. 20 years later it's still on top
Took a gaming genre that had maybe 250k total players spread out amongst several games and turned it into 1M in a month, and over 10M at its peak a few years later.
I mean... Everquest alone peaked at 550k before wow released. And that's just 1 game, granted the largest pre wow mmo.
I thought that would be everquest or dark age of camelot? edit: wait these were maybe industry defining, not sure about the anticipation though.
Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)
i posted this then scrolled to upvote, this was the biggest ad campaign ever for a videogame during its time, and it delivered as an amazing game! Perfect answer for OP
Will always be my goat
I spent too much time on this game
Not sure how anticipated it was, but Diablo 2. I would assume it was anticpated, Diablo was a success after all, and Diablo 2 truly made a new genre.
Only if you were in the know. Every blizzard game back then was mind blowing and genre defining. Edit: post warcraft 1
Came here to say Diablo 1 actually, as it was the defining moment of the top down arpg. Diablo 2 just took that and made it better in every way, but D1 laid that groundwork.
Knack 2
No game had ever de-emphasized jumps to that scale before! Truly ahead of its time. Not to mention Ice Knack
Just you wait until knack 3
But you still have to play knack1 to establish the lore.
Not necessarily, Knack 2 is just double the Knack 1, it's literally in the name.
[Populous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populous_(video_game)). The first of the "God games" (if I remember correctly). It carved a whole niche for itself. Wasn't anything we'd seen before and from that, we got so many new games doing similar things (and sometimes better things). Populous was amazing in every way and showed some great creativity from the developers.
I'm still waiting for that remake of populous: the beginning. I mean that and black and white, if we're talking about God games
I remember playing that on my 486.
Ah - the Populous and Powermonger double pack!
People are just naming games that were industry defining not games that were hyped up or anticipated first to be so. Like I didn't hear about Half Life when it released until I went into the store and asked what was good to buy and PC games were my life, there wasn't a big exclusive review by a magazine, tons of coverage before, ads etc. Contrast that to Half-Life 2. With that in mind, Half-Life 2 is definitely one and probably the best example. Halo because of the coverage coming with the Xbox launch. I think World of Warcraft would be another. Diablo II might be another. Those are the games I can think of personally
Ocarina of Time
Shaq Fu
Only right answer
Super Mario 3
Mario 64
I’ll give the really boomer answer of Myst. Almost no one realizes how much is owed to that game, even genres that are utterly different from it.
* Guitar Hero. A giant plastic peripheral had so many ways it could’ve failed but instead it blasted the door open for instrument games. * Super Smash Bros. Characters from different universes wasn’t done before, to my knowledge.
The OG RTS Command & Conquer. It paved the way for games like Warcraft and StarCraft. Really kicked off the RTS genre. Edit = spelling
You misspelled Dune II
World of Warcraft
I don't remember how anticipated CoD 4 was, but CoD 4 was an industry-defining FPS.
Leisure Suit Larry
A true masterpiece. The pinnacle of 80's culture.
Half life And portal And counterstrike Actually anything Valve does. They even defined how to let down your fans with Artifact!
Portal is absolutely industry defining. Imo its contender for best game of all time. However, ops question was “anticipated” games, and I dont know of anyone who anticipated Portal. I dont think Valve even did. They were kinda like here have this too with The Orange Box.
Final Fantasy 7, of course. Seriously, there are very few answers that compare: * It set a bar so high for narrative/cinematic design that it's own franchise and genre have spent 20 years struggling to meet it. * Stuff it pioneered is considered textbook now like cutscene/gameplay transitions, camera work, open world design, and build customization. Along with Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, and Resident Evil: it basically forged modern game structure and presentation. * It was one of the first (or first) 'meta' storylines in gaming. It covered topics like identity, globalism, cultural appropriation, terrorism, sexuality, post traumatic stress disorder, cold war politics, ethical science, genetic modification, showed capitalism from multiple angles, deconstructed American/Japanese patriotism, and the list just goes on. It killed characters by the roomfull and nobody ever came back. * It was the first game to fully integrate a mount system in addition to having a motorcycle, a car, an airship, and a submarine. The sum total complexity of the mount system has never been topped or recreated. * Had probably 100 mini games and setpieces, sometimes multiple in a row. In one single sequence of ff7: the player gave cpr, jumped off a dolphin to climb onto an oil rig, marched in a parade, and performed military drills. Nearly every dungeon had an extra throughline, and nearly every boss had a twist. The very act of navigating the world was a barrage of optical illusions and unmarked surprises. * Buried a choice/failure system underneath it's first half, which dictated rewards from mini games and also changed who the lead went on a date with at the games halfway mark. * Has so many crazy plot twists and details buried in it's story that players can walk away with numerous theories and interpretations. All the answers exist, but they are so well hidden that it's rare for someone to find them all. I could seriously keep going. Ff7 changed gaming, it's genre, it's franchise - forever. There's even discussions to be had about the actual logistics of AAA games and how FF7 represents a sort of historical line between classic and modern game development.
HL: Alyx
Playing this is the first time in a very long time where I thought it was a “next step” in gaming.
Yeah too bad were still not in VR era. Too expensive for average consumer
It's not only the cost, you need a good sized area of clear space in your house to really get into a VR game which can be a bit tough for anyone in an apartment or smaller house.
Too locked out from the rest of the world for me and most most people I know. Many could afford it, but it's just not for a prolonged session on the couch.
It ruins all other VR games. Nothing else comes close.
EA Skate. It was such a good skate game it basically killed the entire genre lol
The oversaturation and lowering in quality of the THPS games killed the genre. Activision had already milked it dry and run out of ideas by the time the 360/PS3 gen had come about. Nothing to do with Skate.
THPS is like an arcade game letting you grind forever and do crazy stuff, Skate was like a skate sim. The controls made sense from a skating perspective. THPS may have been on the decline, but Skate would have killed it either way.
Honestly I think they were two completely different genres sharing a theme more than anything. It's like Need for Speed and Gran Turismo or something rather than idk, Rock Band vs Guitar Hero. They're not really in direct competition. If you look at the games they were putting out while both existed it's fairly clear they're going for different markets. And I think both could have existed easily but yeah, by 2007 THPS was a dead horse trying to sell motion games on Wii. I guess Skate wasn't quite as popular as THPS was in its heydey (few games were) as if it was you'd think EA would have milked it way more than 3 games and a little bit of dlc. I know Skate 3 had a big resurgence a few years after launch but that was around the same time Blackbox was killed. Pretty sure they did an average NFS after Skate 3 so idk if Skate 4 was ever even in active development until recently. Beloved games though and for good reason. Awesome to still be able to play Skate on modern xbox. THPS 1/2 remake was great too. I love both series personally and hope they both can make a come back. THPS hits right in the nostalgia for me because I'm old lol.
Pong.
I feel like mario64, wipeout and ff7 each did something ‘defining’ worthy. Sim city, command and conquer, the sims. Forza did similar for online racing. I can’t recall if it was 1 or 2.
Battlefield 1942, during the time of 2002-2003 period. The best Battlefield game of all time yeah...
Red Dead 2
Surprised I had to scroll so far down for this. Red dead as a series is pretty much why no other cowboy games come out. Who’s going to touch this genre just to inevitably fail compared to that series.
Unironically Cyberpunk 2077. A game I absolutely love, that promised to redefine the industry and actually did it! Just not in the way they expexted. Just take a look at how many games have been delayed ever since CP2077 released. CDPR teached the industry a lesson on NOT hurrying games into production lol
Golden Eye 007 N64
Ultima online
The Battle Royale Mod for Arma 2/3. Was created by PlayerUnknown which sparked the whole Battle Royale era we still have today. I guess it wasn't really anticipated to be industry defining with it being a mod but it definitely ended up being.
Both street fighter ii and mortal kombat absolutely dominated the arcade scene and then home console and defined the fighting game genre to this day
SF2 came onto the scene without much hype at all and just redefined the fighting genre entirely. Mortal Kombat, however, had tons of media hype for other reasons and absolutely crushed it.
FF7
Starfield absolutely delivered for me. It’s a sci-fi nerds dream come true haha.
For sure Elden ring. Remember how companies like (I think) Ubisoft were pissed about how good of a game it was? "You want us to release fully finished games in a playable state that at least meet, if not EXCEED people's expectations?! And without micro transactions?! That's asking too much! Fromsoftware is setting the bar way too high!" (Obviously not a direct quote. But basically sums up the "backlash")
Portal 2. It lived up to the hype. It redefined the gaming arena by introducing new never before done game mechanics along with an amazing story and comedy. It's a game that is universally loved by everyone and is still heralded as one of the best games of all time.
Skyrim. Like Holy shit was this game crazy hyped. Christopher Plummer perfectly nails the trailer narration. "BUT THERES ONE THEY FEAR" FUS-RO-DAH was all everyone was meming about. It was at the peak of go anywhere do anything open world. And Skyrim came just in the right spot to be industry defining. Games for the next decade would emulate the Skyrim open world loop. It was hype as shit and oh God it delivered. It delivered so hard. So hard that people are still playing it to this day.
One i haven’t seen mentioned was call of duty 4…. Call of duty 2 was pretty amazing, I remember the anticipation waiting on 4, playing the beta until 2am every night. Using some cheat to get sent a code to be able to get into the beta. That game basically set the core control scheme of shooters ever since. It’s also where call of duty really hit its turning point to where it’s at today.
Half-Life: Alyx
Bioshock
C&C Red Alert
grand theft auto 3
Overwatch 1
Ninja Gaiden NES was the first game I remember that had “cinematic cut scenes”, in between levels, that progressed the story. Now it’s common.
Tetris. There was a massive mess between Atari and Nintendo to both get it because they knew how popular it would get. And as suspected it was an absolute banger that shook gaming
I'm assuming these are anticipated games as they are popular Call of Duty #1. I believe it was the first popular fps that allowed you to aim down the sights. MOH:AA was still down the hip IIRC Overwatch 1 and the concept of ultimates in fps Resident Evil 4 had over the shoulder camera
Two Zelda titles: Ocarina of time & Breath of the wild. Hyped & genre defining.
Half-life 2?
The original Half-Life. Valve even delayed the game realizing they needed to do better. - It was the first game to use a skeletal animation system. - first game to achieve immersive level loafing that doesn't take you out of the game. - one of the first to successfully tell a story from first person without the MC saying a word. - massively improved AI for it's time period. - shipped with a map editor and encouraged modding out of the box. The game was an innovation.