Please note that "influential" doesn't mean "first", it just means the first game to do something so well that everyone else copies it, so don't get your panties in a ruffle if a game I list isn't the first one to do something
1. Nes/Master System generation winner: Super Mario Bros.: Everything you know about modern platformers was done right here first. Power-ups, hidden secrets, stomping on enemie's heads, warp zones, etc, this game had it all.
Honorable mention: Dragon Warrior, The Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon
2. Snes/Genesis era winner: Street Fighter 2. Pretty much anyone-on-onefighting game before this had you controlling one of 2 identical characters with awkward, clunky controls. SF2 featured a bright, colorful selection of varied and balanced fighters each with unique move sets. Every modern fighting game's controls are modeled after this game
Honorable mention: Sim City, Super Mario Kart, Star Fox
3. PS1/N64 era winner: Super Mario 64; lots of innovation and new ideas this generation, so it's hard to pick a clear winner. But I've got to give the nod to the game that really showed the right way to do a 3rd-person action game in 3D space. It did introduce the floating camera, meaning the camera follows you in a natural fashion rather than staying tethered rigidly behind your back like in Tomb Raider. For a long time gamers had been wanting a game that really allowed you to go anywhere and do anything, and super mario 64 delivered.
Honorable mention: Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Zelda OoT
4. PS2/GC/Xbox era winnder: Grand Theft Auto 3; By this point, people had already played driving games that let you go anywhere, people had played 3rd-person games that let you go anywhere, but how about we put them together now? GTA3 really kicked off the "urban sandbox" subgenre of action games where people would have more fun just wandering around and doing crazy stunts that they would actually have doing to main quest itself. There's an obscene number of games that have tried to copy the GTA3 formula
Honorable mention: Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
5. Current era winnder: Gears of War; yeah I know this one is the one that's going to get everyone's panties in a ruffle say "no wait, killswitch did it first blah blah blah". Rember that "first" and "influential" aren't the samething. Yeah, killswitch is the first game to make the entire game about staying in cover, popping out, blindfiring, etc; but the controls, ai, and overall game were so terrible that nobody wanted to imitate it. Gears of War comes along, makes the cover mechanic slick and intuitive, allows you to swat-roll and vault over cover, and did all this so well that there are already countless clones of the game. Looks at Dark Sector; the game completely redid itself from scratch in order to imitate gears of war, there's dozens of others I could name as well
Honorable mention: none as of yet; I'd like to put Little Big Planet here, but I don't see any games imitating it as of yet.
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