Five Most Influential Games This Generation

GR: Every new wave of consoles ushers in fresh and exciting innovations for the gaming industry. This past generation has stretched on a bit longer than usual (a bit too long if you ask me) and as such, is loaded with so many groundbreaking experiences that have changed the industry forever. To celebrate these achievements, we're going to take a look at five of the most influential game experiences since 2005.

[Sev]

I have to agree with these. Except Lair on the PS3 was pretty influential. It influenced me take out the disc, smash it, and burn the remains into ashes.

[acharlez]

It certainly influenced Sony into rethinking their strategy for Sixaxis support.

[iamnsuperman]

nice list.....I would add wii sports. That game single handedly brought gaming to the masses and pretty much secured motion controls (for better or worse) in today's gaming world. I think without it the Wii probably wouldn't have sold nearly as much as it did and we might have not had motion gaming for at least a little while longer.

[Sev]

Yeah, truthfully that was pretty influential. At least to consumers. I don't think it influenced other games, though.

[crawling182]

It was probably a heavy influence to get both Move and Kinect off the ground.

[acharlez]

Great point. That one came to me after putting together these five.

[legionsoup]

Did it come to you...after reading the comments here? lol ;)

[acharlez]

Nope :)

Actually just before posting it here, it dawned on me that not a single Nintendo title made the list. That's when Wii Sports came to mind. Undoubtedly the Wii's lifeblood and major reason why is saw so much success.

[guitarded77]

That's what I was fixing to say until I read your comment. Like it or not, Wii Sports had both Sony and MS develop motion controls for their systems... pretty damn influential indeed.

CoD4:MW set the standard for the military FPS.

Uncharted Set the standard for the cinematic action game.

One could argue that Gears made the 3rd person shooter with cover element standard.

Assassin's creed has done more for sandbox gaming than any game since GTA3.

Mass Effect did create the mold for Western RPG's.

I love Bioshock (one of my favorite games), but I don't think it's as influential as something like Wii Sports.

The authors list is pretty damn good... I'd swap Bioshock for Wii Sports and add Assassin's Creed and it'd be about perfect for my opinion. The interesting thing will be seeing how these concepts evolve next generation.

[Run_bare]

I have to disagree, the most influential I believe is the soul series (Demon and Dark souls). They give us a new definition of hard for next generation of gamers (no pause screen is fantastic).

Uncharted and Mass Effect set the standard of gameplay mixed with story telling (co exist).

[Sev]

I don't think Dark Souls influenced other games, though.

[synchroscheme]

I disagree with this. While I love both Souls games to death, I don't exactly think it has influenced other games to follow suit with its difficult yet strict gameplay, or at least not yet.

Most games are made with the intention that the players will be able to beat said game. If you can't beat a boss in a Souls game, then tough cookies. You don't get to progress until you get better, and the game doesn't hold your hand to do so.

Modern games don't want to scare off its audiences with a set difficulty that can't be changed or early level enemies that can kill you in a couple of hits, and I don't see them changing soon either.

[pandehz]

I agree with the list but It needs more games on it for more subtle influences of course not as big and raging as the listed ones.

Crysis influence-graphics
Mirrors Edge - animation, lighting , fluid control for 1st person
BF3-sound,graphics and hardcore competitive mp
Starcraft 2
DoW2/WiC/CoH
Dota/LoL
Some indie games

etc etc

[srcBFMVBMTH]

You gotta be joking right? Good games, but not influential in any way. Lol

[rbailey]

BioShock definitely deserves to be on that list. I recall when I first played the demo on my friends Xbox 360. That in turn pushed me to buy a 360 of my own and I haven't been disappointed since.

[ChunkyLover53]

Its hard to say that many games influenced other games this generation. I mean the games listed are definitely games that have come to define this generation, but I'm not sure they are huge influences just yet. We will know more on those influences with the next generation consoles. Great list though, I own all of those games and have enjoyed them very much.

[InTheLab]

Can't say I agree with Bioshock or Mass Effect. If we're talking straight up influence, the rest of the games on that list belong. I can't think of a single game aside from Apha Protocal and maybe Dishonored, that bit off either of those games.

I'd replace Bioshock and Mass Effect with God of War 3 and ....yeah...I'm going there, Wii Sports.

We know what Wii sports did so no point in going over it again..Kinect/Move casual party..

God of War has inspired quite a few clones this gen. Dante's Inferno, Darksiders, Castlevania etc.

There's a little bit of CoD in most modern shooters.
Everyone wants to be or beat Uncharted 2
There's a Gears clone every other month

Great list from the author..

[srcBFMVBMTH]

Agreed about God of War 3. Even the recent Prince of Persia took some notes from God of War and the upcoming one is soon to follow.

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