1UP's 60 Most Influential Games of All Time

**Frogacuda** · 10 May 2011, 09:53 PM

This is an interesting/discussion provoking list that's a nice change in pace from the more broadly defined "Greatest" games lists:
http://www.1up.com/features/most-influential-games

For the most part it's really pretty solid and well balanced, actually. Of course there are a few glaring omissions:

1) A lot of the RPG choices are very questionable, as well as the ordering. FF4 over the original Dragon Quest? Wizardry as the most influential RPG?

Meanwhile, they've left off pedit5, dnd, and Moria, which originated the genre and were very direct, well-documented influences on the games that popularized the genre, including Wizardry, which many have derided as an out-and-out clone of Oubliette and borderline IP infringement. It may have been a vehicle for influence, but it innovated nothing.

2) No Elite? This game not only established a massive genre, but really laid the ground work for all open-world 3D games. In some regards it can be seen as the first game to truly utilize all three dimensions in a meaningful way. It also inspired Wing Commander, which somehow made the cut. HUGE omission.

3) No Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, or anything that popularized that genre?

4) Mystery House might have been a breakthrough, but I don't think it was nearly as directly influential as King's Quest or Maniac Mansion.

5) Why no Hard Drivin'?

There are a few questionable inclusions as well. Indy 500 was pretty amazing for its platform and time but not the first of its kind. Medal of Honor: Frontline seems downright arbitrary, and Bejeweled is pretty ridiculous too. Fallout does not strike me as particularly influential either. Were there waves of Fallout clones I missed?

Discuss.

**bVork** · 10 May 2011, 10:07 PM

I'm only going to touch on the RPG stuff in this post, since that's what I know the most about without having to go Google diving.
Wizardry has the distinction of actually being possible to finish. There's no endgame in Oubliette. And, as 1up points out, it was one of the first RPGs to hit Japan and influence developers there (though I think The Black Pearl would be more deserving if we're looking at influence on Japanese development.)
Fallout showed that traditional RPGs could be viable. There were almost no RPGs of note between 1994 and 1997. Three years may not sound like much, but remember that the industry seemed to measure time in dog years at that point - it was a long, long drought. And immediately after Fallout saw massive success, there were tons and tons of RPGs put into development, peaking with no fewer than a dozen major RPGs in both 2000 and 2001.
Ultima III instead of IV? Really? What with pretty much every WRPG these days including some sort of alignment system, I think Ultima IV's karma system is one of the most lasting legacies of that series. Ultima III really wasn't much more than an incremental improvement on the previous two games in the series.

**bbobb** · 10 May 2011, 10:18 PM

Jet Set Radio the first cel shaded game?

Wasn't there a cel shaded rhythm game that came out before it?

**Shin Johnpv** · 10 May 2011, 10:22 PM

I think there was also a looney toons racing game on the dreamcast that came out before JSR.

**bbobb** · 10 May 2011, 10:23 PM

Wasn't it Wacky Races that came out before?

**Frogacuda** · 10 May 2011, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by bbobb

Jet Set Radio the first cel shaded game?

Wasn't there a cel shaded rhythm game that came out before it?

There were games that had cel-like visual styles to them, but JSR was the first to rock real cel shading as far as I know.

Originally Posted by bbobb

Wasn't it Wacky Races that came out before?

Yeah, Wacky Races had edge detection outlines, but not cel shading. It had regular smooth shading, where cel shading means it has those hard breaks between color shades like a cel painting. JSR aslo had variable width outlines and generally looked really fucking nice, too.