Most ground breaking games of the decade and why?

Rock Band- People who have nothing to do with video games (like my mom) will play Rock Band with me and my friends. Nothing brings people together like Karaoke and this is Karaoke on crack.

Shenmue- there'd be no Sandbox game without Shenmue

Halo 1- Consolized the FPS and told a damn good story too

God of War- For the tits...

 

GT Legends (PC) -Accurately simulated a classic Mini Cooper S (1275) with correct physics, rpm band, and handling. Also included the 970 S, but ran a little too fast for what is basically an 850 on crack

GTA 3: Popularized the open world concept (Shenmue came close, but not quite)

Wii Sports: Kicked off the whole "non gamer, family friendly" shit

Fable: Proving there is such a thing as too much hype

 

I was going to make a post similar to this. I'm glad to see it has been done. I see thatsome of the games I would have been nominated,already have. Wow I forgot about shenmue. Also I believe shenmue holds the record for highest budget for production of a videogame.
In anycase

Nba / nfl 2k which I believe set the benchmark for what sports games should be from that point on

Halo 2 for expanding xbl user base

 

Shenmue was the record holder for the highest budget until GTA IV, I belive GTA IV costed about U$S 100 millon and Shenmue costed U$S 75 millon to make.

 

the biggest jump in how we play console games in the last 10 years has been online, and Halo 2 set the standard for matchmaking, messaging, lobbies, etc.

Not to fanboy or anything, but before that it was give or take with games on XBL.

Most ground breaking though? I dunno.

 

-=xevious=-

1st shoot'em up w/ enemies in backround who can be killed w/ dropped bombs
1st shoot'em up w/ metallic sprites
1st shoot'em up w/ its own alien language. may be even to date.
1st shoot'em up which adjusts its difficulty itself, depending on the players skills.
probably 1st v-shoot'em up w/ background at all
also 1st shoot'em up which could make your ears deaf, when lissen to its BGM longer than 8min32sec in a row.

 

I didn't know Xevious was made in the last ten years..

It wasn't the first shoot 'em up with a scrolling background as Atari's Sky Raider beat it by a good half a decade...

 

I knew you will come and outbit me with something

so I should have written "probably 1st v-shoot'em up w/ colorful background"

sky raider was kinda stange anyway. like a digitized version of those transparent foil running mecha games from the 70s.

 

Wii Sports- A new market in gaming.

 

I think Ico was pretty groundbreaking. It's probably one of the first games that could be called an "art game". While it probably isn't the very first, I think it took the genre to a different level. It showed that a game could display an almost painterly quality in its graphics, and that playing a game could be almost like meditation or introspection (though you could argue Shenmue did this as well).

 

Wii Sports is gonna be remembered as the title that changed Nintendo's image from the underrated genius of the 128-bit gen to the dumbass money whore company they are today. :crying:

@topic
Halo sure was a title that made place for a lot of oncoming FPS. Many used and copied the two-weapon-exchange system and the implementation of vehicles as a both tactical and fun element of the game.
GTA III was great, although I still can't stand this game. GTA Vice City got me, many times better than III if you ask me. It revolutionized the concept of free roaming games and shall be honoured as such an important step in vg history.

 

Eh, Halo had the popular vehicles thing on a console, but hardly the first game. Tribes had thousands playing it online. Though whenever this comes up, I seem to be the only person that remembers the pretty much lag free 32 player (or more) gameplay on 56k, some of the best netcode ever.

 

And making Cheating and Glitching much more widespread on console online games too.


OH:

I still have haunting memories of all the people who abused Glitches and used mods.

So, because they want to appeal to a different market or try something different that makes them dumbass money whores?

Yes, Insanely good logic there.

 

Region locking the DS
Not listening to the million crying for translated Mother 3
thwarting all attempts to make the Wii region free...

Yep...

Dumbass money whores

 

yeah, because no other company has region locked their systems (all of them), updated firmware to block homebrew (All of them), and not released much wanted RPG's...

I mean the fact that when Wii Update 4.2 TELLS you before installing it will stop homebrew and let's you back out, and doesn't you know...ban you...yeah. That's terrible...

 

I still hate Nintendo....

 

nintendo isn't just a company, its a culture. I think there's plenty of us here who see it that way.

 

I damn love Nintendo. For me, Nintendo stands for cozy retro gaming (Famicom-N64) and stylish new age games delivering tons of new or interesting concepts (GBA, GC).

But with the Wii, Nintendo died for me and I'm anything but alone with this opinion. They were trapped since sales were decreasing and BigN couldn't afford fancy new hardware that is better than a PS3 or 360.
So they choosed to take the "wider audience" route. Clever marketing, really clever. Publishing a very basic sports game for elderly people and babies from time to time is indeed "trying something different" and they were very successful doing that. The money whoring paid off from the 1st day.

If 1 million of Nintendo fans don't like that new business concept, who cares if there are 10 million who WANNA PLAY GOLF ON Wii, Lol.

 

I've made my feelings on Nintendo known elsewhere no need to continue here.

Back on topic...

The Eye toy may not have worked out as well as Sony hoped but that combined with Konami's mocap games have set the stage for what we're about to experiencing on our PS3s and 360 with Natal.

 

I don't really think there's been a whole lot of ground breaking games recently. A lot of fine tuning of stuff that's already been done before, though. And none that have done something new on their own that has given them proper recognition.

Though, I guess there's an honorable mention for Nintendo in here - both for the NDS and the Wii. Even if none of the touch/motion thingies is anything new from this decade (same goes for Natal/Gem stuff too)

Shenmue was 1999 (okay, so it was very close to the end of the year). Besides, what's currently referred to as sandbox games are just a natural 3D devolution of similar styled games from the decade before it, both from the action and PC RPG genre.

I know it's an old argument, but I feel like pointing out that Goldeneye 007 did the whole console FPS split-screen multiplayer bla bla stuff half a decade before Halo came around... and, oh, a little riddle: There's a 3 million copies sales difference between the sales of Halo and Goldeneye 007. Guess which one's the one that sold 5 million and which is the one that sold 8 million

Actually Lionhead Studios had already been sitting on that award for nearly for years prior to the release of Fable. Remember a title called Black & White? :lol: