It's November, and that can mean a few different things. It can mean that you've decided to keep that mustache for Movember, or that you're preparing your stomach for the onslaught of turkey, cranberries, stuffing and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. But as the name suggests, it's a time of year to be thankful.
We're going to take a look at five games that shaped and defined their genre in ways that would impact the future in crazy ways. It's easy to take some luxuries we have in modern gaming for granted, but it's nice to be able to see where they all started and how much of an impact they've made.
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein is heralded as being the grandfather of FPS games. And while it may have not been the first to try the first-person approach, it popularized it to immense levels, spawning a host of games like Doom and Duke 3D, both vastly different in tone, but using the a similar run and gun formula.
It revolved around a spy named William 'BJ' Blazkowicz and his attempt to flee from Nazi occupied Castle Wolfenstein. Aside from trying to survive the assault from Nazi soldiers, Castle Wolfenstein was littered with secrets that the player could opt to look for. The game concludes in a crazy boss fight against Hitler himself, who starts out in a mini-gun wielding mech suit.
Super Mario
It would be a crime to not include Super Mario Bros. into a list of genre-defining games. And even though Super Mario Bros. 3 perfected the formula, we need to give credit to the game that spawned a genre that gave us games like Sonic on the Genesis and even Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation.
Shigeru Miyamoto crafted one of the best experiences with tight controls, diverse worlds and various secrets waiting to be discovered as players traversed through 8 challenging worlds.
Fast forward to 1996 and Mario still kept defining the genre with Super Mario 64, the plumber's first jump into 3D platforming. And while Mario 64 was hardly the first 3D platformer at the time, it did revolutionize the genre by introducing the ability to rotate the camera around Mario, giving the player ultimate control of his surroundings.
Final Fantasy
Named after it was supposed to be Square's last attempt before facing bankruptcy, it spawned an amazingly successful series of titles that sent the players and their party on fantastical adventures to save the world from destruction. Final Fantasy wasn't the first to the RPG scene, as Dragon Quest rose in popularity in Japan, while Ultima gained traction in the US, it eventually overtook both franchises in popularity here and spawned numerous follow-ups, spin-offs and even movies based in its universe.
Each Final Fantasy tells a unique story to its world. Whether it's saving crystals to restore balance to the world, or taking part in a rebellion against an oppressive empire, or perhaps taking part in a pilgrimage to save the world from a giant being bent on genocide, they all have a different story to tell, filled with interesting characters that you grow closer to, the more you advance.
And while recent titles in the franchise might not have lived up to everyone's expectations, there is no denying that the Final Fantasy series started an RPG revolution.
Halo 2
Whereas Wolfenstein can be credited by leading the charge in run and gun single player games, Halo revolutionized the gaming space through its multiplayer capabilities, specifically its online portions.
Goldeneye might have been the undisputed king of local multiplayer back in the day, but Halo 2 brought what once required friends to gather around a single TV, to an online space where anyone in the world could play against one another. But that's not all. It revolutionized connecting players through a much easier process with Playlists, which no longer required a single person to host a session.
Now players would not only connect together based on wanting to play similar Playlists, which consisted of various maps and rulesets, but Halo 2 also introduced a ranking system which would pool players of similar skill against one another, ensuring that matches were mostly fair, and highly skilled players wouldn't constantly crush new players looking to learn the basics of the game.
This one change completely revolutionized the multiplayer space and is now universally used in franchises like Call of Duty and Battlefield.
Gran Turismo
In 1998, if you wanted to truly feel what it was like to drive around in a Nissan Skyline GTR or a Dodge Viper without leaving the comfort of your home, it was in Gran Turismo. Kazunori Yamauchi's obsession that was worked on for five straight years turned into a crazy detailed racing simulator that relied on real physics to determine the handling of each car. It was so in depth that players had to earn various driver's licenses in order to race cars in a higher class.
Gran Turismo also allowed players to painstakingly tune their cars to the most minute detail, which ultimately affected the car's handling. With over 150 cars that at their time were painstakingly recreated, it was a car lover's dream.
Now gamers have choices of various racing sims, but you have to wonder whether we'd have them, were it not for Gran Turismo.
Of course there are tons of other games that revolutionized the way we play now. Make sure to sound off below if you have a special game or franchise that you're thankful for.
