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I've noticed that there are some threads around here that talks about what makes a game bad or good, or even overrated. I'm however curious to find out what games that have really had a big impact when it comes to the gaming experience be it good or bad.

One of the games..or even game series that early made a big impact for me when it comes to gaming was the C&C series when Westwood was still Westwood whit it's cut scenes that even though they might be some what cheesy at times compared to some modern ones, they still have that extra something that makes them stand out abit.

For me most of the games from id software made a big impact. Every other game done by them brought a revolutionary jump in visuals and 3d real time rendering techniques. The same is true for the first crytek engines.
Honorable mention goes to Drakan (on the PC) that i still use as a measure for good melee combat controls that no other game has managed to do better or even similarly good.

For me that price goes to a number of games actually. So I will lsit them below

1. Baldurs Gate 2 Shadown Of Amn : This game stole my breath away when I first got it as a realtilvy fresh arrival to RPG games. I still remember vividly the opening scenes and the sense of utter disgust I got from when you leanred about the evil plans the main villian had. As you progressed trough the game, and you learn more and more about his motivation that feeling became replaced with pitty almost. And a feel that you where really just watching someone whom had become so mad with grief that he lost all moral when it came to his quest.
So yes, the game has forever left me seeking a game that could hope to macth its sheer dept and span of possible ways to play it. Also the combat & magic sysmtem was awesome

2. Viking battle for Asgard : Now this game was far from perfect. But damnit it had Vikings, the Norse gods and heaps of glorious battels to be fogtuh against the armies of Hel! Since I fist beat it I have been wanting to find a game like it.

After playing Breakdown, and getting buckets and buckets of feels from the story, every game since just hasn't come close to that one story wise.

After playing fallout and seeing your vault taken over by mutants, I've never experienced a game that came close to the grim atmosphere of that one.

Tiberian Sun, for me one of the high points in rts games. Sadly the quality of it wasnt repeated in its sequals. Together with the story and the acting of Joseph Kucan as Kane made it one of my favourite games. I hope they will return to these kinds of games. Sadly this type of rts seems to be geared to faster and faster gameplay in recent years, striping many good features. So 14 years later I still enjoy a skirmish game once in a while.

Other one would be Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor. Introduced me into rpg games, good game, even though it was frustratingly hard sometimes. The sense of accomplishment and the size of the world was great fun. Only one I played in the series, but introduced me into the genre. Also liked the Heroes counterpart, but it has gotten a bit too cartoony for my taste.

Stronghold Crusader is my all-time favorite RTS that was my gateway into PC gaming. Every Stronghold game afterwards has been crap in comparison.

Team Fortress 2 was another one, but I don't really need to say any more on this wonderful game.

League of Legends, despite its dreadful community, helped me to play support classes, something that still sticks with me (nobody else I know is willing to play a support class in any game). This is also where I learned to play with lag (adapting to latency helps one to predict movements).

Bioshock revolutionized my thoughts about how fear works (not that it was overly scary, but elements of all 3 games increase in horror the more you think about them).

Deus Ex is obvious for me with the multiple approach to missions structure. I've seen it in other games too, though, most notably Thief 3 and Dishonored.

Knights of the Old Republic taught me that RPGs don't have to be high fantasy, AND that stories can go beyond and much muddier than the simple good/bad divide most games of the time fell back on. Most games Bioware have done since (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) have only served to cement the latter, if not both.

City of Heroes actually managed to change my stance on DLC, which at first I was vehemently opposed to the idea of.

someone’s gona say it so might as well be me! Elder Scrolls no matter which one yes there buggy but man can you lose time in those games finish work Friday, pop in disk and poof its Monday! never have a restarted a game more! another is the Final Fantasy series (except the few poo ones *u no who you are!*) any game that blocks out the real world for a few hours really games that have a in-depth story that make you connect with the characters! and i no i wasn’t the best game but MGS4 actually brought a tear to my eye at the end! Also a game that isn’t linier "go here do this pick up that" i want freedom!!!

Star Wars Dark Forces.

The simple reason is this game inspired the environmental puzzles and actually 3d jumping puzzles. It also introduced vertical gaming to an amazing point. Without Dark Forces, the gaming world would have fallen apart. Doom didn't create the FPS. This oft-hidden gem did.

My honourable mention goes to Master of orion. NOBODY has gotten the formula right since for 4X gaming. Even Master of Orion 2 didn't do it. Its responsible for so much innovation since.

Half-Life. I played shooters before, but Half-Life and the countless mods that it gave life to really made me enjoy shooters a lot more.

Yeah agreed. Half-life spawned Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2. It bought co-op (Sven co-op) and made gaming genuinely terrifying (who freaked out approaching the silo? I DID.)

One of the better things about Half-Life, it didn't take control away from the player to tell its story, that's something I really appreciate.

I think the one that shocked me to the core was NeverWinter Nights. I was big on piracy back then, I would be downloading every single game and I would never finish any of them because I downloaded yet another. "Eh, who cares, I'm playing for free" and all that. Many of them I didn't even touch or install, I just downloaded them.

I couldn't wait for NWN. I read and re-read the articles of my game magazines, I couldn't wait at all. I was (still am) an enormous D&D and Fantasy fan so this new game that was being so praised looked so damn good.

It finally arrived, downloaded it it like any other game, played it for one week and then I hit some kind of Nirvana. I thought "This game is too good. This game is TOO damn good to just have an illegal copy", so I grabbed what money I had, went to a store and got myself a shiny brand new copy of it.

In the end, I have been anti-piracy from that moment on, completely leaving my YAARR days behind. An industry that spawned such a game deserved my money, deserved my money to keep on producing dreams like this one. I think that in over 10 years I only had a re-lapse once with Bioshock (another FANTASTIC game) and Tomb Raider Anniversary edition but thankfully that mistake has been corrected. I own original copies of both games today.

So, yeah, as much as I love many games, NWN was the one which completely changed me when it comes to gaming

Armored Core, taught me that a difficult control scheme doesn't mean it's bad. I've played every game in the series, even the PSP titles and still love it to death.

Baldur's Gate (PC)

Age of Empires 2

Final Fantasy XI - Made friends there I still know toady even though none of us still play it

 Ahtman wrote:
Final Fantasy XI - Made friends there I still know toady even though none of us still play it

Excellentaru!



That one was an MMO I got to play with my lady.
Wonderful experience.

Ultima Online and Everquest both also changed things for me, one for the actual possibility, and the other for the depth of implementation.

Final Fantasy (NES) also changed gaming for me. First game I ever actually used hints/walkthrough/(Nintendo Power) to complete.

The Wing Commander games impacted my gaming experience more for working with some of the folk involved in their development years after enjoying the heck out of the titles.

Marathon ruined me for Doom, Half-Life and Deus Ex ruined me for most other shooters.

A few that have stood out...

1) Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - This was my first video game. No other game at that age (5) held my attention with it's "difficulty" it's scope, and it's puzzles. Granted all I had was a gameboy. It took me until the age of 8 to beat it, and when I beat it, it was the best day of my life.

2) Pokemon Red and Blue - This was my first foray into the perfection collection and PvP. Amongst my friends I was one of the best battlers in the game, and never had any troubles. I had a Charizard raised to level 100 by hand, and to this day he remains one of my favorite pokemon

3) Icewind Dale II - This was my first DnD RPG. My friends and I played through the opening scenes for 2 years, never getting past a certain point because his computer wouldn't save properly. I finally went out and bought the Icewind Dale collection so I could play it. Baldur's Gate and it's sequels and expansions, and Neverwinter Nights and it's expansions also fall under here. I recently found my NWN stuff and bought Baldur's Gate 2 off of gog.com.

4) WoW taught me the aspect of support classes. I started playing and asked my guild what they needed for raiding (I had a level 20 Hunter at the time), and I rerolled paladin and enjoyed a few years playing that game, and much like Dr. What it taught me to play with lag because I had bad internet and bad graphics. Though I had such a modded UI that no one knew how I was able to heal as well as I did . WoW was also the first time I studied a class/mechanic to learn how to play it better. I kept shooting for certain things with my Pally like limiting my overheals to x% and learning how to be aware of the surroundings (Don't stand in fire!), and how to be mana efficient.

5) CoD 4: Modern Warfare only gets an honorable mention because it got me into PC gaming more than simple games that were a few years older than my PC.

Positive Impact made:

Turrican. ( timeline : 8 bit computing./ part 2 in 16 bit...)
Almost perfect platformer. You may not save, but you can beat it.

Commando ( timeline : 8 bit computing..)
Learned what stress means when pushing through those gates to the next level.

Civilization. ( timeline: 16 bit towards present day )
its one of those games you can't stop playing... part 1, 2 ,3 ,4 ..... oh wait. You can. Won't touch part 5...

Pirates ( timeline : 8 bit computing./ part "2" in 32 bit...)
Youre at sea and the crew thinks about a new capt'n...
Some games make you dread an encounter. This one lets you hope for one.
Plus, to win against an overcrowded war - galleon in the duel ,teached me to time attacks correctly.


Negative impact:

PC gaming in general.
- i don't like incomplete games or to patch something to play it.
- everything evolves..except the AI...

consoles:
- update orgy to start a new game. Not mine, but witnessed it .
Sorry, I can remember the time when even a 8 bit machine got the game going from a storage device with a transfer rate you would think it never finishes the " loading " screen faster than this new test of patience..


home-computin:
- the prophet. Called RPG... Your character starts wounded but there is no reminder of that so he bleeds to death usually after the first 10-15 steps in that "game". Plus can't win an encounter because you don't live to tell...to heal ?
No idea...

Speaking of negative impacts, Gears of War multiplayer on the 360, wow. Just wow. That really turned me away from playing multiplayer for a long, long time, the kind of language and swearing thrown at you there by pre-ball drop lads is just shameful.

Lemmings
Elite
Super Mario Bros.
R-Type

For me, it would have to be Deus Ex because it mixed together FPS, RPG and stealth elements in a synergetic way that one does not overpower the other. Also, it made you think outside the box, encourages you explore the level and think of multiple ways how you want to complete your objective, which gives it a lot of replayability. Kind of sad Gaming today could've been much more....

Ghost House on the Master System, seeing my cousin play this for the first time got me hooked on video games.