Landmark computer games of the 20th and 21st centuries

[KennyR]

I was just thinking about some computer game landmarks. Can anyone suggest any?

What I mean by landmarks are games that defined a genre. They would not necessarily need to be the first of their kind, just the first that really pressed the genre into our collective concienceness. You don't need to like them. They don't need to be just for the Amiga. You don't even need to have played them. Just suggest some. ;-) (Note that GTA3, UT2003 and Counterstrike aren't landmarks, even if they happen to be popular today).

For example, I can give a few landmark games:

Space Invaders (landmark shooter)
The Bard's Tale (landmark RPG)
DOOM (landmark ego-shooter)
Syndicate
Grand Theft Auto
Civilisation
Populous (landmark "god game")

Any other suggestions?

[KennyR]

Megalomania was good but it was not really a landmark - the Amiga market was full of god games at the time. Utopia, Populous, etc.

[KennyR]

Lemmings, Tetris, Pong and Pac Man are all landmark games, definitely. :-)

[KennyR]

Ah, Wolfenstein - yes, that was the first ego-shooter but not really a landmark because it wasn't so impressive, and didn't really launch the ego-shooter as a game type. Its successor DOOM I would say was the landmark.

Super Mario Brothers (or just Mario Brothers at first?) is also a landmark, as is certainly Zork.

[KennyR]

No. Populous came before Powermonger, and by quite a bit.

[KennyR]

Monkey Island was a good game, but it did not define the point-and-click adventure. I've no idea what did, but perhaps earlier games like Maniac Mansion. Remember, a landmark game doesn't need to be a good game, and not all great games are landmarks.

As for Dune2 - I'm unsure. Was it really the first RTS?

[KennyR]

@Crumb

Quake3 definitely isn't a landmark, IMO. Most of your others I agree with, except the newer ones I haven't played. (And popularity has nothing to do with it, as I said.)

[KennyR]

"Pirates!", so many hours after hours of playing. Wow, noone have made a game like that ever since. Even the C64 version was AWESOME!!

Whaaaaaat??? The C64 port of Pirates! SUCKED. It was incredibly slow, and liked to crash all the time. Not suprising, since the thing was written in BASIC!

One of the worst C64 games of all time, IMO. The Amiga version was so much better. Definitely a landmark in gaming. Not surprising, since Sid Meier was behind it.

[KennyR]

Ok, as I suspected I think some of you are confusing landmark games with your favourites. A sequel can't usually be a landmark, since it's just an advaned version of the first game! (In most cases, that is). Try to think genre.

I have another landmark that has never been surpassed - Audiogenic's Exile.

[KennyR]

I mentioned Syndicate in the first comment.

[KennyR]

Metal Gear solid (PSX) - Revolutionary game.
Tekken (PSX) - Best fighting game ever, with jaw-dropping visuals for the time.
Command and Conquer (PC) - More groundbreaking than Dune 2, imo.
Mario 64 (N64) - Best ever title available at a consoles launch.
Splinter Cell (XBox) - The best visuals I've ever seen in a console game.
Chicken Run (PSX) - Just because it was the first game I worked on and it felt good to see it in the shops

You're missing my point, Leander. These are good games with stunning visuals, but what do they actually offer that was new and innovative at the time? Tekken is just a fighting game in the Streetfighter 2 mould - a very, very old genre. Mario 64 - another one in a long line of similar games (although now in 3D). The C&C RTS genre had already been brought to the world through Dune2. And splinter cell, though stunning, is basically just an ego-shooter.

[KennyR]

But I didn't ask for the best games. ;-)

[KennyR]

What are you talking about?? Now, cut the crap, before I start insulting! There must more than one version then, because the version I had was AWESOME.

The version I had (which was the official one, AFAIK) was totally unplayable because it would crash at swordfights, which were too slow anyway, and come up with the

?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 10930
READY.

string. And I also remember the ZZAP64! review of Pirates! well - they said much the same thing and gave it about 30% or so, or even less. I haven't been able to find the review on the net (pirates is too common a word), but you'll have to take my word for it - or you could find it yourself. ;-)