Which games had the most NEGATIVE influence on the industry?

[stalepie]

Mortal Kombat. The 90's were about fighting games (thanks street fighter II). A lot of them were about style and skill, and were pretty fun to play too, but Mortal Kombat was really only about gore. It's not so bad to have a franchise go a bit over the top. But it spawned numerous ripoffs that generally copied its style, but with much worse gameplay.

Disagree about Mortal Kombat. Maybe it was a bad influence, but the game DID have good gameplay, as witnessed by anyone who grew up with it at the arcades (there was a lot more to it than just the simple controls -- the glitches in the early runs being an example). Plus it oozed dark occultic atmosphere and had some cool music and voice samples, as well!

 

And the characters were really cool.

Edited June 27, 2010 by stalepie

[stalepie]

I'm going to say bullet hell shooters... I forget which was the first (Saturn days?) but I really miss the early 90s-style shooters that had less abstract and pattern-looking worlds.

[stalepie]

Everything that put Sony in power. I haven't had much interest in modern consoles ever since they turned video games into a wannabe movie industry.

 

There was a lot of originality on the Playstation 1 and even the second one. PS1 had new IPs like Wipeout, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, plus the landmark changes of Final Fantasy 7. There were some cool smaller projects on that system too like Pandemonium and King's Field. I really liked Ridge Racer and Tekken, too, and Legacy of Kain (despite horrible load times and sloppy gameplay), and some others... oh yeah and Metal Gear Solid. So the PSX was a pretty cool system, up there with the greats, imo.

 

Twisted Metal was another cool one. Hmm, I keep thinking of others. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Crash Bandicoot, plus PS2 games like Shadow of the Colossus and God of War.

Edited June 27, 2010 by stalepie

[Jr. Pac]

It always bothered me as a child that "super huge" pacman wasn't available in-game, but only in the cutscene. I imagined him not only being able to eat the ghosts, but SMASH THROUGH WALLS. Actually, in my world, it is, and he can.

Well then you have never heard of Super Pac-Man!

[Nukey Shay]

Wow...GTA3 getting a lotta votes for it's "sandbox" aspect. The funny things are:

 

The concept wasn't invented with it...such open-ended gameplay was already present in most RPG's at the dawn of computer gaming (Ultima, Wizardry, etc). It just took some time processing power to reach the point where you could control the "movie" instead of being forced to watch it.

 

The fact that games like "The Sims" and "True Crime" either preceded or were released alongside it meant that the industry was already headed in that direction had it never existed at all.

 

 

Regarding the "mature" label:

Even the 2600 had it's share of adults-only titles. However, the game industy wasn't really put under the microscope until the crappy "Night Trap" game hit (or rather, was dropped into) the market. Since then, anything that featured so much as a badly-animated and heavily-pixellated boob was attacked as being a negative influence of "The Children" .

By the same token, DOOM did that from the violence aspect. Games before it could hack and slash without notice until that one came along (even tho Wolfenstein 3D preceded it, violence against nazis was never a problem).

 

 

If this thread was to detail which games had the biggest negative impact regarding future games' production, you only need to look at games whose innovative mechanics spawned the most clones. Even Pac-Man was guilty there. And Renegade. And Super Mario Brothers (from then on, every console had to have a platformer "mascot").

[BrianC]

Edit: It seems the C64 version is missing the intermissions...

And MSX too, apparently, I'd assume VIC too as Ms Pac Man is missing them.

 

I know for sure the 5200/A8-bit ones have them, and Spectrum, Apple II, NES, Game Boy, SNES/Genesis, and Microsoft Arcade.

 

The A8 cart versions of Pac-Man don't have the intermissions, but the later Datasoft disk version does (I know for sure about the cart because I played it quite a bit back in the day and still have it). C64 is a port of the A8 cart, so it's missing the intermissions. MSX is missing them? I thought I remembered seeing them when playing it, but it may be the similar look to the NES one playing tricks on me. Intellivision Pac-Man also has the intermissions.

 

Edit: Checked YouTube. MSX Pac-Man has the intermissions. Found of video of it from HEROAAAAAA.

Edited February 28, 2011 by BrianC

[Seob]

Like it is with everything, all games have people that like them, and people that dislike them. What i really hate is people having a opinion on a game that they never have played, I heard it was a bad game because... he told me so. Games disliked by some may be great games for others.

[Lendorien]

Halo and Mortal Kombat were awesome.

 

I am going to say GTA3. This is the point where story telling really died and sandbox gaming took off. You know what? I got over playing in a sandbox when I was five.

 

HEY! I;m 33 and I still like playing in Sandboxes! And with legos. Cause legos are awesome.

 

Hm. How about Spore? Spore's awful DRM made it the most pirated game ever and I feel helped put another nail in the coffin of PC gaming as devs abandoned the platform in droves and still are.

[kirin jensen]

Duke Nukem's later continual vaporware releases.

[tz101]

Sssnake by Data Age. It single-handedly caused the great crash of '83.

[BillyHW]

Pac-Man and E.T. - 2600. Atari chose short term profit over long-term reputation and destroyed themselves and the industry in the process.

 

 

The first computer game to ever have copy protection - ???. Can someone please tell me what that was?

 

Super Street Fighter II - Arcade. My childhood ended definitively when I heard the first hadoken. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyperfighting was perfection. Instead of waiting a while and giving us a definitive sequel, we instead get 20+ more SFII games and about 200+ more fighting games. Dishonourable mention goes to Mortal Kombat for being the first of the "me-too" games, and taking out the skill-based gameplay and replacing it with glitz and gore and those stupid photographic graphics. But the release of Super SFII was the day arcades started to die.

 

Night Trap - SegaCD. CD-ROM could have been used for so much more in the 2D era. Instead of incredibly beautiful, long, symphonic 2D masterpieces we got an endless load of FMV garbage. There are a few CD gems, like Valis, Ys, Sonic CD...but they are too few.

 

Doom - PC. I actually really liked Doom and Quake. But I have to blame someone for all the FPS games out there today, and it might as well be Doom.

 

Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye - N64. Again, great games, but they definitively killed off 2D gaming. Boo.

 

Pokemon - Gameboy.

 

Guitar Hero - PS2. Dumbest game genre ever.

 

WoW - PC. I've seen people lose their lives to this game.

[Cybergoth]

Street Fighter 2 - it killed the Arcades worldwide.

[mbd30]

Street Fighter 2 - it killed the Arcades worldwide.

 

Or home consoles with games that look and sound as good as the arcade (and usually have more depth of play) killed the arcade.The popularity of SF2 and Mortal Kombat may have helped revitalize arcades for a little while.

Edited March 12, 2012 by mbd30

[Austin]

Street Fighter 2 - it killed the Arcades worldwide.

 

The popularity of SF2 and Mortal Kombat may have helped revitalize arcades for a little while.

 

I thought this was the case as well, arcades having sort of a resurgence for a little while thanks to games like these.

[godslabrat]

WoW - PC. I've seen people lose their lives to this game.

 

You think?

 

[Rex Dart]

I'm going to say bullet hell shooters... I forget which was the first (Saturn days?) but I really miss the early 90s-style shooters that had less abstract and pattern-looking worlds.

 

 

Oooh, yeah. I miss shooters where the enemies actually SHOT AT YOU, instead of spewing neon diarrhea all over.

[Cybergoth]

Street Fighter 2 - it killed the Arcades worldwide.

 

The popularity of SF2 and Mortal Kombat may have helped revitalize arcades for a little while.

 

I thought this was the case as well, arcades having sort of a resurgence for a little while thanks to games like these.

 

The two problems were indeed that people then figured out that they could save a lot of money when playing near perfect Street Fighter II at home and that Arcades degenerated into offering just Street Fighter II and it's clones only. Both effects running parallel then killed the Arcades right after the goldrush that SFII initiated.

 

IMO

[Hakogame 箱亀]

I really wouldn't blame specific games. Though, certain specific games started trends that were copied and lead towards bad games.

 

Terrible trends:

 

3D: yes 3d is great. Looks great, gets you more immersed in a game, etc., but 3d started a trend of games that suck you in, force you to play for hours on end (even when it's a boring game), and then end up having zero replay value because you got so sick of the game when you were playing it, but kept playing because you wanted the reward of finishing it.

 

Unlockables/collectables/minigames: in practice some of these are great. Though, at some point they became more of a necessary addition to a game than a nice bonus. "Well if Blockbuster Game X has extra content, we need it in our game too." This has lead to diverting time and attention away from game design and forced resources into adding unlockables that not everyone will see (Game reviewers tend to be responsible for this belief that a game needs "extras" to be good)

 

Copycat game design over innovation: you've all seen this a million times before. In reality it is MUCH easier to make a copycat game than an original one. With a copycat, the basic blueprint for the game is already done, and mild success is almost ensured. With innovation, you are headed into uncharted territory, where failure is a distinct possibility. Unfortunately the games/music/movie/entertainment/anything industry is more about profit than quality.

 

Copycat mentality: this is the mentality created by copycat design; this is more about the consumer than the designer. The copycat mentality is basically a mindset that says " Blockbuster game X was great, so all good games must be like blockbuster game X" This is the thinking that limits what type of games people play, and in turn fuels copycat game design, because these games (regardless of how bad) will sell.

 

My 2 cents.

[+FujiSkunk]

Guitar Hero - PS2. Dumbest game genre ever.

 

You've never actually played, have you? Food for thought.

 

Also, Guitar Hero blazed the trail for games like Rock Band 3 and Rocksmith which help teach real instrument skills.

Edited March 13, 2012 by FujiSkunk

[Austin]

Guitar Hero - PS2. Dumbest game genre ever.

You've never actually played, have you? Food for thought. Also, Guitar Hero blazed the trail for games like Rock Band 3 and Rocksmith which help teach real instrument skills.

 

More appropriately, if anyone has a distaste for the popularity of music and rhythm games, blame Konami. They helped pioneer the genre as well as popularize it (at least in the US) through Dance Dance Revolution. More were popular in Japan, including Beatmania, Drummania, Keyboardmania, and Guitar Freaks (all out well before Guitar Hero).

 

BTW, Guitar Hero was awesome when it came out. It was only until Activision milked the piss out of it that it became a bad thing.

[BillyHW]

I really wouldn't blame specific games. Though, certain specific games started trends that were copied and lead towards bad games.

 

Terrible trends:

 

3D: yes 3d is great. Looks great, gets you more immersed in a game, etc., but 3d started a trend of games that suck you in, force you to play for hours on end (even when it's a boring game), and then end up having zero replay value because you got so sick of the game when you were playing it, but kept playing because you wanted the reward of finishing it.

 

I agree. I hate how 3D killed off 2D gaming.

[Cynicaster]

Angry Birds, for ushering in budget priced, lowest-common-denomintor derp derp games.

[Rex Dart]

How 'bout Dragon's Lair? Quicktime events can go in the toilet, thanks. I'll play games, watch movies, and no stupid combination of the two.

[+FujiSkunk]

One could argue games like Portal are just Dragon's Lair with more degrees of freedom.

 

It is possible to combine movie-like storytelling with game mechanics. Some methods simply work better and are more enduring than others.

[CastleofIllusion]

How 'bout Dragon's Lair? Quicktime events can go in the toilet, thanks. I'll play games, watch movies, and no stupid combination of the two.

I'm gonna have to disagree, I've played Heavy Rain and though it was a perfect combo of a game and an extremely enthralling storyline. It just drew me in and I couldn't put the game down.