Surely you will be used to seeing rankings of all kinds in which it is said which games are the best ever. It is an old discussion that the sector brings up and not even the most academic attempts to define something similar have been able to create lists in which the majority of players agree. There are always discrepancies... and very deep ones.
So this time we are not going to tell you which are the best games in graphics, arguments or just in a general way. Don't expect a debate about whether The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time deserves number one or any other number two, three or four. We are here today to define all those releases that marked the history of video games, for the better, through new ideas and mechanics that transformed the vision of the industry.
We want to mark with this list, the moment in which the developers of these games created new genres or revolutionized the industry indicating the way to the following projects that were going to reach the market. Inflection points in which the fate of videogames changed course until reaching, mutation by mutation, the precise moment in which we find ourselves right now.
It goes without saying that you will surely miss a game, or any other game, so excuse us in advance. let's go with those marvels that have illuminated the video game market in recent… 64 years old!!
Tennis for Two (1958)
We could consider it as the first video game in history, developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory and that recreated a side view of what looked like a tennis court. Two players could return the ball by pressing a button at the right moment when it passed through our field and it was even possible to choose the angle of the trajectory. Very rudimentary, but effective for the time.
Pong (1972)
What to say about the first game that reached the bars and arcades of the 70s. Two sticks, a vertical line to mark the division of the two fields and the possibility of hitting the ball to defeat our adversary, who could be a friend or the machine itself. pong, of Atari, pointed the way for video games throughout the next decade on all first-generation consoles.
Space Invaders (1978)
Taito was responsible for many parents defining video games as little martians. Space Invaders He was the first to burst the arcades with that horde of enemies that are descending on the screen while we shoot at them and protect ourselves with the parapets. A great classic that when we close our eyes we can clearly hear the sound of its lasers and explosions. From him, video games changed forever.
Pac Man (1980)
With the evolution of interactive systems, Namco created what is surely the best known video game in history. A character that is already part of the popular heritage and that is practically considered as an asset of cultural interest. The protagonists of it have been used for countless video games, versions of the original, reinterpretations, comics, merchandising and even movies, such as pixel, where its creator, Toru Iwatani, appears.
Tetris (1984)
From the depths of the Soviet Union One of the most influential games came to the West of history. Tetris, by Alexey Pajitnov, was the first to play with tiles of different shapes and colors that we must fit together to complete lines. Thanks to him, in the following decades, we met the Columns, klax and even that Candy Crush that triumphs on the screens of our mobiles. and that have in this ancestor their main referent.
Super Mario Bros. (1985)
The platform genre was practically born with Mario when in 1985 Nintendo released the first installment for the NES. Is about a game with very advanced mechanics, dozens of scenarios and a way to progress that will force us to spend hours in front of the screen. Surely there was a similar game before, but none helped the game so much. platformism to lay the foundations in the following decades. And not only in Mario's own titles.
Maniac Mansion (1987)
The Original Adventure it marked the path of a genre that stops a lot in telling us a story as if it were an interactive book and although it was the first step, later titles came along that added graphics to make them more enjoyable. The Hobbit for personal microcomputers was a good example, but the release that changed everything was M, by LucasFilm Games. Since it arrived for the Amiga, Atari ST, consoles and PC of the time, the genre has never been the same: several playable characters, a crazy story and anthological puzzles to solve.
Yes City (1989)
Maxis was the company that in the 90s exploited the Sim brand for practically everything: sim golf, simfarm, simcopter, etc Now, to get to that moment, he had to launch himself first. Sim City, an economic and social manager of cities that captivated millions of players. Since then, the management genre has been one of the favorites for millions of users who are looking for slower and more serene mechanics, far from the explosions and visual effects of other action developments. Who has not raised taxes in the role of mayor of Villaloquesea?
Street Fighter II (1991)
The fighting genre is what it is thanks to this Street Fighter II from Capcom. After a discreet first game, the second in arcade games broke all known records. The versions for consoles helped a lot, with Super Nintendo at the forefront. The Ryu, Ken, Vega, Sagat and other characters made fighting titles one of the best sellers which were followed by sagas as well known as Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc.
Doom (1993)
This game is the true beginning of the genre of shooters in first person. Now, we already know that previously other titles had arrived such as Wolfenstein 3D, But es Doom the one that kicks off the FPS concept that we know today. It goes without saying how important this work by id Software with John Romero and John Carmack at the helm has been for the history of video games. Then the others arrived: Quake, Unreal Tournament…
myst (1993)
In the first half of the 90s, a new format arrived that was to replace floppy disks. It was the CD-Rom, which allowed to store up to 650Mb and that it facilitated the studies to go a step further in what at that time was called multimedia. That gave the excuse to use animations, add videos and create games from pre-rendered 3D sequences. Myst it is the son of its time and was the starting point for a new way of creating graphic adventures and, above all, interactive products with an intensive use of videos. His success marked the moment when companies saw that the future was in CDs and began to fill them up.
Command & Conquer (1995)
Although Sim City he had taught us to manage a city and spend only what we could raise, Command & Conquer took the step of adding the warlike aspect to the management. We already know that Warcraft, for example, had come out two years earlier, but its success was rather limited. In Command & Conquer It was no longer just about collecting raw materials like crazy, but about investing them wisely in facilities, combat units and technologies. Westwood practically created the RTS genre and marked the future. sagas like Age of Empires or even Total War later, or the very Warcraft III They were reflected in the success of this title.
Super Mario 64 (1996)
Despite the fact that Nintendo was late for the battle against PlayStation and Saturn, He knew how to mark the way of what platform games would be like in the newly created market of 3D polygon games. And it was all possible thanks to a component that was in the Nintendo 64 gamepad and in which neither Sony nor Sega had repaired: the USB stick analogical. That changed everything and the game of the master Miyamoto laid the foundations for a huge number of platform titles that came in the following years. Although his influence is still alive today, or perhaps Super Mario Odyssey Isn't it an evolution of this great Super Mario 64?
Resident Evil (1996)
Capcom blew up the market when the first reviews of its Biohazard in Japan. The survival horrorr, which we had seen in games like Alone in the Dark, they had nothing to do with the experience, mechanics and narrative of this first resident evil. If influence can still be perceived in many games but back then it became an instant hit. Without him, what would have happened to us in the face of a zombie invasion?
Devil (1996)
Blizzard was already on a good run with its Warcraft but where he really hit the ball was with this Diablo. The first of the ARPG genre, that is, role-playing games with endless action that currently has such a successful exponent as Lost Arch. The key, millions of enemies on the screen, loots constant and an improvement of the team and the stats of the protagonist that allow us to modify the way of fighting at our whim. From him, the genre changed forever.
Tomb Raider (1996)
What to say about Lara Croft and tomb raider. It is, by far, one of the most influential titles in history, one of those that paved the way for the countless action adventures that would come in the following years. The creation of Core Design (Crystal Dynamics too) was clear and transparent, with a third-person character, three-dimensional settings with many paths to travel, puzzles to solve, an inventory full of objects and all the gameplay of a catalog of enemies with difficulty. growing. Without our favorite heroine, the Uncharted, Horizon, Assassin's Creed and all other franchises surely they would have taken longer to reach our consoles.
Pokémon Red and Blue (1996)
These two Pokémon are the starting gun for one of the most profitable franchises in the history of video games. There is no such thing as a game Pokémon, so with these Red and Blue editions (plus the Green one), Gamefreak and Nintendo launched a new path of titles that are among the best sellers in history. Its impact on the market was tremendous and helped Nintendo to uniquely position their machines, something that other brands could not even aspire to. Since then those first cartridges we have spent 26 years throwing Pokéballs at everything that moves and collecting creatures from the fields that have grown in number since those first 255.
Gran Turismo (1997)
What to say about the driving and speed game that defines the segment of car simulators, and that bet from the first moment on realism. The work of Kazunori Yamauchi celebrates a quarter of a century in this 2022 with the same premises that he taught us at the time on the first PlayStation: real models, a different driving experience depending on each vehicle and a game system where we progress as we gain skills (licenses). It was a complete success that has made Polyphony Digital one of the most respected companies in the market.
Ever Quest (1999)
Sony Online Entertainment was responsible for what we can consider the first great MMORPG that became a massive sales success. Its role-playing action within a huge open world enchanted millions of players that until that moment they had not experimented with developments in which we could share games with thousands of adventurers. Although a huge number of new franchises arrived later, SOE's is one of the most celebrated from those early days and had a continuation that hit the market just a few months before the famous World of Warcraft from Blizzard.
The Sims (2000)
We could say that the breed comes to the greyhound because the success of The Sims in September 2000 and the following years is not a matter of luck. Will Wright, the main person responsible for this game in its design, had already come from an endless career around the Sim franchise. in 1989 Sim City hit the stores and then for 11 years we were bombarded by all kinds of simulators (sim ant, SimEarth, SimLife, etc.). On this occasion, The Sims They are in charge of creating a kind of digital twins of ours that have a life of their own, they are capable of founding families, decorating their houses, working and interacting based on decisions we make on their behalf. Its success made this genre unique and inspired many other companies that dared to devise virtual worlds that would be called metaverses today.
Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
The first two GTAs had inside them the seeds of what GTA III achieved some time later: a map of a huge city and available to explore, a sandbox concept, missions that we collect in phone booths and the possibility of getting hold of any vehicle that we can come across. The big difference, which made it such an unprecedented success, was transforming that old top-down view into a third-person 3D game. From that moment on, and with the help of an adult narrative from Rockstar, the franchise caught the flight it had been waiting for for years. From that moment, the successes followed until today, where we have a GTA V that will be 10 years old in 2023. By the way, how many open worlds with sandbox format have reached the video game market? Well, it was all thanks to GTA III.
World of Warcraft (2004/XNUMX/XNUMX)
Blizzard canceled a graphic adventure project by Warcraft and he focused all his efforts on an MMORPG that was already beginning to become fashionable at that time. We do not bring here World of Warcraft for being the first, but yes the one pushed practically everyone to try their luck with these developments massively multiplayer role-playing. The reason? That in addition to selling the games at a good price, gamers had to pay a monthly subscription of about 12 euros, which in the good times of this title reached more than 12 million paying players. Take account of everything that implies.
League of Legends (2009)
The quintessential MOBA was born and grew from the map Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) of Warcraft III The Frozen Throne but in the case of Riot, over time the competitive aspect was worked on a lot more, developing a scene that is still valid today and that moves millions of viewers around the world around its official competitions. If we bring here League of Legends is to be the first of its kind to take eSports seriously and it grew around that idea and exploited it as the best way to transform a simple video game into a service with no expiration date.
Minecraft (2011)
Construction games have always worked like a charm, but in the case of MinecraftThat success was extraordinary. And if we have to go looking for a reason for its almost social and cultural impact, it is because let the community make it grow, creating content that could be easily shared and even connecting gamers from all over the world to have fun in free play or multiplayer story modes. Although the fun was building and hanging out with friends, there were those who preferred to immerse themselves in an adventure that was latent under the blocks full of pixels. What started as a tiny game ended up bought by Microsoft and today is a title that continues to generate tens of millions every year.
PUBG (2017)
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds born from others battle royale that began to emerge from the hand of some skilled users to modify existing titles. PUBG, which is how it is known, was launched on PC in early access mode and was a complete success as it explored the formula of the gigantic map where dozens (up to 100) of players face each other and only one can remain. It is the first of a long list that reached the vast majority of players although then, later, came the one that blew it all up. But even today, he continues to be a benchmark with many followers.
Fortnite Battle Royale (2017)
fortnite battle royalee is the story of a resounding failure... at first. When Epic developed the original Fortnite, it had nothing to do with a free-for-all, individual or team, and only bad expectations pushed the Americans to come up with a game. battle royale. The success was overwhelming thanks among other things to the construction system inherited from the original concept. So what at first seemed like a full-blown crash ended up being the biggest money-making machine in history. Epic Games, thanks to the hundreds of millions that it entered (and continues to enter), was able to found its digital store for PC with which it competes with Steam. The reason for its success? Its constant changes, new seasons, map modifications and an extraordinary sponsorship policy with franchised content that arrives practically every week.