What are the most influential games?

[Moaner]

Quake and Quakeworld.  Quake introduced mods to the common gamer and Quakeworld introduced dedicated servers and online DM, CTF, and Arena style games.  They probably weren't the first games to do these things, but they were the first most gamers had heard of.

[Trippy]

Quake and Quakeworld.  Quake introduced mods to the common gamer and Quakeworld introduced dedicated servers and online DM, CTF, and Arena style games.  They probably weren't the first games to do these things, but they were the first most gamers had heard of.

Quake had all those things before QuakeWorld, except for maybe Rocket Arena. What QuakeWorld introduced was client-side prediction in the networking code which meant that HPBs (aka High Ping Bastards, aka modem users) at least had a chance to compete against LPBs.

[Xanthippe]

Computer:  Probably Civ followed by Zork.  I also loved Populous and Sim City.  Master of Orion.  The first versions of all have been more fun, in my opinion, than the later incarnations.  I don't know why but I just don't

Console:  Breakout (on an old Fairchild - yes they made a console with 8tracklooking cartriges) and Zelda

Arcade: Pong (pumped way too many quarters in the one at the movie theater)

I haven't enjoyed playing the revised versions of any of these nearly as much as I enjoyed their first incarnations.

[Driakos]

The first machine we got in our home was this doohicky called a Telstar.  It basically played Pong, and 3 other games that looked like Pong.  Had built in paddles, and hooked up to the TV with that forked RF relic.  It also ran on C batteries, didn't even have a RC adapter.  I was 7 or 8, and hooked.  We got a Sears generic Atari 2600 a few months later.  I played games with my dad.  He quit when I started winning.

I had a Commodore vic20 around 10 or 11.  The Scott Adams text games, Adventure, Pirate Island, Curse of the Count (something close to that), Voodoo Castle.  Changed gaming for me.  They were only text, but the desire to *win* a game kicked in.  The old Atari games I played never really had endings, you just racked up score.  Now I could WIN games.

Pool of Radiance for the c64 was a whole new revolution for me.  That game, along with Rogue and Kings Quest III (could never beat it) ate an entire summer.

I had an NES with a ton of games, but they were just entertainment.  It wasn't until Civilization that I was blown away again.  Eye of the Beholder, Alone in the Dark, Star Control II, Warcraft 2, and Diablo all kept me sticking to the PC until Ultima Online.

Although I'd played Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, and Wolfenstien, it wasn't until Tribes that an FPS really got to me.  Nothing has measured up really since.  Planetside was close, but I never found a group of people that stuck around.  Part of the snare Tribes had, was being on a regular team.

So I guess:

Pong
vic20 text games
Pool of Radiance
Civilization
Street Fighter and its ilk (Samurai Shodown IV being the peak of 2D fighters!)
Ultima Online
Tribes

[Trippy]

some old PC-XT DOS game called NFL Football (it was all X's and O's coaching strategy, but outstanding)

Did you mean NFL Challenge? It came in one of those heavy-duty WordPerfect/Lotus 1-2-3 "slipcase" boxes and had spiral-bound laminated playbooks and came with a primer on NFL football and you could draw up your own plays (with "X"s and "O"s!). I had that for my Mac -- that game was awesome.

[Strazos]

As far as FPS goes...I played Wolfenstein, KEN (I think...FP maze-like game, looked like Wolfenstein). Wasn't properly introduced to online FPS play until I played some Quake at a friend's house, but I really hit my stride once a bunch of us started to commandeer the high-end PCs after classes in high school to play Quake 2. I didn't start to get into these games At Home until Tribes (for multiplay) and Deus Ex (for singleplayer goodness).

Oh, and I put some obscene hours into TFC.

[StGabe]

River Raid (Atari 2600)

Rogue & Nethack

Gauntlet (arcade version, at a place that let you play arcade games for a nickle a game)

Pool of Radiance (the original goldbox)

Sid Meier's Everything. (Railroad Tycoon, Pirates, Civ I)

[Tebonas]

Oh my god! River Raid.

That game has the honor that both my father (who after that just played Solitaire and Mahjong-like games) and my mother (who never played a single other computer game in her life) played it. We were huddled together in front of the Commodore VC20 and took turns blowing up bridge after bridge for months. I never understood why they both liked it, but obviously those few months they did "get" me playing games, and that meant the world to me.

[rk47]

Ultima 6 was my first RPG. Was really fun even though most of the time my cousin is the one playing and I'm just sitting next to him watching.
When U7 was out I really begged my parents to get me my own PC and was really impressed with the 'massive' world to explore.

Influencial RTS for me was Command & Conquer series, I never played multiplayer on it, but the single campaign video was so slick and advanced for that time, I really got hooked. Lost a couple of nites playing it, forcing my parents to hide my keyboard so I'll get enough sleep for school. XD was fun.

[Tale]

Influential Games.  Hmmm.

1 - Lords Of Midnight
2 - Elite

I'd have to agree. If you're reading this and you've never heard of Lords of Midnight (released 1984), there's a PC version with Wiki and more at http://icemark.com

Best Lord of the Rings rip-off ever, and one of the best games. Mike Singleton also wrote Midwinter on the Amiga, which might be my number three. His driving passion was to create something that would be to computer games what chess is to board games (i.e. nothing like chess, but something with the scale and depth of a computer game and the timeless awesomeness of chess). He almost got there. Maybe he did.

Also, Elite. I'd probably put it at #1 because at age 14 I quit AD&D and sold my modules in the schoolyard (including originals of the first three Dragonlance ones that were never played) and with the money I bought Elite. I think I was 19 when I sold my C64 and I was still enjoying Elite.

And then EverQuest. It was the first 3D environment to feel like Gibson's Matrix or Stephenson's Metaverse. Screw fantasy and roleplaying, I lost interest in that as a teenager. I was in EverQuest for the mindfuck.

[Wolf]

Influential games, as in what formed my tastes as a gamer:

Civilization
Dune 2
Quake
Both Fallouts
Ultima Online

[Ironwood]

Oh, you bastard.

Every time I get sent to the Icemark website, I end up replaying the damn game for another 3 months.

[Tale]

He stands at the tower of the Moon, looking North to the downs of Shadows. It is dawn and Morkin is utterly invigorated. The Ice Fear is quite cold. Morkin is utterly bold. Morkin commands no warriors and no riders.



:P

[Ironwood]

http://www.midnightmu.com


Get In.

[schild]

I left Tele Arena, Trade Wars, and MajorMud off my list. Consider it amended.

[Yegolev]

Oh, hey.... guess what I just got running this morning:

[Tebonas]

Is this a version with the Red Ryder Ranger Rifle (with Compass in the Stock)?

[Yegolev]

You know what, I really don't know.  It is apparently a crackified version, whatever that might mean for an Apple ][ disk image, so perhaps so.  I can point you to the ftp site if you like, since I can't guarantee I'll find out in any reasonable amount of time.  There's a crapload of other games there, too: ftp://public.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/

If you need AppleWin: http://applewin.berlios.de/

[Furiously]

I'm happy I still own a pc version. The artwork on the front of the box is so great.

[WayAbvPar]

I have no idea how, but I have somehow managed to not play Wasteland ever. I see it as a character defect.

[Yegolev]

I'm happy I still own a pc version. The artwork on the front of the box is so great.

That's how I feel about my Daggerfall box.  My wife makes me keep it in a closet, says it is really creepy.

[Stephen Zepp]

"The Hook": Temple of Aphsai on a Vic-20.
"Most Influential": Masters of Orion (also most played--I kept it around for about 8 years)
"Most addictive-bad" : Civilization. Didn't actually like the game too much, but that damned "one more turn".
"Most addictive-good" : Alpha Centauri -- I LOVE being able to make my own units, even if it wasn't particularly balanced.
"MMO": EQ for the win unfortunately, although I played ShadowBane pretty damned cat-ass for about 8 months.

[WayAbvPar]

The Hook": Temple of Aphsai on a Vic-20.

Ahhh good call. I played that during the Ali Baba/Return of Heracles era. Very fun.

[Scadente]

I actually can't recall when I started gaming. This is because one of my earliest memories is standing in front of a TV with an Atari controller in hand playing Pacman.

Same here, but it was space invaders (or atleast what I remember it being).

What I really remember getting me into to games was the Apple II. I don't really remember all the games but Pirates! and Deja Vu really stick out, so does a Deja Vu clone (with a more viking'ish feel do :-D). Also my neighbour had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, playing Lords of Midnight, Gauntlet and Dizzy on brings back some good memories :)

Most memorable games I've played to date must be M.U.L.E., Doom, Civilization, Europa Unversalis II and WoW (Which has really gotten me into MMOs).

[voodoolily]

Can someone please remember the name of a text-only adventure game for the Commodore 64 that I played in 1984 or 85 that took place (in part, at least) in Tibet or Nepal? I played it with my friend at her house. All I can remember is:

>You are in a Buddhist temple. Monks are praying.

We scratched our heads a bit to solve this one with "give offering to Buddha" to get the monks to actually talk to us. I think the name had "dragon" in it, but I can't be sure. I LOVED that game!

[Signe]

Was it Dragonworld?  The one with Hawkwind?  But that kind of had pictures.  Sort of.  Was it about the last dragon getting kidnapped or something?  God, I'm old.

Help the Aged.  Send money.

[Chenghiz]

Adventure - first computer game I ever played
Simcity - first computer game I ever bought
Aces of the Pacific
F-19 Stealth Fighter - first flight sim I ever played
Civilization 2
Descent 2
Homeworld

Also Schild, I got Journeyman Project with a Mac from a friend of my dad's and played it quite a bit, though I never got past the second timetravel mission. I remember looking at the 3D prerendered graphics and thinking "how the hell did they do this?!".