The 11 Most Important Games this Gen

Brawl shouldn't be on here. I also don't think Red Dead really deserves it either, it was a great game but it didn't do much that GTA IV didn't already do. Some games I'd add are Wii Sports and The Walking Dead.

Nice list but i think the souls games (either demons or dark souls) need to be on this list and I think Wii sports did more for the wii than smash did but good list otherwise.

Brawl should absolutely not be on this list. Neither should RDR, though I love it.

@Legion_ said:

In random order, with no explanation what so ever.

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Assassin's Creed
• Dark Souls
• Braid
• Mass Effect 2
• Bioshock
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Red Dead Redemption
• Street Fighter IV
• Fallout 3
• Skyrim

Replace Fallout 3 and Skyrim with Oblivion. Take out RDR (as good of a game that it is), because it would be somewhat redundant with GTAIV. The same reasoning with Skyrim and Fallout 3, Fallout 3 less so, but it'd still make it a little redundant. I'd put Wii-Sports since it completely made motion gaming a thing.

"X GAME I REALLY LIKE ISN'T ON YOUR PERSONAL, OPINION-BASED LIST. WTF?!"

Why is Wreckateer not in this list

You definitely made a pretty solid list here, and I mostly agree with it. If I were to make a list like this I think it would be very similar, with only a few changes. I'd replace Brawl with Street Fighter IV (even if I feel its significance is exaggerated, it was definitely important.) I'd also slap Braid on there somewhere, because I feel like that's where the indie scene really started to become a thing, and also when people started to realize that downloadable games were a threat. Also I'd find a place for Wii Sports, because it was indicative of the casual gaming boom, motion controls, and a game succeeding for its novelty rather than its value. I think there should be a mention for some sort of narrative game like Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead as well.

Also all the people saying Dark/Demon's Souls, what's your logic behind that? I mean I know that people really like those games, but what's important about them?

I have to agree with others that you need a downloadable game (or two or three) on that list. Braid at the very least. Probably Journey also. Maybe Super Meat Boy or Spelunky. SSB is the same as it has always been. Same with Metal Gear Solid 4 and Halo 3. The others I mostly agree with. I wouldn't put Red Dead Redemption and GTA4. They did pretty much the same thing. For people saying Dark Souls or Demon Souls, I would disagree only because no other games have really taken things from them. By important I think he means games that redefined games this generation. Call of Duty 4, Oblivion, Gears of War, Bioshock, Uncharted 2 and Mass Effect 2 all changed the gaming landscape in major ways. Dark Souls didn't. Not saying it was a bad game, just that it wasn't as defining as other games. I might also suggest Wii Sports and Angry Birds. Both not great games but very important games in that they defined the generation for better or worse.

I have a feeling that Batman: Asylum will have long a lasting impact. For its simple combat system if nothing else.

Modern Warfare wins, that's for sure.

Brawl seems pretty out of place. I love the game, but it was really just a minor iteration on Melee.

Hopefully COD dies next gen like the Tony hawk series although Tony Hawk games where fun at one point.

I can only say no. Especially to Oblivion that was big disappointment and step backwards compared to Morrowind.

This is my list will say these aren't the best games but the games that i feel have been important in their own right or games that symbolise a trend that has been important while this generation of consoles have been out.

10 - Angry Birds/Farmville - The Rise of the casual/mobile game

9 - X-Com - Sums up two trends i wanted on the list the Revival out of favour genres and the modernisation of old school game design philosophy (Dark Souls/FTL/DayZ/Persona 4 Golden/Walking Dead/Heavy Rain)

8 - Braid - Not the first but seems to of caused a surge of indie puzzle games and raised awareness of games outside of AAA games.r

7- Street fighter 4 -The resurgence of the genre and the rise of CAPCOMs day one DLC

6 - Mass Effect 2 - Bioware's generation spanning sci-fi epic and probably the defining RPG story of this generation.

5 - Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves - Cemented Naughty Dog's reputation of being able to unlock the PS3s potential aswell as bringing a cenimatic gameplay to a new level.

4 - The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion - Released early in the console and showed what the new Consoles could do not just graphicly but also with the scope of the world.

3 - Gear of War - Bringing the cover system front and center it and EPICs Unreal engine have left its finger prints all over this generation.

2 - Wii Sports - The game that launched the Wii and motion controls, brought a whole new audience to the console ecosystem that both Sony and Microsoft ultimately also had to cater for them.

1 - Call of Duty : Modern Warfare - The spawning of the MMS genre and the spawning of dozens of copies of its multiplayer unlock system to the point that some will now complain when given all the weapons from the start.

I more or less agree with this list, but I think it should be ordered differently. I would drop Super Smash Bros., Halo 3, and GTAIV.

@Sooty said:

Brawl mentioned but not Street Fighter IV which made fighting games a thing again.

I'm out.

This.

Also Gears should be at number one. I don't like Gears but it is, without a doubt, the most important game of this generation. The rest are pretty good choices.

I'm sorry, but Oblivion fuggin suckssssssss. Good list other than that though haha.

@fuzzypumpkin said:

I'm sorry, but Oblivion fuggin suckssssssss. Good list other than that though haha.

Regardless of your opinion of Oblivion you can't deny its importance. The success of that game make Bethesda into the big player that it is today.

Great list but its really hard to pick just 11 games. There are so many games this generation that are important.

It looks more like you just compiled a list of "Games that sold a metric fuckton of units this decade" than anything else. Not to be that culture snob that sneers at everything on the top of the pop charts, but that's really what it looks like.

@Sooty said:

Brawl mentioned but not Street Fighter IV which made fighting games a thing again.

I'm out.

That's one of my only two changes on your list, though. Not so much for the write-ups (I really disliked MGS4, for example) but for the games you chose. It's a good list of games. I very much agree with Sooty that SFIV was more "important" than Brawl, although your argument is a strong one.

I also think that Braid should probably be on here instead of Red Dead Redemption. I think RDR is absolutely one of the best games of the generation, but the things it did to change the medium were mostly just improvements on what GTAIV did before it. By that logic, Fallout 3 should be on here as well.

Meanwhile, Braid legitimized both the indie scene and the downloadable market as a place to not just find great games, but meaningful narratives and one of the best games of the generation. Without Braid, there is no The Walking Dead, there is no Journey, and there is no Limbo. No?

No indie games like Braid or Castle Crashers, which legitimized indie/small games again?

@SomeDeliCook: I agree there would have been a Walking Dead game. I'm not sure it would have been TellTale; Braid, Castle Crashers, and that original Summer of Arcade attracted a lot of people to the downloadable format. I'm not sure TellTale would ever have expanded enough to get franchises like TWD, let alone Jurassic Park and Back to the Future. And if they had, it might have been a lot tamer; Braid started taking downloadables to a darker, more emotional and intellectual place.

Definitely not saying it couldn't have happened; if Sean Vanaman wanted it, it still absolutely would have happened. But I can easily imagine a world where downloadables maintained as simple fun a la Geometry Wars without Braid's influence.

Well 2 out of 10 ain't bad.... Nah that's pretty bad

Sure I guess,

Personally I only liked 3 of the games on that list. And very much disliked 4 of them.

There is only three important games Gears, cod 4, and street fighter 4. Inventing the modern 3rd and 1st person shooter and bringing back fighting games. Open world games never went away, so no one gets credit for them being big. Importance is dictated by how many copy cats there are of it.

It's a solid list. Most people have mentioned the obvious ones so I'll air my opinions on it.

• Drop Halo 3. Not saying it didn't contribute to the 360's library in any significant way, but it seems like it was riding the coat tails of a well established franchise rather than impacting the industry like the rest of the titles.
• Rock Band or the Later Guitar Hero series need to be somewhere there. While the ball got rolling in the previous generation, the rhythm game explosion really happened this gen.
• Final Fantasy XIII needs to be addressed not because it was the game that saved JRPGs (it wasn't), but because it symbolizes that genre not being as popular as it used to be. Also shows the easing of 3rd party exclusives this gen.

Significant mentions could be made regarding developments in the portable systems and PC, but as this is console those three things are the most obvious to me.

There is a disturbing lack of downloadable games on this list.

@hidys said:

There is a disturbing lack of downloadable games on this list.

Indeed.

Especially when something like Smash Bros and Halo 3 are on... which are hardly any different than their last gen versions. And if you're holding up Smash Bros because you think it made the Wii or saved the Wii... how about Wii Sports?

Otherwise it's a pretty good list though. Not mine, but a good one.

I'd throw Braid and Walking Dead on there for sure.

@hidys said:

There is a disturbing lack of downloadable games on this list.

There's a disgusting lack of pretty much anything on this list:

• Portable Games - You can't really make a case for "most important games of the generation" when you completely ignore a entire a sect of hardware and all of the social/business events that come with it.
• Strategy Games - Ignoring the fact that the site this list was posted on chose one as its GOTY, several huge companies have reserved entire entire development teams AND legal teams just to make these, not to mention that there are entire fucking television shows in some countries that revolve around these for christ sake
• Social Media Games - You can't tell me the black hole of procrastination called Farmville and the bitcoin fueled Zynga rampage it spawned weren't one of the most defining markers of this generation of gaming. It might not be good, but it was important.
• Vaporware Games: The Fact that games DON'T get made is often times just as critical and defining of a signal as the ones that DO. We've seen several huge ones over the course of the past ten years or so.

I could go on but really all the OP did was provide us a text recap of PSM and Xbox Magazine covers from this hardware cycle without much reasoning.

I like Smash Bros Brawl, but aren't you talking about Wii Sports with your "major motivating factor for the Wii's success"? Aside from that it's basically just a well-made iteration of Melee. And personally I don't get how Halo 3 is notably a "important" game; I could see the argument for Halo: CE or 2, but 3 is just "another one of those".

I think the trouble with this kind of list is you're trying to have your cake and eat it, choosing a subjective list of games you like while trying to alude to some historical achievement which I think you've overblown for about half the games on this list. Red Dead was a great game but I don't think it was particularly "important".

Surprisingly agree with most of that list. I don't know if I agree with Halo 3 or Brawl though, I'd put in favour of those either: Geometry Wars/Minecraft for the effect downloadable games have had on the industry, Street Fighter 4 for bringing back fighting games in a serious way and Dark Souls for pushing the idea that animation priority can be a really attractive thing to a lot of gamers.

These are some good games, but surely we'll only be able to know what the most important games of this generation were once we've been able to see how they affect future generations.

I would add Angry Birds, Minecraft, Heavy Rain, Journey, The Walking Dead and Fallout 3.

I would ad Wii Sports, because that game changed everything, also Minecraft changed things in a pretty big way

This is a neat personal favourite list. The title is misleading, though.

Very few games on that list would I label as "important". Your justification usually boils down to if X game didn't exist, Y console wouldn't have been as successful. Well that's not really saying anything. Brawl? Get outta here with that. Oblivion was way overhyped. I love RDR, but why is it important? I guess to me its hard to call a game important within the current gen because I define important as having a impact and an influence on future games. Or changing the course of trends within the industry And with dev cycles as long as they are, you aren't gonna see that impact until future hardware generations. One exception to that would be CoD4. That was obviously hugely important and should be higher on your list, imo.

Important as in it sold a lot and because of that companies started trying to copy it or important as in it did something that's new to video games and interesting? If you mean the second then I could not disagree more with this.

COD4 most impactful game n red dead redemption is the most over rated game ever.

In no particular order, my list of most important / influential games of this generation would look something like this:

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Gears of War
• Wii Sports
• Assassins Creed
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• League of Legends
• Street Fighter IV
• BioShock
• Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Farmville
• Minecraft
• Diablo III

I really don't think Braid was THAT important. It's a great game don't get me wrong, but I think it's more of a result of the ecosystem changing, and not the other way around. Great downloadable games would of happened, (and kind of already had been) with or without Braid.

Wii Sports is probably one of, if not the most, important game this gen.

I think you pretty much nailed the rest of the list.

Jerry Rice and Nitus' Dog Football is the only thing I'd add. Football used to be for humans, mutants, an assortment of high fantasy creatures, and robots. But this game taught society that man's best friend can also be man's best running back, and that's a beautiful lesson to be learned. Football shouldn't be out of bow-wow-ounds for anybody.

Now, when society accepts horse football, all our troubles will be over.

lol the most important game is the worst. Oh, the irony.

This could be renamed "the most mainstream games this gen" and it'd be pretty much the same list. It works as a personal list of favourites, but many of these games were no way important. Brawl, Halo 3, Oblivion and CoD especially are just extensions of what we had last gen, they did nothing new or defining (and in Oblivion's case, was a huge step backwards).

Instead, you should probably consider Street Fighter 4 for bringing fighting games back on a large scale, Minecraft for popularising indie games (several others could be argued for achieving something similar) and being truly genre defining, Portal for being a first person puzzle game, Wii Sports for bringing in a totally new audience into gaming, Double Fine's Adventure game for making crowd sourced games a thing.. Even Angry Birds or Old Republic (for being a massive flop and perhaps killing subscription based MMO's) seem like more logical mentions.

I do agree with people saying that there needs to be more download/indie games on the list, but keep in mind that this is not a factual set in stone thing. It's just what I see as most important, you are free to disagree and make your own list if you want.

Personally I don't see why people mention Braid or Street Fighter 4 so much, if you want an indie game that really changed the industry you should look at mine craft. And for fighters Brawl made a bigger impact on the industry, that game was literally one of the main reasons people bought a Wii.

@ShadowMoses900 said:

Street Fighter 4 so much, if you want an indie game that really changed the industry you should look at mine craft. And for fighters Brawl made a bigger impact on the industry, that game was literally one of the main reasons people bought a Wii.

One of the main reasons people bought a Wii but sold nowhere near the amount of Wiis that are out there...you see the flaw in that logic? and come on, Brawl did nothing new, nothing.

I don't really know how someone can argue Street Fighter IV isn't extremely important. It brought fighting games back from the dead and made the fighting game scene explode. Do you know how stale it was getting with nothing but decade old games to play?

Before SFIV the main games being played were Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) and Street Fighter III (1999) with some CvS2 (...2002?) and Super Turbo (1994)

Now there's multiple BlazBlues, a resurgence in KoF, Soul Calibur V, MK9, Injustice, SFIV, MvC3, Skullgirls, Persona 4 Arena, SF x Tekken and Tekken Tag 2. All in the last 4 years. (when SFIV came out)

...and a new Darkstalkers is coming, apparently!

@Sooty said:

@ShadowMoses900 said:

Street Fighter 4 so much, if you want an indie game that really changed the industry you should look at mine craft. And for fighters Brawl made a bigger impact on the industry, that game was literally one of the main reasons people bought a Wii.

One of the main reasons people bought a Wii but sold nowhere near the amount of Wiis that are out there...you see the flaw in that logic?

I don't really know how someone can argue Street Fighter IV isn't extremely important. It brought fighting games back from the dead and made the fighting game scene explode. Do you know how stale it was getting with nothing but decade old games to play?

Before SFIV the main games being played were Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) and Street Fighter III (1999) with some CvS2 (...2002?) and Super Turbo (1994)

Now there's multiple BlazBlues, a resurgence in KoF, Soul Calibur V, MK9, Injustice, SFIV, MvC3, Skullgirls, Persona 4 Arena, SF x Tekken and Tekken Tag 2. All in the last 4 years. (when SFIV came out)

There were plenty of fighters this gen before Street Fighter 4. It may be really good (I can't say because I never played it) but I don't recall there ever being a big craze over it. Really if Street Fighter never happened, the industry wouldn't be any different than it is today.

@ShadowMoses900 said:

@Sooty said:

@ShadowMoses900 said:

Street Fighter 4 so much, if you want an indie game that really changed the industry you should look at mine craft. And for fighters Brawl made a bigger impact on the industry, that game was literally one of the main reasons people bought a Wii.

One of the main reasons people bought a Wii but sold nowhere near the amount of Wiis that are out there...you see the flaw in that logic?

I don't really know how someone can argue Street Fighter IV isn't extremely important. It brought fighting games back from the dead and made the fighting game scene explode. Do you know how stale it was getting with nothing but decade old games to play?

Before SFIV the main games being played were Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) and Street Fighter III (1999) with some CvS2 (...2002?) and Super Turbo (1994)

Now there's multiple BlazBlues, a resurgence in KoF, Soul Calibur V, MK9, Injustice, SFIV, MvC3, Skullgirls, Persona 4 Arena, SF x Tekken and Tekken Tag 2. All in the last 4 years. (when SFIV came out)

There were plenty of fighters this gen before Street Fighter 4. It may be really good (I can't say because I never played it) but I don't recall there ever being a big craze over it. Really if Street Fighter never happened, the industry wouldn't be any different than it is today.

Then you have been living under a rock, my friend.

and by plenty you mean Soul Calibur IV and that bad Mortal Kombat crossover? (which didn't get a competitive following at all) Tekken didn't have a current gen release, unless you include the HDified Tekken 5.

Really if you can look at all the recent fighting games I just listed and tell me SFIV had nothing to do with it then I don't really know what else I can say, the information is there.

@Sooty said:

@ShadowMoses900 said:

@Sooty said:

@ShadowMoses900 said:

Street Fighter 4 so much, if you want an indie game that really changed the industry you should look at mine craft. And for fighters Brawl made a bigger impact on the industry, that game was literally one of the main reasons people bought a Wii.

One of the main reasons people bought a Wii but sold nowhere near the amount of Wiis that are out there...you see the flaw in that logic?

I don't really know how someone can argue Street Fighter IV isn't extremely important. It brought fighting games back from the dead and made the fighting game scene explode. Do you know how stale it was getting with nothing but decade old games to play?

Before SFIV the main games being played were Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (2000) and Street Fighter III (1999) with some CvS2 (...2002?) and Super Turbo (1994)

Now there's multiple BlazBlues, a resurgence in KoF, Soul Calibur V, MK9, Injustice, SFIV, MvC3, Skullgirls, Persona 4 Arena, SF x Tekken and Tekken Tag 2. All in the last 4 years. (when SFIV came out)

There were plenty of fighters this gen before Street Fighter 4. It may be really good (I can't say because I never played it) but I don't recall there ever being a big craze over it. Really if Street Fighter never happened, the industry wouldn't be any different than it is today.

Then you have been living under a rock, my friend.

and by plenty you mean Soul Calibur IV and that bad Mortal Kombat crossover? (which didn't get a competitive following at all) Tekken didn't have a current gen release, unless you include the HDified Tekken 5.

Really if you can look at all the recent fighting games I just listed and tell me SFIV had nothing to do with it then I don't really know what else I can say, the information is there.

As I said, I fail to see what "big impact" Street Fighter 4 had on the industry. Don't get mad at someone for having a different opinion, if it truly did have such a big impact than explain your reasoning as to why.

@Abendlaender said:

I would add World of Warcraft to that list

I don't know how one tells when a generation starts other than when a new console comes out. WoW came out 6 months before the 360 was even announced. The game is old enough that I don't consider it being in the generation that is being discussed since the PS2 and XBOX were still getting new releases. Especially when they were getting console ports of PC games that came out a month before WoW. Perhaps there's some unwritten rule where PC game generation starts a year before new consoles since that would make Doom3 and HL2 part of this generation.