Most Innovative Games?

[DaHeckIzDat]

As far as new games, I played a demo for a game last night on switch that was pretty different: Yoku's Island Express. It's a very imaginative game which is part platformer and part pinball. The way you traverse through levels is by hitting pinball flippers.

Isn't that basically Sonic Spinball?

A little bit yes. I think it's more fleshed out and more like a platformer that has pinball flippers.

Think Symphony of the Night meets pinball. I've never played it, but reviews say it works better than it has any right to.

[velcrozombie]

The Portal games are unlike anything else, even if they are technically in the Half-Life universe.

[Stalvern]

The Portal games are unlike anything else, even if they are technically in the Half-Life universe.

Portal is actually based on the 2005 freeware game Narbacular Drop, but it was made by the same people (Gabe Newell liked Narbacular Drop so much that he hired all of them at Valve), so the credit for the idea is the same either way.

[mbd36]

Super Mario Brothers- The game that put platformers on the map.

Legend of Zelda- I believe this was the first battery saved game.

Double Dragon- Grandfather of Beat 'em ups.

Renegade came before Double Dragon. A case could also be made for Kung Fu Master being the grandfather of beat em ups.

Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung Fu originated the one on one fighter.

[pacman000]

Legend of Zelda- I believe this was the first battery saved game.

That award goes to Dragon Slayer on the Epoch Super Cassette Vision.

While both Slayer & Zelda were released in '86, Zelda was released on a Floppy Disk for the Famicom Disk System. The version with the battery-backed save system didn't come out till '87 when it was released in the U.S. on carts.

[jon]

I'm going with NHLPA '93 for the computer. It's confusing, very much so, but it's the same exact game as NHL '94 for the Genesis and SNES. The only difference is that this computer version let you play the playoffs, which the console versions didn't have. So this is 1993, and it was a huge quantum leap to be able to take a hockey team through the season and into the playoffs, until possibly winning the Stanley Cup. The gameplay was great, perhaps not as great as Genesis but fantastic. You could do line changes and set up your lines. It was groundbreaking for 1993.

[Alucard1191]

The Portal games are unlike anything else, even if they are technically in the Half-Life universe.

I 100% second this. The cake is a lie. "Apple. No, you jumped again..." Fantastic dialogue and terrific gameplay.

I also want to 2nd C64 Critics comments on Wizardry. It spawned an absolutely massive genre and is one of my favorite old games. I still play Wizardry 8 regularly, and wrote a somewhat longer post on it awhile back. I've always wanted to beat the first one, (and Bard's Tale...) but have never managed it. I never got past the teleporter floor. I tried playing the original on an emulator recently and I leveled up a character and they LOST STATS! Damn that is insanely brutal.

And as for my innovative games selection... That is a tough one, but I'm going to go with Mario RPG. It has so many things, like button mashing, timed hits for attack and defense, and interactive special moves, that would eventually, (FF8 and beyond) start becoming mainstays for the genre. And frankly, playing something like Lost Odyssey on Xbox 360 you see that Mario RPG did timed hits a lot better than some games did 11 years later!

And Mario RPG is still an absolute joy to play through today. Lost Odyssey... ehhh. (Yes I realize that was an odd comparison to draw.)

[mbd36]

The Portal games are unlike anything else, even if they are technically in the Half-Life universe.

I 100% second this. The cake is a lie. "Apple. No, you jumped again..." Fantastic dialogue and terrific gameplay.

I also want to 2nd C64 Critics comments on Wizardry. It spawned an absolutely massive genre and is one of my favorite old games. I still play Wizardry 8 regularly, and wrote a somewhat longer post on it awhile back. I've always wanted to beat the first one, (and Bard's Tale...) but have never managed it. I never got past the teleporter floor. I tried playing the original on an emulator recently and I leveled up a character and they LOST STATS! Damn that is insanely brutal.

And as for my innovative games selection... That is a tough one, but I'm going to go with Mario RPG. It has so many things, like button mashing, timed hits for attack and defense, and interactive special moves, that would eventually, (FF8 and beyond) start becoming mainstays for the genre. And frankly, playing something like Lost Odyssey on Xbox 360 you see that Mario RPG did timed hits a lot better than some games did 11 years later!

And Mario RPG is still an absolute joy to play through today. Lost Odyssey... ehhh. (Yes I realize that was an odd comparison to draw.)

The only thing that brings down Super Mario RPG for me is that the isometric platforming aspect is a little clunky just because of the isometric perspective. Thankfully it's much more RPG than isometric platformer and the RPG part is brilliant.

[GameOfThrones]

Club drive on the Atari Jaguar. This was one of the most amazing driving games released on any system.