Innovative 128 bit era games

[djbeatmongrel]

I understand MANY of you think that there isn't much innovation or unique ideas to out within the games of the current console era. What games have that innovation? Let's list all the games that do.

PS2 -
Mark of Kri The best hack n slash to date imo due to its mulitargeting system.
Mad Maestro A great music game that has uses hard, soft, and medium button presses along with tempo changes to make for intense gameplay.
Grand Theft Auto III First game to boast a free roaming environment to explore and play around with when you aren't doing a mission.

GC -
Animal Crossing Took the sim type gameplay to a more personally level by adding a major sense of community(evening the though the npc's had limited text).
Metroid Prime Shows that the 2D to 3D can be done well and stay true to the series, even with the transition from a action/platformer to a first person shooter.
Viewtiful Joe Displayed the perfect marraige between 2d platformers and brawlers in a wonderfully stylized environment with tight and nearly flawless gameplay.

DC -
Shenmue Never has a game had such realism in environment and character interaction apart from the bad voice overs.
Jet Grind Radio the fusion of fast paced action and cool roller blading tricks keep this game in high regard imo.

now its your turn to name some game you feel have innovated in the current console gaming era.

[thegreatescape]

Not to nit-pick or anything, but wasnt the original Grand theft auto the "First game to boast a free roaming environment to explore and play around with when you aren't doing a mission. "

My picks would be Rez- You could say its just a better Panzer dragoon, but so many colours and groovyness mushed into a game is just brilliant.

Phantasy Star Online- First console MMORPG. Too bad its all over now and i didnt get to play it

The GTA thing could just be my GTA3 grudge showing itself again, in which case ignore that first comment. :P

[Ed Oscuro]

Not to nit-pick or anything, but wasnt the original Grand theft auto the "First game to boast a free roaming environment to explore and play around with when you aren't doing a mission. "

Eh? No, I'd say that was done a long time ago. Lots of games let you roam pretty freely after all, D&D style RPGs and such.

[djbeatmongrel]

well it did excell at doing in a grand scale. thanks for correcting my mistake, i'll have to look into those types of titles.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wouldn't call it a mistake, exactly.

Anyhow, my vote goes to the PS2 Contra...takes an old theme and updates it. THAT is innovative in the way I want to see :)

[Kid Fenris]

I'd add . . .

Ring of Red (PS2): Its general flow is straight-up strategy/RPG, but the combat system, which requires you to aim your shots and command each unit separately, is quite unique.

Ikaruga (GC/DC): The light/dark duality was a brilliant innovation as far as shooters go.

Bangai-O (DC): I've never played an action/shooter quite like Bangai-O, where you can switch between characters on the fly, and every stage seems like a huge puzzle.

Eternal Darkness (GC): It owes a debt to Silent Hill and even Resident Evil, but this survival horror piece includes plenty of clever mind tricks.

[DDCecil]

Gitaroo Man and Mr. Mosquito for PS2 come to mind...

[devilman]

Ikaruga (GC/DC): The light/dark duality was a brilliant innovation as far as shooters go.

Doesn't Sillouette Mirage on the Saturn have a similar system?

[YoshiM]

"Innovation" is an odd word. It means "introducing new ideas" but it used to be used to describe something "bigger" than an idea that's merely a natural evolution. There was an article I read that was a counter-point to modern games "not being innovative". The author mentioned the game Kill.Switch, which I believe is an FPS. He said that the game allows you to shoot blindly while under cover that's "an innovation that's sure to catch on with future games". I don't consider that an "innovation", that's just a natural evolution of a genre that loosely bases itself on real world combat situations. Yeah it's a new idea but not worthy of saying it's an "innovation".

GTA3 is a massive technical achievement, but the "go anywhere, do anything" type of game play has been done. The Elder Scrolls games, most other RPG's and flight/driving simulators (to a degree) have done this for many years. It just LOOKS pretty now. Metroid Prime is just another FPS as games like System Shock have done the "shooter adventure" already. Viewtiful Joe, as much as I love that game at the moment, is a beat-em up that hearkens back to the 8 bit days that has pretty graphics and modes (like slow down and mach speed) that's been done before. I DO agree that Shenmue was quite an innovation. Rather than focus on the revenge plot, we must worry about Ryo's day to day life.

Anyway, there are some games I think were innovative. Just not many.

-Red Faction (PS2/PC): GeoMODS. Even though we've had buildings that were destructable in mech games and such, never to my knowledge has a game allowed you blast your environment and actually alter. Creating pits for enemy vehicles to get stuck in or blasting a hole through the wall to get past a locked door are just a couple of ways to use this feature. It's a pity that this isn't used more.

-Soldier of Fortune (DC): Their hit location system. While other games allowed you to shoot arms, legs and such before and have the target react this one allows you to shoot those limbs off. Usually with bad guys you shoot a limb, they react, but then are able to use the limb as if you never shot them. SoF takes the limb out of the equation. Others may not see this "gore zone" feature as innovative, however, but as a die hard FPS fan I do.

That's really all I can think of in regards to modern games at the moment.

[Kid Fenris]

Ikaruga (GC/DC): The light/dark duality was a brilliant innovation as far as shooters go.

Doesn't Sillouette Mirage on the Saturn have a similar system?

I think so, but switching your polarity was controlled by which direction you faced, not by a button-press. Silhouette Mirage wasn't a straight shooter, anyway.

[Griking]

I understand MANY of you think that there isn't much innovation or unique ideas to out within the games of the current console era. What games have that innovation? Let's list all the games that do.

PS2 -
Mark of Kri The best hack n slash to date imo due to its mulitargeting system.
Mad Maestro A great music game that has uses hard, soft, and medium button presses along with tempo changes to make for intense gameplay.
Grand Theft Auto III First game to boast a free roaming environment to explore and play around with when you aren't doing a mission.
GC -
Animal Crossing Took the sim type gameplay to a more personally level by adding a major sense of community(evening the though the npc's had limited text).
Metroid Prime Shows that the 2D to 3D can be done well and stay true to the series, even with the transition from a action/platformer to a first person shooter.
Viewtiful Joe Displayed the perfect marraige between 2d platformers and brawlers in a wonderfully stylized environment with tight and nearly flawless gameplay.

DC -
Shenmue Never has a game had such realism in environment and character interaction apart from the bad voice overs.
Jet Grind Radio the fusion of fast paced action and cool roller blading tricks keep this game in high regard imo.

now its your turn to name some game you feel have innovated in the current console gaming era.

Are any of these games really innovative? Most are sequels which is almost the exact oposite of innovative in my mind. They may be fun and some may improve on earlier concepts but they're still not original.

[ubersaurus]

I wouldn't say ikaruga was really innovative. Sucking in bullets for a powered up attack was done in other games on the Dreamcast. They just happened to colorize it, but its the same basic principle.

Steel Battalion is innovative, if for no other reason then the sheer realism they put into the game. I can think of few other console "simulators" as in depth as that one is, even down to the controller.

[lendelin]

I agree with Yoshi, one new game idea isn't enough to be regarded as truly innovative. I can't really see groundbreaking games, but then the so-called "ground breaking, innovative games" like Street Fighter 2 or Goldeneye which supposdedly created a new genre from scratch were the highpoint of well prepared developments which in hindsight are attributed "revolutionary" for convenience. Progress is gradual, piece by piece work, and then ONE game is published which encompasses a lot of different developments and experiments prepared by others and brings it to a significant higher level. Still, there is no revolution, just certain summarizing highpoints of gradual progress.

For the 128 bit era I can only think of two games which were such highpoints, and these are the two Shenmues. I don't know if they last, or if they'll be copied, but the game experience was certainly fresh and different from other games, certainly enough to justify a new genre.

I think the current era didn't produce so far those highpoints but rather (very slowly, very gradually) tries to question solid columns of gameplay and game content without being successful so far. Maybe we experience the final death of the old platform games (Jak 2, in contrast to the less successful Super mario Sunshine), the final death of Zeldaesque gameplay, the introduction of immersing stories for games (a new profession of scriptwriters for games seems to develop, similiar to the movie industry), and the current games certainly didn't solve the problem of CGI movie sequences which are more an interruption of gameplay rather than an incorporation into gameplay. We'll certainly see more and more a development going away from the simple "let's make a hybrid of a game and movie" becasue the technology allows it, back to story driven gameplay, and by that I mean games which allow you to PLAY the story rather than watch it.

Rather than gameplay, I think one "revolutionary" development will be in hindsight certainly associated with the 128 bit era, and that is an expanding and changing game content. The present certainly put an end (also well prepared) to the censored "Hamster - Microwave" possibility of Maniac Mansion, gamers are allowed to do bad things in games which were so far taboo. I think in the long run game content will further expand similar to the movie industry, maybe gay themes, the ever so controversial religious theme (Bible anyone?), sex not only in the direction of porn but as a social topic. Games will become more so than ever refelections of societal problems and will tackle in moderate form and harsher forms those topics.

[NvrMore]

Pikmin: great game concept and one of the few titles I would dare to say was actually unique on the consoles.

Eye Toy Play: Hey, the games may not be spectacular but the gameplay concept and method of interaction is certainly innovative for a home games system.

Cubivore: It's.. different.

Tomb raider 4: WOW, that just came out of nowhere.

Warioware: It's.. different.

[RCM]

I agree that Shenmue is probably the most innovative game in this generation. Not everything about Shenmue is innovative though. The Dragons Lair style portions obviously aren't. I feel that the ability go off the beaten path and just do what you want is the biggest gameplay innovation to come about in some time. Look at GTA 3 and it's imitators as evidence of Shenmues influence. I bet Yu Suzuki kicks himself everytime he hears about Rockstars ultra violent series. I hope that the third installment in the series in released b/c the 2 games are compelling. As for the other games listed that are "innovative." Some might feature minor innovations but no game on this list has had the impact or influence on the gaming industry that Shenmue has. I know that GTA 3 really broke this type of gameplay open but Shenmue did it first.

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[zmweasel]

N/A

[IntvGene]

I still think that Sega deserves some credit for two titles... Rez and Jet Set Radio ...

Both of these titles took character or game design to the "next level". Look at the effect that cel-shading has had on the game industry. Do you think that we would have games like Killer 7 coming out for the GC if it wasn't for them? I think Sega made us jump a couple of generations with those titles. Rez is the closest video game that I can compare to art. That's coming a long way from most of these titles on the newer systems.

[Ed Oscuro]

What's this about Shenmue? My brother got into that, but I was put off by the horrible difficulty level, the feeling that you couldn't ever go back and try again, and all that...yuck...ODD voice acting for the story segments. Please tell me they didn't sound so damn cheesy in the original.

I really don't like that game, but it's not because the core concept is bad.

[RetroYoungen]

What's this about Shenmue? My brother got into that, but I was put off by the horrible difficulty level, the feeling that you couldn't ever go back and try again, and all that...yuck...ODD voice acting for the story segments. Please tell me they didn't sound so damn cheesy in the original.

I really don't like that game, but it's not because the core concept is bad.

I don't like it either, but the main thing is that it was different. It's one of the most unique games I've played in a long time (until it got difficult and frusterated the hell out of me for weeks and I quit it).

I though Jet Grind Radio was VERY unique, especially in presentation. Not that cel-shading was particularly new and special, but it was one of the first games to truly do it justice. Loved it (even WITH Rob Zombie).

[badinsults]

Sorry to nitpick, but the only 128-bit systems out there are the Dreamcast and PS2. The Gamecube is 64-bit, and the X-box is 32-bit.