Video Game Canon

PURPOSE OF THIS LIST: To note down the games that define and/or redefined their genre.

Step 1: Get a list of as many genres as possible.
Step 2: List games that you believe to be re/defining.
Step 3: Vote on games that should stay on the list

Would like to get at least three examples of games per category. I have added notes for categories that NEED more examples, or else I will cut them due to their apparent insignificance. Games in those categories currently would be theoretically pushed into the closest category that's still listed. ;P (perhaps at least one old example and one new one?)

Other categories will not be cut, but would benefit from more examples anyway. i.e. platform, racing, etc.

Action

Beat'em Up

  • God Hand
  • Double Dragon
  • Final Fight
  • JOUST!

Hack and Slash

  • Category is different from "Beat 'em up" (How so?) Beat'em Up is w/ fists and items you can pick up, Hack and Slash is w/ weapons. Meh, fine, you can merge them together.
  • God of War, Devil May Cry, et al.
  • Dynasty Warriors (the first one. It defined the entire franchise -_-)
  • Golden Axe (the true first one. Sega Genesis.)
  • needs more examples (still?)

First-Person Shooter

  • Doom
  • Unreal Tournament (III)
  • Quake
  • Halo
  • X-Wing vs TIE Fighter

Run and Gun

  • Contra
  • Gunstar Heroes (doesn't measure up to Contra or Metal Slug IMO)
  • Metal Slug
  • Ghosts n Ghouls (wikipedia categorizes it as this) Really? O.o?

Shoot'em Up

  • Ikaruga
  • Gradius
  • R-Type
  • Twinbee

Stealth

  • Metal Gear (Solid)
  • Hitman
  • Splinter Cell
  • needs more examples
  • Thief, maybe?

Third-Person Shooter

  • Stranglehold (Meh.)
  • Oni, perhaps?
  • Gears of War (b/c of graphics) (moved from First-Person Shooter) Oh, right. I don't play these games. :P
  • Star Wars: Battlefront
  • needs more examples

Action-Adventure

  • Metroid
  • Okami
  • Prince of Persia
  • Ico (Give it some love, while SotC > Ico, who started it?)
  • Shadow of the Colossus
  • Zelda (Specifically, the first one and Ocarina.
  • Castlevania (Hmm. I don't like how this game has appeared in two genres. I can understand some genres might overlap with Party Games, so I will let those go. This one should either be squarely action-adventure or squarely platform. which is it? guessing platform...) (The problem is, tons of games DO overlap these days, which therein "redefines" the genre. In fact, developers are making a point to overlap them.
  • Tomb Raider

Action-RPG

  • Secret of Mana
  • Terranigma
  • Kingdom Hearts

Adventure

  • Sam and Max / (any LucasArts point'n click) (Monkey Island series is more classic)
  • Grim Fandango
  • Myst series

Beat/Rhythm games

  • Dance Dance Revolution
  • Para Para Paradise (First for motion sensing)
  • Guitar Hero
  • Rez
  • Frequency (earlier than Guitar Hero :P) (What about Amplitude?) (Freq came first?)
  • Rock Band (It's not out yet, but Rock Band will also redefine "party game".) (GuitarFreaks + drummania gets no love?) I guess we can classify them as defining since they obviously came first, while GH/RB are redefining. But they hardly made a ripple in America. :P
  • Ouendan (can we compress some of the ones above, i.e. all the ones which revolve around press a button at the right time?) (Ouendan!)

Fighting

2D

  • Street Fighter (II in specific? nobody really liked I when it came out)
  • Mortal Kombat
  • Killer Instinct (not to the extent of the previous two though)
  • Guilty Gear
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee
  • I'm no SNK fan, but you listed Killer Instinct but no King of Fighters!? =/

3D

  • Virtua Fighter
  • Tekken
  • Soul Calibur
  • DoA (sigh. Their damn "physics" model -_-)
  • Virtual-On

Fighting-Shoot'em Up

  • Senko no Ronde
  • needs more examples (no other games like it?) (Then it's not really a genre, is it?)

Party games

  • Mario Party
  • Eye Toy (while not really good, it was redefining, unless someone can think of something else prior to eyetoy)
  • Guitar Hero (is definitely a party game too)
  • Rock Band (which is going to blow GH out of the water in terms of party-ness)
  • Bomberman =)
  • needs more examples

Platform

2D

  • Super Mario Bros
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Castlevania (I don't think it really counts as platforming... if the new ones do, then Metroid belongs here too; if the old ones do... well, the old ones don't =))

3D

  • Super Mario 64
  • Super Mario Galaxy (looks very promising. Check out trailers.)

Puzzle

  • Tetris: The Grand Master (isn't it better to refer to the original? not to mention nobody but absolute die-hard fans will have ever heard of this version of the game) [it'll introduce people to the best version of Tetris] (Tetris original FTW) (original Tetris isn't as refined as The Grand Master =/) Give them both slots then. Tetris defined, then Grand Master redefined. XD
  • Pac Man
  • Enigmo
  • The Incredible Machine
  • Lumines
  • Lost Vikings

Puzzle-Shoot'em Up

  • Twinkle Star Sprites
  • Does Bangai-O count? XD
  • needs more examples (I think it's the only one? ;))

MMORPG

  • Everquest
  • World of Warcraft
  • Guild Wars
  • Wasn't Ultimate Online the first MMORPG? Ultima Online ;)
  • EVE Online

Racing

Realistic (Simulation?)

  • Gran Turismo
  • Forza
  • Initial D

Unrealistic (Arcade?)

  • Mario Kart
  • Wipeout Pure (I want to say F-Zero over this..)
  • F-Zero

RPG

  • I refuse to break this down into "Japanese" and "American" styles. How about menu-based vs ... whatever NWN is. We may be better off just not breaking this down at all. Uhm, I was never clear on why you didn't want to break it down, because JRPG has a very specific style.
  • Final Fantasy 1 and 7, specifically
  • Neverwinter Nights
  • Chrono Trigger
  • The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (Not Oblivion?) (Morrowind came first! >_<) (k)
  • Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Green
  • Vagrant Story
  • Diablo (both 1 & 2) pretty classic. Not sure if this is the right category though.
  • Mass Effect (HOLY SHIT, I just attended a demo for Mass Effect, and it's INSANE. The graphics, dialogue, interactivity and overall concept really will redefine RPG as you know it. AND it all fits on one disc. It's absofrickinlutely insane. ...I'm perilously close to saying it might be my 360 killerapp O.o... if I had any money. :P

Sandbox

  • Katamari Damacy (This isn't puzzle?) (Definitely sandbox.)
  • Grand Theft Auto
  • Animal Crossing
  • Harvest Moon (?)
  • Garry's Mod 9

God games

  • Black and White
  • The Sims
  • SimCity
  • Nintendogs

(confusion about god games vs simulation)

(? ... this is really more "simulation" ... what's the difference between "God game" and "Sandbox"?)

All god games are sandbox games, but not all sandbox games are god games. Therefore, moved god games inside the Sandbox category... problem is now that Katamari and the rest are in Sandbox, with no narrowing category. Maybe that's not a problem? Would be nice if someone came up with a term for those misfits anyway.

I want to put Loco Roco in here somewhere; it's kinda god game, kinda platform, kinda "physics-oriented-Katamari-Like..."

(also Sim) We should just rename this whole category Sim.

Here's the thing... I HAD a simulation category and I wasn't sure if it was the same thing as god games. My mental association with "sim games" is literally "flight simulation" (which is not represented) and other similar things. If you can come up with a term to put these others, or if you think a flight sim really is the same thing as playing Black and White, Nintendogs, et al...

God Game (Black and White) is different from Life Sim (Persona3/Sims) which is different from flight sim (MS' Flight Simulator X). I mean, look at all the differentiations we have for FPS.

Needs a "Simulation" category with more specific subcategories.

Sports

  • NBA Jam <-- arcade-style
  • Madden <-- sim-style
  • Perfect Eleven (SNES) - may not be a big thing in America, but if you were anywhere else in the world, this game defined soccer games and was the first of all the Winning Eleven* games.

Strategy

Real-time Strategy

  • StarCraft
  • Warcraft (II in specific, would you say?)
  • Age of Empires / Age of Mythology
  • Command & Conquer

Turn-based Strategy

  • Civilization / Alpha Centauri
  • Tactics Ogre
  • Brigandine
  • Final Fantasy Tactics (big UGH ;))
changed September 22, 2008