Games that broke the mold.

[randombob]

I'm interested to find out what games struck you through your gaming years as different and unique in terms of art style, gameplay mechanics or simply because they were different from the rest.

1) Thinking back I always have a soft spot for Toejam & Earl for the Sega Megadrive (Genesis). I loved the quirky sense of humour and the weird and wonderful characters that populated the earth. Rocket skates baby!

2) Oddworld: Abe's Oddessy was nothing new in the gameplay department (Out of this World, Flashback) but it was beautifully styled and drew you in to Abe's world. Well worth noting Strangers Wrath as well.

3) Ico & Shadow of the Colossus to me are one and the same. two very different gameplay styles but one overall story which said so little but yet connected me to the characters more than any other game I've played. Both games are more like poetry than a video game.


I'm very interested to hear everyone's choices.

 

[pieeater911]

Portal.
Half-Life.
Half-Life 2 and its episodes.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Mass Effect.
Defiantly the Oddworld series.
Psychonauts for sure.
Grim Fandango, too.
Silent Hill, being one of the first truly creepy games.
There are more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now. No, none of them is Final Fantasy, in case you were wondering.

 

[AceUk]

Ace combat 5 because it was the first game of the series i played and i tohught it was amazing and still love it to this day.

Red faction purely because of geo-mod technology.

Cod4 as the gameplay is just so must better than most Fps's

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Paradroid (you're a possesion droid capturing Daleks)
Wizball (You're a Wizard trying to regain colour for his land from Aliens, whilst avoiding the Police)
Wicked (You're Good, trying to fight off Evil using the Tarot)
Weird Dreams (You're a guy on an operating table, trying to wake up before the dreams kill you)
Anything by Jeff Minter or Tim Schafer.
Sam And Max. (Sic 'em, little buddy)
Another World (Precursor to Half-Life?)
Quake (Real Time Networked Games?????)

 

[the monopoly guy]

Another World (Precursor to Half-Life?)
[\quote]
originally HL was an unnoficial sequel to "The Mist"

Killer 7
katamari damaci

 

[boyitsme95]

I just want to say now, I don't count sequels as "Breaking the mold", because they are pretty much made to fit the prequels broken mold.

Portal
Overlord
Mass Effect
Katamari Damacy (I had to look up how to spell this!)
Half-Life 1
Half-Life 2 (After two the episodes were like adding pages to a book and calling it a sequel)
Metal Gear
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 3
Diablo
Diablo 2
Killer 7
The Legand of Zelda: Orcarina of Time (At the time, it broke the mold)
The Legand of Zelda: Windwaker (Looked strange)
The Legand of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Looked gritty for a Zelda game)
Black & White
Animal Crossing
Eve Online
Spore (So far)
Okami
Boom Blocks
Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[J9387]

Battalion Wars: Think Call of Duty 2, except you got to command all the tanks, planes and infantry, while you personally controlled a soldier from a third person perspective. You could freely switch to any unit in your command.

The story and characters were extremely cheesy and stereotyped, but that just added to its charm. It was a shining gem in the Gamecube's library, and I loved every second of it.

 

[Prozoquel]

I didn't especially like it or anything, but Katamari Damacy definitely did its own thing. Clover studios also generally makes games that each break the mold in a different way, like Okami and Viewtiful Joe.

 

[Ploppy]

Psychonauts. Haven't seen a game like it before or since.

 

[L4Y Duke]

Katamari Damacy

THAT's how you spell it! Not 'ci', but 'cy'.

Oh, and God Hand. Took the brawler genre, and sent it flying across the room with a single punch. Also one of the few addictive, yet ball-bustingly hard games.

 

[REDH4MMER]

Planescape: torment

 

[Rob Sharona]

Blast Corps and Silicon Valley for the N64 were both very playable and different. Especially with Blast Corps, I just felt like there was nothing to touch it when it came out, and it still holds its own today just about. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rare, give it the remake it deserves!

Recently though, I was mesmerized by the Wind Waker world and its unique style. Okami then blew that out of the water and made and even more beautiful world.

For sheer fun and oddness I would also go for the previously mentioned Katamari series. I think it's our modern day Pacman.

 

[shatnershaman]

Halo: Combat Evolved-Stuck it to all those that said dual analog console FPSs suck.

 

[TheIceface]

COD4, they killed off the cool American primary character? Who the hell does that?!
The reason that a bunch of different races are included in a game is so they can all die off and draw different emotions ranging from sadness to satisfaction. I fell out of my chair when that happened in the game, I really appreciated the ability to have the character I connected with and controlled die off. I'm even ready to overlook the blasphemy that stems that an American could die from a nuke just to appreciate the plot twist.

 

[Fronken]

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask really broke the mold over how a Zelda game was played with the implementation of Masks and the time system

 

[Alex_P]

I like Mass Effect quite a bit but I'm just not seeing the mold-breaking here. It plays like they put KOTOR together with Gears of War (and that kind of "RPG/shooter hybrid" thing is nothing new -- look at Deus Ex, for example). Aesthetically, it's KOTOR with space marines and an occasional nod to (new) Battlestar Galactica.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

Quake (Real Time Networked Games?????)

I thought Doom did that.

-- Alex

 

[The Thief]

I'm surprised Thief hasn't come up yet. A few others I can think of are system shock 2, deus ex, Super Smash Brothers, Grand Theft Auto 3, Morrowind, STALKER, Final Fantasy 7, Everquest/Ultima Online...