Games that defined the Xbox 360/PS3 era for you?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well I think its safe to say the seventh generation of consoles has long since left us, so let us reflect on the great games that came out in that generation.

To me I noticed alot of games of their generation has their defining game, imo the N64/PS1 generation that game was Final Fanasy 7.

The PS2/Xbox/Gamecube Generation Grand Theft Auto games.

And the Xbox 360/PS3 generation imo was defined by Mass Effect.

Mass Effect to me was the truest example of a "Next Gen" game at the time for me. We have never seen an RPG like this before, such amazing graphics, the humans at the time looked Photo Realistc (And in the case of the PC version still holds up today) your main chaaracter was voice acted and had with a variety of different dialoge choices that he can say, the gameplay was this interesting fusion of Gears of War Cover System Third Person Shooter with RPG gameplay, the story, especially its presentation was the most Cinematic we have seen yet.

All in all imo Mass Effect was THE game that defined the Xbox 360/PS3 era of gaming.

What game you think defined that era?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, Uncharted 4. The popular ones that infected influenced other games.

Uncharted 4? Was on the PS3?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Red dead redibblydesertdeath is pretty much the warmest and cosiest memory I feel I could crawl back into at a dark moment and die with a slight illusion of happiness. Maybe Skyward Sword, but that harbours unintentional associated memories that taint an otherwise fluffy memory.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Red dead redibblydesertdeath is pretty much the warmest and cosiest memory I feel I could crawl back into at a dark moment and die with a slight illusion of happiness. Maybe Skyward Sword, but that harbours unintentional associated memories that taint an otherwise fluffy memory.

Skyward Sword has a glorious soundtrack!!!

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

Grand Theft Auto 4 was actually the original reason I wanted a PS3/360 when it first came out. I was quite a bit younger though around that time, and my father had a PS3 with a copy of the game and I'd play it whenever he went out for the night and I was stuck watching my little brothers.

Of course I played San Andreas and the like, which was just as open world if not arguably more so, but something about 4 felt so much more "real" to me and therefore somehow more appealing. Like "Wow, this is about as good as games are going to get." And honestly, I wasn't wrong so far. Games have barely moved beyond GTA 4 except for looking a bit prettier.

And then there was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the first game I ever played online, and indeed would do so every day after school for hours.

 

[Saelune]

Oblivion, aka why I got a 360. Dead Rising, Call of Duty 2 (my first online game), Halo: Reach, Bioshock.

As for more personally, Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires, Samurai Warriors 2, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom.

 

[stroopwafel]

Metal Gear Solid 4, Fallout 3, Oblivion and Skyrim, the Arkham games, the Souls games, waves and waves of first person shooters of varying quality, GTA 4 and 5, genuinely fun arcade racers like NFS Hot Pursuit, Blur and Burnout Paradise and ofcourse emerging sandbox games.

I really liked the previous generation. There was the novelty of the first HD consoles and games had mechanical improvements that while perhaps not instantly recognizable as highly impressive still really add up after a while. More a process of refinement and incremental improvements rather than a big leap like from sprite graphics to 3D. It's a trend that kind of continues to this day(unless you think VR is genuinely the next big thing instead of a fringe gimmick).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

After looking through my trophy list, here's the games that stick out:

Bayonetta, Vanquish, MGS4 (MGO2 was AMAZING), Uncharted 2, Dishonored, MLB 12 The Show (best baseball game perhaps ever), Mass Effect, Portal 2, Journey, Arkham City, The Last of Us (even though I played it on PS4), Dragon's Dogma (that combat is what action RPGs should strive for), FarCry 3 Blood Dragon!!!, Mirror's Edge, The Walking Dead: Season 1, and for MP alone Ghost Recon Future Soldier and Medal of Honor: Warfighter (yes, the online was best of any FPS last-gen).

 

[Hawki]

On the personal level? Not much. Thing is, the 360/PS3/Wii era was a bit of an issue for me. I got a 360, but it succumbed to the red ring of death, and it took me years to get another one. Likewise, I bought a Wii for $60, made sure it worked, and haven't touched it since, and bought a PS3 even more recently, but not touched it much, having only used it to play Final Fantasy X and Killzone 2, with a number of games I've never touched. This era was the start of me gaining more purchasing power, but at the cost of time (basically, work), and a diversification of hobbies (e.g. creative writing, wiki editing, etc.). If anything, this era is defined as me buying old games in the hope that maybe, I'll play them one day. To demonstrate, I have 36 physical Xbox 360 games (...man, that's a weird coincidence 0_0). Of those 36, there's nine that I've never even played, and even more that I've never completed. Are games worse nowadays? No, I don't think so. But I am older, and that means I spend less time playing them. Looking at said collection, the most defining one I guess I could say is Mass Effect, with Halo 3 or Halo: Reach coming in second spot, but even then, Halo is a pre-existing series. There's also Gears of War, but as much as I like GoW, I can't call it "defining" on the personal level. Maybe "defining" on a more critical level though.

On a more general level, I think Ezekiel has more or less covered the big ones. Call of Duty games and changed the FPS landscape. Mass Effect was a hit. Assassin's Creed launched an ongoing franchise. Uncharted is a big name PlayStation franchise. The Walking Dead put Telltale on the map. Minecraft became a cultural phenomenon. And so on. All of these titles launched from this era.

But on some other notes:

To me I noticed alot of games of their generation has their defining game, imo the N64/PS1 generation that game was Final Fanasy 7.

I see your Final Fantasy 7 and raise you an Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64. ;p

The PS2/Xbox/Gamecube Generation Grand Theft Auto games.

You left out the Dreamcast.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Red dead redibblydesertdeath is pretty much the warmest and cosiest memory I feel I could crawl back into at a dark moment and die with a slight illusion of happiness. Maybe Skyward Sword, but that harbours unintentional associated memories that taint an otherwise fluffy memory.

Skyward Sword has a glorious soundtrack!!!

The large Zelda adventures have always had amazing orchestral scores, I had an album with the edition of Skyward Sword that was an appreciated extra.
Should probably add the Super Mario Galaxy games too, they're even more distant though, I almost thought for some reason they were a second generation ago. But always kept an impressively consistent pace of pure fun gameplay that, retrospectively thinking, hasn't been topped. Am trying to think of any other game that didn't reach a point where my brain felt it had outstayed its' welcome and lost its' appeal. But it doesn't feel right to say it defined the generation because I don't think it really did. Perhaps it is what humans refer to as a "guilty pleasure" then.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Red dead redibblydesertdeath is pretty much the warmest and cosiest memory I feel I could crawl back into at a dark moment and die with a slight illusion of happiness. Maybe Skyward Sword, but that harbours unintentional associated memories that taint an otherwise fluffy memory.

Skyward Sword has a glorious soundtrack!!!

The large Zelda adventures have always had amazing orchestral scores, I had an album with the edition of Skyward Sword that was an appreciated extra.
Should probably add the Super Mario Galaxy games too, they're even more distant though, I almost thought for some reason they were a second generation ago. But always kept an impressively consistent pace of pure fun gameplay that, retrospectively thinking, hasn't been topped. Am trying to think of any other game that didn't reach a point where my brain felt it had outstayed its' welcome and lost its' appeal. But it doesn't feel right to say it defined the generation because I don't think it really did. Perhaps it is what humans refer to as a "guilty pleasure" then.

Actually this game was the first to use an actual Orchestra. No synthetic digital instruments.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Actually this game was the first to use an actual Orchestra. No synthetic digital instruments.

Am ok with calling synth orchestral soundtracks orchestral, the difference is audible but no less appreciated (personally) Both require a skilled understanding to design.

 

[Fox12]

Dark Soul's, without question. Nothing else compares.

 

[sanquin]

For me it was Mass Effect 1. I had just gotten my XBox360, and while it came with...1 or 2 games, I wanted an rpg for it. I had heard that the game was a third person shooter for console and a sci-fi game at that. Both I didn't find that interesting at the time. However over a week or so I started hearing almost only good things about the game. How it had such a good story and was very entertaining. So I decided to finally buy it. And boy was I glad I did. I loved the game so much I finished my first playthrough in 14~15 hours over 2 days, and immediately started a second one. To this day I still play all three games every now and then. Now it's all on PC though, as any kind of shooter on the console just...doesn't sit well with me.

 

[CaitSeith]

For me it was a mixed bag. The start was defined for me mainly with Bioshock and Infamous. But we can't forget motion controllers with Wii Sports on the good side, and Kinect Sports on the bad side (it wasn't that long when Microsoft tried to tack Kinect on every XBox 360 game). Music games like Rockband 2 were a blast in the past era. Then things got gritty, brown/grey and unimpressive in the singleplayer side like Battlefield 3 and CoD clones. Portal and Portal 2 were a big turn around. It was at that point that I pretty much migrated to PC, so personally the PS3/XBox 360 era ended early for me.

It was such a roller coaster that it's too difficult to define it with just one or two games.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

For me it was a mixed bag. The start was defined for me mainly with Bioshock and Infamous. But we can't forget motion controllers with Wii Sports on the good side, and Kinect Sports on the bad side (it wasn't that long when Microsoft tried to tack Kinect on every XBox 360 game). Music games like Rockband 2 were a blast in the past era. Then things got gritty, brown/grey and unimpressive in the singleplayer side like Battlefield 3 and CoD clones. Portal and Portal 2 were a big turn around. It was at that point that I pretty much migrated to PC, so personally the PS3/XBox 360 era ended early for me.

It was such a roller coaster that it's too difficult to define it with just one or two games.

Funny thing is I had more fun playing Wii Sports (Wii Sports Resort especially) than I had with Kinect Sports when I tried it in a Friend's house.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Halo 3. Way back when, on GameSpot's forums, a small group of us brought up the age-old topic of rudeness and immaturity in online gaming. We decided we should form a Union (back when GS supported them,) and Mature Gamers Unite (MGU) was born, a Union of older gamers (+21-ish) who agreed to adhere to a code of conduct that prioritized respect and fun over all else; we didn't care about K/D ratios, winning, losing, etc.; we just played for fun. We started off small maybe 10 of us, but soon grew to almost 100 members; I think the eldest of us was in his 70s (he was awesome at Borderlands!) We organized game nights where we'd pick a few game and all meet up to play, but Halo 3 was the game we played most often. Hands down the MOST fun I ever had with multiplayer, lots of laughs and none of the bullshit we'd have encountered in lobbies. Fast-forward the years, and though we don't do organized game nights anymore (life,) we're all still friends, still play together in smaller groups, several of us have met in real life, and a couple of our members even got MARRIED last year. Good times...

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

STALKER (yeah its PC exclusive), Crysis, Both Metro games, Deus Ex Human revolution etc were what define last generation of gaming for me.

last generation was indeed worst gaming generation and filled with many many overrated games, introduction to the concept of ruining sequels, dumbing down, casualized everything, turning into QTE fest was common in last generation.

This generation. everything is getting back to roots.