What was the most innovative game last gen?

[KayJay]

As in, Wii/PS3/360 Gen.

I have a couple, but at the forefront are Scribblenauts and Portal. Both have never been done before, and were truly unique and worth playing for the concept alone. They can best be described as puzzle games, but they lack genre, honestly.



What about you? what is your favorite game that shook things up last gen?

[SpaceBooger]

While not a great game, nor one "hardcore" gamers would consider - Wii Sports was very innovative. That game, almost by itself, sold many systems to many different gamers.

[TSTR]

While not a great game, nor one "hardcore" gamers would consider - Wii Sports was very innovative. That game, almost by itself, sold many systems to many different gamers.

Good call. Def the most successful motion control implementation like, ever.

[marurun]

And Wii Sports Resort actually built on it with the Motion Plus accessory pretty effectively. I got a lot of fun out of it.

[Erik_Twice]

While not a great game, nor one "hardcore" gamers would consider - Wii Sports was very innovative. That game, almost by itself, sold many systems to many different gamers.

Yeah, you are probably right. I mean, it's not technically innovative but conceptually and on a marketing level Wii Sports and the Wii itself are very different and innovative.

[Cronozilla]

I don't know if I agree with Wii Sports. The Wii in general had a lot of innovation to the control mechanisms, Wii Sports just seems like a byproduct of that. A lot of very similar behaviors are possible in Twilight Princess which was available on the same day. Not that the Wii + Wii Sports wasn't a phenomenon or anything. It absolutely was. I just don't think there's anything about Wii Sports it self, as a video game, that's particularly innovative, or even remotely new.

For all its flaws, I don't know of any other game that plays like Metroid: Other M.

Uncharted 2 broke ground with its hierarchical physics system that allowed for the craziness in falling buildings and on trains.

Left 4 Dead utilized an AI agent to pace gameplay based on how players worked together so you wouldn't have identical experiences every time you played (and was mostly successful)

Costume Quest is a trick or treating RPG. How can you not even?

Gone Home, regardless if you argue it is or isn't a game, definitely did something completely different.

Kirby Mass Attack and Canvas Curse on the DS were entirely novel experiences.

Alan Wake also had a fair amount of interesting ideas in it.

[Exhuminator]

Either Narbacular Drop or Infiniminer or Ingress.

Wii Sports was a great concept, but it was more a competent convergence of previously existing innovative ideas. Just one example. Although it wasn't as good of a game, Kinect Sports was more innovative from a technological standpoint.

[ejamer]

I don't know if I agree with Wii Sports. ...

One reason I think Wii Sports was more innovative than the games you listed is because it brought about change - Wii Sports was (moreso than any other game) the reason Wii became wildly successful. And that success led to motion controls being added to all consoles that generation.

Would Kinect exist with Wii Sports? Possibly... but almost certainly not in the same way that it developed. Even though Kinect is much more interesting from a technology standpoint, it wasn't the innovator that brought about a huge change and there is no single game that really stands out as being the biggest success for that hardware. (Actually, maybe I need to take that back. Dance Central?)

The other games had great tech, interesting ideas, and novel moments to be sure. But I'm not sure those were innovations that noticeably affected how the industry was moving on the same level as Wii motion controls - with Wii Sports being the flagship example of their use.

(Which is funny, because I think that motion controls are only good in a small handful of games and generally annoying the rest of the time.)

[Exhuminator]

But I'm not sure those were innovations that noticeably affected how the industry was moving on the same level as Wii motion controls - with Wii Sports being the flagship example of their use.

What you're citing there is influence, not innovation.

Motion controls were not a new concept when Nintendo started using them. Nor was the technology Nintendo used for motion controls new. The very idea for using motion controls for electronic sports games wasn't a fresh idea either (as I showed in the linked commercial). What Nintendo did do, was simply bring forth old ideas in a more palatable format for the masses. I don't call that innovation. I call that successful marketing.

[corn619]

For me it had to be Boom Blox Bash Party and Kirby Canvas Curse. Kirby was the game that made me know that I had to buy a DS immediately. Boom Blox Bash Party was super fun and I had never really played anything like it before. I think the Wii in general had a lot of innovative gaming experiences that had never really been done before. Mad World, Super Mario Galaxy 1&2, Zack & Wiki and many I'm forgetting were all super different and innovative.