Ranking the Decade 2.06.10: The Most Influential Games of 2000

Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 02.06.2010

My year by year retrospective on the most influential games of the decade begins on the Year 2000. From Shenmue to Baldur's Gate 2, and Counterstrike to The Sims, see which games made the list!

Last week in the 10th hour I hinted at something special and this week marks the beginning of that. What is it? Well, I am going to take a look at the 10 most influential games for every year this decade, starting in 2000 and all the way up to 2009. Once all those years are accounted for I will take the 10 Most Influential for the decade itself! Trust me, I spent the great majority of my week doing research for the year 2000 and it is quite an undertaking. There are so many awesome games released each year that rounding the list down to 10 is a difficult endeavor. The key words here are innovation and influence. What did these games do that is still important today? Are these classics still talked about today, or did they disappear with the wind? Some games might not be innovative, but they were influential because they have stood the test of time and are still played today. Others might not be played today, but did something so fresh and innovative at the time that they created a genre, or a standard for a genre. The year 2000 was huge and very different from the past two years or so. Back then, PC gaming was at its peak, with some of the best games ever created showing up on computers. As a matter of fact, there were so many good PC games that the top sites, like IGN and Gamespot, had separate "Best of the Year" lists for consoles and PC's. Yes, there were so many PC games released back then that they had dozens of contenders on every genre imaginable! That is not the case today, as PC gaming has become somewhat of an afterthought. Taking a page out of Todd Vote's Top 5, I will be making a small "sample" list of honorable mentions, games that where great, but did not make it into my list. Before we go into the games, let's take a look at some important details from the year 2000!

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2000 in Film:

The year 2000 produced one of my favorite all-time movies and probably the only Russell Crowe movie worth watching: Gladiator. That movie was epic! Some of the Golden Globe winners that year included American Beauty, Toy Story 2 and the much underrated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was the year of the first X-Men movie, as more and more comic properties were adapted for the big screen, a tendency that we still see today. Mission Impossible 2 was the year's highest grossing movie. The first installments of Charlie's Angels and the Meet the Parents were also released that year. Although I haven't watched all the movies released that year, I feel prepared enough to make the following statement: Dungeons & Dragons was one of the worst movies I have ever seen and deserves to be the year's worst. Finally, one of the best movie characters of all time was introduced that year: Wilson the Ball in Cast Away. Everybody needs a Wilson in their lives!

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2000 in Music:

I am not much of a music guy, so finding relevant stuff about the year 2000 was a bit hard. For next week I will request the aid of my 411mania Music Zone buddies, but since this is my debut week cut me some slack. In 2000 two of my favorite bands disbanded, although they would be reunited again: Rage Against the Machine and Smashing Pumpkins. My girlfriend pointed out that in 2000 N'Sync released No Strings Attached, her favorite album at the time and one of N'Sync's highest grossing albums. Eminem released The Marshall Matters LP and pre-crazy Britney Spears was at the top of her game with Oops.. I Did It Again! Seriously, some of the songs she performed back then should have been taken as a warning that she was nuts, but I guess she was so hot back then that nobody noticed. It was also the year Iron Maiden released the very underrated Brave New World, one of today's top metal bands Killswitch Engage released their self-titled debut album, The Backstreet Boys released Black & Blue and maybe because I was the only person who bought it, Slash's Snakepit released their final album Ain't Life Grand?. It also produced one of my favorite all-time albums, Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory. My tastes have changed a lot since then, but for some reason it is one of the few albums I keep going back to.

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2000 in Games:
A lot happened in 2000, but for the sake of not turning this into a 10 page affair, I will keep it short. One of today's biggest casual gaming companies, PopCap Games, was founded this year. SNK went out of business, Microsoft bought a little studio called Bungie (Hmmm…I wonder how that one turned out) and Sega's entire internal consumer and research divisions became individual developer companies. Too bad, because I really believe the Dreamcast was a great system and had a lot of potential. The Playstation 2 was released in the USA and Europe in October and many consider the year 2000 the last great year for the Playstation One and the Nintendo 64 in terms of quality releases. It was also the year in which Nintendo sold its 100th million Game Boy unit. Below is a list of "Honorable Mentions", key games released in the Year 2000 that were great in their own right, but failed to crack my list of most influential:

Honorable Mentions: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3: Arena, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, American McGhee's Alice, Escape from Monkey Island, Crazy Machines Contraptions, Thief 2: The Metal Age, Icewind Dale, Final Fantasy IX, NBA 2K1, NFL 2K1, No One Lives Forever, Crazy Taxi, Virtual Pool 3, Capcom vs SNK, Worms Armageddon, Vagrant Story, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Pokemon Gold & Silver, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, The Longest Journey, Midnight Club: Street Racing and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.

As far as classic games go, that is not such a bad list. But only a few were the chosen ones and that left a lot of greats out of my list. I encourage my readers to drop down to the comments section and make a case for their favorite games and why they should be on the list. That's part of the fun of making lists, seeing how passionate gamers are about their own favorites. Now, without further ado, The Most Influential Games of the Year 2000!

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Marvel vs Capcom 2 (Dreamcast): I know I am going to get a lot of criticism for this choice. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is a very flawed game when you look at it with the benefit of hindsight. The fighting mechanics were solid, but characters were unbalanced, so much so that success in a tournament or competitive environment was strictly limited to a handful of characters. However, the biggest influence came from the rabid fanbase this game generated. It was released almost 10 years ago and it still played in competitive environments, like all the EVO Tournaments and other competitions. It was re-released for the PSN and XBLA because it was Capcom's most requested game. Pretty much everyone who made a list of "Classic Games I would like to see added to XBLA" would have Marvel vs Capcom 2 at the top. It won numerous fighting game of the year awards in 2000 and even at almost ten years old, the re-release version was considered a top contender for that award last year. Talk about character imbalances and cheap combos all you want, but few fighting games stand the test of time as well as this one. I know this will hurt my good buddy Todd Vote (it hurts me to type it!) but I don't see anyone playing Mortal Kombat II in a competitive environment anymore. However, Marvel vs Capcom 2, for all its flaws and problems, is still played competitively to this day.

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Shenmue (Dreamcast): Of all the games released in 2000, Shenmue caused the most extreme reactions. Either, people loved it or people hated it, but very few were in the middle of the debate. Depending on the publication, it was named among the year's best games or the year's biggest disappointment. However, Shenmue's influence is two-fold. First of all, it created the first open-ended world for players to explore. Yes, there was a central plot to follow, but you could waste your time talking to strangers, playing arcade games and doing other stuff that was not related to the storyline at all. Yes, the game had a deadline and if a certain date was reached without the player solving the main story, he would die. But there is no doubt that Shenmue provided the first taste of an open world that felt alive, with characters that had their own daily routines and their own unique bits of dialogue to say. The second innovation where the QTE's or Quick-Time Events. Although games like Dragon's Lair had used QTE's before, Shenmue took it to another level using them for combat and even a chase sequence across a busy town center. It is hard to imagine games like God of War, Heavenly Sword and others using that formula if it weren't for Shenmue's success using it. For these two reasons, Shenmue deserves its place as one of the Most Influential Games from the Year 2000.

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Chrono Cross (Playstation): Chrono Cross is one of the most critically acclaimed games of all-time and considered by many to be the best RPG game ever made. It is one of only seven games to get a perfect 10 score from Gamespot, had a total of 10 perfect scores from multiple sites and an overall metacritic score of 94. It also won the Best RPG and Best Console Game Awards on multiple publications. The music of this game is legendary, winning the Gold Prize for the Playstation Awards in the Year 2000 and becoming one of the fastest selling game soundtracks of all time. As a matter of fact, Square had to re-release the soundtrack in 2005 due to popular demand. Gameplay wise, the game was very similar to other turn-based RPG' s, but it allowed you to run from every fight (even the final boss fight!) and random battles where non-existent: you could see enemies in the main map and choose whether or not to engage them. The Elements system was a natural evolution for the highly praised Materia system introduced in Final Fantasy VII, with a very unique "map" for every character that would determine how they would be equipped. There is not a traditional experience point system and eventually the characters skills would remain static until the player manages to beat a boss. The game also introduced the Stamina gauge. Attacking and using elements would spend Stamina and players would be forced to wait for the gauge to fill back up in order to perform certain actions. The system is similar to the ATB (Active Time Battle) system employed in the Final Fantasy series. Weapons and armor were not purchased at shops, instead players had to collect basic materials and visit a weapon smith. The weapon smith would craft the weapons and armor for a fee. Chrono Cross has appeared in pretty much every Top 100 Games Ever list and on every Best RPG of All Time Discussions. For these reasons and more Chrono Cross makes the Top 10 Most Influential Games of 2000 list.

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Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast): Contrary to some of the games listed before this one, Jet Grind Radio is not considered to be a fantastic game and is rarely mentioned in any Top 100 games list. As a matter of fact, I believe it would have a difficult time cracking the Top 10 Dreamcast games list and that is saying something, considering the Dreamcast did not have many games. However, we have to consider this game as one of the most influential for one reason alone: Cel-shaded graphics. You see, back in the year 2000 there were no cel-shaded graphics in games. That phenomenon began with this game and it is what makes it unique and innovative. Yes, the game was fun, it had a bit of Tony Hawk, a bit of open world action games and some rad graffiti designs (did I just say rad? Shoot me now!) but none of that makes it stand out. The killer soundtrack (with plenty of techno, J-rock and dance influences) is still a blast to listen to today, but once everything is set and done, it is those graphics. We are talking about smooth, cel-shaded graphics with really good animations. The phrase "moving comic book" never applied better to a game. The graphic style was new, but it was also well done, so much so that now, ten years later, it is still one of the best examples of cel-shaded graphics on any game. After Jet Grind Radio was released, everyone wanted a piece of the cel-shaded craze and that diluted the game's impact somewhat. I feel it is my duty with this column to remind you all that those other games are the imitators; Jet Grind Radio is the innovator. That's why Jet Grind Radio is one of the 10 Most Influential Games of the year 2000!

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Diablo II (PC): Diablo II is on this list for one reason alone: it still has an active online community with thousands of players. How many games can make that claim? It also inspired dozens of clones, like the very good Darkstone, Fate and Torchlight games. If the original Diablo invented the point and click dungeon crawler, Diablo II refined it. Players were no longer confined to a single dungeon, instead they traversed through multiple locations and that offered more variety. The game had five classes instead of three and not only that gave the player more variety but the classes were better all around. Although the game is better in multiplayer through Battle.net, the new classes were so refined and balanced that making your way through the game alone with a single character was entirely possible, something that was limited to one specific class in the original game. I believe that the real value of a game is in its lasting appeal and Diablo II certainly has a lot of that. Ten years later and thousands are still active on Battle.net. For this reason and many others Diablo II has to be considered one of the Most Influential Games of the Year 2000.

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Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (PC): Much like Diablo 2, this game took the concepts of an existing formula and made it better. The great story telling from Baldur's Gate is improved in the sequel and the character creation mechanics were expanded as well. Decisions made within the game affected the characters that would join you, the events you would experience and to a certain degree, how the world reacted to you. Many awards were bestowed upon the game back in 2000, including RPG of the Year, Game of the Year and PC Game of the Year in addition to appearing in pretty much every "Greatest Games of All Time" List. However, what Baldur's Gate did was create a benchmark. Every single Bioware RPG, a list that includes such classics as Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins is compared to Baldur's Gate II and according to most people in the industry and players alike, none of those games have been able to match the level of depth and storytelling achieved by Baldur's Gate II.

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Shogun: Total War (PC): This is the granddaddy of them all, the one that paved the way for the rest of the Total War series, one of the highest-grossing and highest-rated strategy series of all time. Shogun: Total War became the first game to display hundreds of units doing battle at one time and combined the turn-based dynamics of games like Civilization (in a minor scale) with the realistic, tactics-driven real-time gameplay of games like Sid Meier's Gettysburgh!. Taking place in the Feudal Japan era, the game's goal was to unify Japan and become the Shogun. Outside the battlefield and in the game's turn-based mode you had to manage your provinces, which involved not only developing units, food, castles and other war-oriented resources, but also managing the culture and religion of your provinces. Once in the battlefield, battles took place in real time and required the player to develop strategies and tactics. Yes, strength in numbers and superior units could win the day, but managing such aspects as terrain height and each unit's unique properties carried much more weight and made it possible for a smaller, lesser equipped army to pull the upset and defeat a stronger army by using tactics and strategy. The game's ability to display hundreds of units at the same time gave it a unique feeling that set it apart from the Command & Conquers and other RTS titles in the same era. Today, the Total War series is considered one of the PC's stalwarts and it is hard to imagine it existing without the success and innovation introduced in Shogun: Total War.

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Deus Ex (PC, Playstation 2, MAC): What else can be said about the game that PC Gamer named "The Best PC Game of All Time" in 2007? Deus Ex combined the mechanics of first-person shooters and RPG's, something most recently done by Fallout 3. The game's character customization options where very involved for the time, allowing you to allocate points to multiple skills and make yourself better through nano-machine augmentations. This system made the game unique, since two different players could have two different characters. One could be focused on warfare, while the other could be focused on stealth and computer hacking. The good thing about this system is that the game allowed you to play any way you want. One scenario could be tackled in multiple ways, allowing players to come up with their own unique strategies based on their character's skills. No character type was a waste. No skill was a waste. The game did not hold your hand and told you what to do; instead you did it based on your own decisions and skills. The narrative was spectacular as well, with multiple paths and endings influenced by player's choice. This system has been copied and replicated by many games over the past 10 years, but few have managed to do it as well as Deus Ex did. It is hard to imagine games like Fallout 3 without the existence of Deus Ex. For innovating the concepts of storytelling, player choice and character evolution, Deus Ex deserves to be among the most influential games of the year 2000!

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Half-Life Counterstrike(PC): It is hard to imagine that Counter-Strike began as a simple mod for Half-Life. Automatically this makes Counterstrike the most successful mod in the history of videogaming and automatically that makes it a worthy entry on this list. This simple mod went on to spawn an entire series and inspire dozens of titles. The game revolves around two teams, one composed of terrorists, and the other composed of anti-terrorists, in goal-based online gameplay. Whether it was killing the other team, saving a hostage or diffusing a bomb, many of the multiplayer modes found in today's multiplayer FPS titles originated in Counterstrike. Characters could also be customized with their own weapons and equipment and the game welcomed teamwork and tactics. To this day, many professional Counterstrike leagues exist, as Counterstrike also became a pioneer in the concept of professional gaming, teams who make a living out of competing and winning Counterstrike leagues and tournaments. It is hard to imagine the existence of Modern Warfare's much heralded multiplayer mode or other multiplayer focused FPS titles like the Battlefield series if it weren't for Counterstrike. For being the most successful mod of all time, inspiring dozens of titles, becoming a pioneer in professional gaming and creating many of today's standard multiplayer modes, Counterstrike deserves a place as one of the most innovative and influential games of the year 2000.

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The Sims(PC): Ah, The Sims. Not only did it win the Game of the Year award in multiple publications, not only did it become the highest selling PC game of all-time (in 2002, surpassing Myst) but it also created the concept of "casual gaming". Yes, that much-heralded concept that companies keep repeating to us every single day in news items and press releases, casual gaming was invented in The Sims. First of all, take into consideration the concept of the game: Raising a family of virtual people and take care of their every need, from food, jobs, sex and even using the toilet. That sounds like Tamagotchi to me. No one expected the game to take off the way it did, but like I mentioned above, it became a massive hit, selling over 16 million copies by 2002 to surpass Myst as the highest selling PC game of all time. By 2009, the entire series had sold over 100 million copies. It spawned tons of expansion packs that sold incredibly well. It also became a pioneer in the micro-transactions department, as players were able to enter the official site of The Sims and purchase clothing and other goodies with real money. But like I said, this is the first game that drew in the casual gamer in waves. It single-handedly increased the amount of girls playing video games, as a survey conducted by EA revealed that 50% of The Sims players where females. Now 50% of 16 million+ is a lot of girls! I witnessed this phenomenon first hand as several of my friend's mothers; women who had never played a game in their lives (or at least since the NES) suddenly became Sim-Maniacs, spending the entire day in front of the computer living virtual lives. For innovating in the concepts of casual gaming, life simulation, micro-transactions, driving more girls to play games and becoming the highest selling PC game of all-time, The Sims deserves a spot as the most influential game of the year 2000. Think about it: did anyone really expect this absurd concept to fly, much less to dominate the gaming industry?

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Until Next Time….. Remember to leave your comments and suggestions. Which game should have made the list? Next week, we will take a look at the year 2001!