10 of the Most Influential Games Turning 10 in 2014

2004 wan't that long ago.

Chronologically, a decade is a relatively brief moment in the universal sense of time. Technologically, 2004 was light years ago.

2004 saw Kanye drop "College Dropout" and George W. Bush begin a second term. It's also the year that ten of the most influential games were released to the public. Games that changed, ahem, the game. Online connectivity for console owners, massive game worlds that hadn't been previously possible, and titles that would shape the gaming landscape for years.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and World of Warcraft all debuted a decade ago and have successfully made us feel old.

Enjoy.

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Platform: GameCube
Release date: October 11, 2004

Why Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has never been revisited by Nintendo is still a fucking crime.

Granted, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door incorporated elements of both Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG, the GameCube title still holds an incredibly special place in the Super Mario milieu. The game served as a welcome counter balance to the platforming that had largely defined the series over the years.

The game was packed with surprisingly deep RPG elements and offered players a true and sincere sense of discovery. The game was a huge part of the GameCube's library. A new Mario RPG of some flavor seems like yet another way Nintendo could make moves with their WIi U.

Platform: PS2
Release date: November 17, 2004

The Metal Gear Solid mythology is a hippopotamus in a Lamborghini Aventador.

After the soon-to-be fifth entry into the franchise, spin-offs, and tie-ins, the lore for the series has become cumbersome enough to merit an annotated text book. The game is consistently gorgeous, but trying to keep track of who's a clone, who's not a clone, who's your father, who's your brother ends up being taxing.

That's why Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remains such an elegant entry into the franchise. Forgoing the contemporary Geo-political intricacies, heavy-handed techno-babble, and the reliance on a massive cast of outrageous bosses, MGS3 simplified nearly every aspect of the series while maintaining the core mechanics of stealth and infiltration.

Moving the title outdoors to a 1960s Soviet jungle setting was a welcome turn from the claustrophobic confines of military installations of previous titles. This prequel (of sorts) was a colossal success and remains one of the most influential titles of the PS2 era. The game had moved over 3.6 million copies worldwide in its first year of sales.

Platform: PC
Release date: November 4, 2004

Oh, Medal of Honor, you were the top dog for more years than we can count.

Call of Duty may be the world's most recognizable military, first-person shooter, but there was a time when Medal of Honor couldn't be touched. After 14 Medal of Honor games, the most tragic being 2012's Medal of Honor: Warfighter, who knows when, if ever EA might revive the franchise.

But, it can't be overstated enough how undeniably formative the Medal of Honor series has been on the contemporary shooter landscape. Hell, Call of Duty was developed in order to kill Medal of Honor, which it kind of did.

Platform: PC
Release date: November 23, 2004

Less of a game and more of a cultural institution, World of Warcraft held the MMO genre by the throat for a decade while making billions for pubisher Activision.

Blizzard may have seen subscriptions wane in the past few years, but there's few games that have made the leap from the realm of online gaming into the pop-culture lexicon like WoW.

World of Warcraft has diversified with the endlessly enjoyable online trading card game, Hearthstone. Blizzard and WoW shaped the online multiplayer landscape and that throne is still far too warm for them to be counted out.

Platform: Xbox, PC
Release date: September 14, 2004

Fable was easily one of the most anticipated titles of 2004 thanks in no short part to Lionhead Studios' Peter Molyneux's nearly endless hype for the game.

Molyneux asserted that this was going to be the first game where decisions had consequences and actions had lasting and deeply formative influences on how your game unfolded.

Was that true? Not really. Sure, the RPG was a massively fun game, but Molyneux's lofty claims about consequence and player agency didn't really amount to much more than an expansive RPG experience. The concept of free will was intact, but the biggest omission of Molyneux's claims, the ability for players have children, was nowhere to be found.

Fable has spawned several sequels with varying degrees of success, but Molyneux is no longer with Lionhead studios.

An upcoming Xbox One title, Fable: Legends, is more of a mystery than anything else at this point, but the first Fable is still a hugely enjoyable Xbox title.

Platform: PC, PS2, Xbox
Release date: September 21, 2004

With the shuttering of LucasArts and Disney acquiring Lucasfilm, StarWars 1313 will probably never see the light of day. EA, in a move that should have us all moving with caution, has been tasked with releasing Battlefront III. It's kind of a shit show in terms of new Star Wars games, but the first Battlefront is, to this day, still fucking amazing.

Playing as a common soldier for either the Rebels or the Empire, gamers got to see a very different side of the Star Wars Universe. Sure, Battlefront II started incorporating playable Sith and Jedi that made flipping around with lightsabers a huge part of combat, but the first title with its grunt on the front-lines perspective is still, a decade later, a hugely enjoyable experience.

EA and DICE own the IP and if Battlefield 4 is any indication, we may not see Battlefield III any time soon.

Platform: GameBoy Advance
Release date: September 9, 2004

Sure, FireRed and LeafGreen were basically updatede remakes of Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue, but this was a GameBoy Advance we're talking about. Pokémon has endured through more than two decades of shifting technology, trends, and tastes. And if last year's Pokémon X & Y is any indication, the series isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

FireRed and LeafGreen sold over 12 million copies at the time of their release.

Platform: Xbox, PC
Release date: November 9, 2004

Halo 2 revolutionized online first-person shooters. Period.

Sure, plenty of online shooters existed prior to Halo 2's arrival, but they were firmly entrenched in the world of the PC master race. A console online multiplayer FPS was such a game changer, younger gamers can hardly fathom a world where they didn't exist.

Halo 2 took everything, and we mean everything, from the first title and improved upon it. Ambition is the only real fault of the title. Dual wielding, an expansion of the narrative and lore that seemed digestible, and online mutliplayer were all awaiting gamers when they got their hands on this Xbox exclusive.

We all signed up in droves for Xbox Live, making it the premire online subsrciption service for years to come. Online voice chat, parties, and massive online battles were all a first to console owners and it's thanks to Halo 2.

Platform: PC
Release date: November 16, 2004

With an expected third entry into the series becoming a meme, "Half-Life 3 Confirmed" has been adopted by gamers as a sarcastic aside applicable to just about any whiff of rumor or speculation in the game industry.

It's easy to see why so many bemoan the almost mythical existence of a third Half-Life, Half-Life 2 was one of the most formative and satisfying shooters of the past decade. Where Half-Life introduced the world to Gordon Freeman, this massively influential sequel, was praised for its stunning animation, physics, AI, graphics, and narrative. The last time we saw anything resembling a new title from Gabe Newell and company in the form of Gordon Freeman was 2007's Half-Life 2 Episode 2, but fans around the world remain ever hopeful that a third title will be announced any day now...

Platform: PS2
Release date: October 26, 2004

Regarded by many as the greatest GTA to be released, San Andreas was bereft of the weighty moral baggage of GTA IV and was still firmly enjoying sticking its middle finger at the world it was satirizing.

A larger world than Vice City, San Andreas was a massive playground that encompassed fictional elements of both Los Angeles and Nevada. The game's most memorable components were largely based on real world events, with the L.A. gang culture being a pivotal narrative support structure of the game.

And, that soundtrack.

Where Vice City aimed to transport players to the cocaine fueled beaches and night clubs of the 1980s, San Andreas sought to lay down some of the most robust hip-hop tracks ever collected. San Andreas still holds the record for the best selling PS2 title with over 17.33 millions units sold.