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Most influential (not best or most popular) TPS between Gears of War, Uncharted 2, TLOU and Mass Effect 2?

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  • The Last of Us

    Votes: 59 5.9%

  • Uncharted 2

    Votes: 142 14.3%

  • Gears of War

    Votes: 772 77.6%

  • Mass Effect 2

    Votes: 22 2.2%
  • Total voters
    995
Papercuts

Papercuts

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,013
xeecee said:
yeah, RE4 is absolutely in the conversation if we widen the scope of the question. although I think gears might still be the most influential even including RE4, just because a lot of games attempted to iterate on RE4 but the gears iteration is the one that really stuck with mainstream design. RE4 is the progenitor without which we wouldn't have gears, but throughout all the PS360 generation and beyond I think studios were looking at gears more directly if that makes sense.
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Yeah. I think the Gears influence is more easy to immediately see in mechanics. Even in the worst of it, like the amount of games that suffered from "Press A to do everything". TPS as a whole seemed to lean more into having cover be a natural part of it, possibly since it's more unique to the perspective and not something an FPS can easily replicate.

RE4 seems more on the abstract things like pacing or encounter design, but is mostly directly in atmosphere. Though I would ask more games to take the Tetris inventory directly because that shit's cool.
 
metalgear89

metalgear89

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,018
Probably gears.

Although Uncharted and last of us reached heights that gears never will, they went beyond what gears offered. Story telling, characters and the whole blockbuster adventure experience is in my opinion yet to be surpassed.
 
dodo

dodo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,997
Virtualoso said:
I never said Last of Us invented adult storytelling, I said it pushed it forward in a way no game before it had. Much like how Resident Evil 4 existed before Gears of War, but Gears of War pushed 3rd Person action games forward like no game before it had.
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I guess I'm just confused: what does "pushing it forward" mean to you?

I don't even mean this as a dig at The Last of Us; I just don't understand. There's nothing particularly uniquely "adult" about TLOU's storytelling. It's a game with a lot of cinematic panache, but even for Naughty Dog at the time that wasn't rare. I don't think cultivating a specific tone is pushing anything forward.
 
Rodelero

Rodelero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,513
Kinda depends whether you focus more on the short term influence of Gears that led to an increase in TPS games and a proliferation of cover mechanics or the longer term influence of the other games towards more cinematic games on the one hand and towards deep player choice on the other.

Long term I think UC2 wins out.
 
Abdulrahman

Abdulrahman

Member
Oct 30, 2017
968
Where is Tomb Raider in this? Uncharted literally copied those games closely.

I fail to see that what those Naughty Dog games have did to influence other games... smoother cinematic setpieces I guess.

Good story in gaming? Nothing new, and to not mention that TLOU isn't original at all.
Good TPS gameplay combined with some stealth elements... so original!

Oh btw, I enjoyed those games a lot (I even 100%'d them).
 
Kaguya

Kaguya

Member
Jun 19, 2018
6,404
Dead Space was way more influential than ME2 as far as TPS are concerned, for games from that era at least, RE4 is definitely the most influential TPS.
Doukou said:
Why?
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Because 2 of the games mentioned in the OP took direct inspirations from it, while the other two were heavily inspired by games inspired by it!
 
Teeth

Teeth

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,936
Other things that Gears did that have been used a lot of other places:

- The "bweng" guitar tone after completing an encounter
- Horde mode
 
Linus815

Linus815

Member
Oct 29, 2017
19,724
TLOU was a very well made game with fantastic writing and acting and bombastic production values. I don't see how it was particularly influential though. "Adult storytelling" already very much existed in the AAA space even, long before TLOU. HL2, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption just to name a few examples.

ME2 was a game that was the opposite of influential. Look at ME1 and then ME2. ME2 streamlined and outright removed a bunch of its mechanics so the game would play more like then-popular AAA action games.

Uncharted 1's climbing was extremely influential, as were UC2's set pieces. They're still impressive to this day and they definitely have inspired a lot of developers. Tomb Raider being inspired by Uncharted is an obvious and also somewhat ironic example, as Uncharted 1 clearly had a lot of inspiration from Tomb Raider games.

Gears wins for me. It's not the first game with a cover system, but Gears managed to do it so well that it felt immediately natural and fun. Playing Gears for the first time was like playing the new generation of action games. Gears directly influenced Uncharted 1 which according to a ND dev was dramatically changed in the last 6 months to implement some of Gears' systems. And obviously cover shooting became a very common thing after the success of Gears. Its influence is still felt to this very day.

Also, let's not forget about Horde that was added with Gears 2. It has become a very common extra mode to include in games since then.
 
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
Gears of war cemented what it meant to be a third person shooter, and honestly still does with the notable exceptions being stuff like Fortnite, ironically.
 

Phantom88

Banned
Jan 7, 2018
726
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Games don't have to be carbon copies to be inspired by each other. As far as this thread goes, RE4 was one of the biggest influences for Gears, Uncharted, AND TLoU, and is regularly cited by the developers as such. Dead Space, BioShock, and the God of War series, in particular God of War 2018, also all took heavy inspiration from RE4, and it goes far beyond those. It's legitimately one of the most influential games of all time, up there with the likes of SM64 and OoT.
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they dont have to be carbon copies, but RE4's influence is mostly non existent. I have a hard time understanding this weird reverence for it on resetera and the imaginary influences people keep seeing. First of, RE4 takes a majority of its gamedesign features from games as old as Half Life. The structure of its adventure, the cinematic cues, the setpieces - these are all as old as Half Life. RE4 didnt create them.

Second, those games you mentioned dont take "heavy" influence from RE4. They merely mentioned the game in passing among other games that they looked at. God of War mentions the change from re4 to re7. Thats it. Gears mentions re4 among multiple other titles, and killswitch is the main mechanical inspiration for it. Other than the character being tilted slightly to the left theres nothing else in gears from re4.

This idea that RE4 is some game that inspired everything is only something ive ever seen on neogaf/resetera and i always find it weird. Its just not true
 
Doukou

Doukou

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,526
Kaguya said:
Dead Space was way more influential than ME2 as far as TPS are concerned, for games from that era at least, RE4 is definitely the most influential TPS.

Because 2 of the games mentioned in the OP took direct inspirations from it, while the other two were heavily inspired by games inspired by it!
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So what, does that make RE3 the most influential TPS? RE4 was clearly influenced by it. Or RE2 or RE
 
Teeth

Teeth

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,936
Phantom88 said:
they dont have to be carbon copies, but RE4's influence is mostly non existent. I have a hard time understanding this weird reverence for it on resetera and the imaginary influences people keep seeing. First of, RE4 takes a majority of its gamedesign features from games as old as Half Life. The structure of its adventure, the cinematic cues, the setpieces - these are all as old as Half Life. RE4 didnt create them.

Second, those games you mentioned dont take "heavy" influence from RE4. They merely mentioned the game in passing among other games that they looked at. God of War mentions the change from re4 to re7. Thats it. Gears mentions re4 among multiple other titles, and killswitch is the main mechanical inspiration for it. Other than the character being tilted slightly to the left theres nothing else in gears from re4.

This idea that RE4 is some game that inspired everything is only something ive ever seen on neogaf/resetera and i always find it weird. Its just not true
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"Over the shoulder" 3rd person shooting was basically created by RE4.

"Create the camera, create the genre"
 
Mr.Fletcher

Mr.Fletcher

Member
Nov 18, 2017
9,496
UK
It's easily Gears of War. Almost all modern TPS owe a debt to the series, including every game in the poll.
 
Kaguya

Kaguya

Member
Jun 19, 2018
6,404
Doukou said:
So what, does that make RE3 the most influential TPS? RE4 was clearly influenced by it. Or RE2 or RE
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RE3 isn't a TPS though(and RE4 was more distancing itself from previous numbered RE games, than taking inspiration from them). And the RE2 that is a TPS(the 2019 one), that's getting tones of praise and still is the best rated game this year so far is using the third person shooting and camera mechanics RE4 came up with about 14 years ago.
 

Phantom88

Banned
Jan 7, 2018
726
Teeth said:
"Over the shoulder" 3rd person shooting was basically created by RE4.

"Create the camera, create the genre"
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tilting the camera a bit to the left is not creating anything. Its not a new genre. The genre existed. They tilted the camera so you can see better in front of you. Thats it. And there were games that did it half a decade before. And not small games. Big ones, like Splinter Cell or Ghost Recon
 
Green Mario

Green Mario

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,318
Overall I think that Gears is definitely the most influential. I know there were cover shooters before it, but they took it to another level. I'm also pretty sure there were "horde modes" in stuff before it, but I know a handful of people that have dedicated hundreds of hours specifically to the ones found in the GoW series.
 
-Tetsuo-

-Tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,560
If you didn't vote for Gears of War I dont know what to tell you

DailyCalmSpirit said:
Gears was influential last gen, but, I feel like most games have gotten away from cover systems. Hell, even Gears itself has taken inspiration from Uncharted now with its attempts at set pieces and more open environments.
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I guess you didn't play Gears of War?
 
Equanimity

Equanimity

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,991
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TheUnsungHero26

TheUnsungHero26

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,348
Canada
Equanimity said:
ND didn't change Uncharted combat to be more like Gears, they went in a completely different direction.

Have you even played the Uncharted series?



Set pieces?
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I own and have played through the Uncharted games, yes. I am referring to this article.
Both Uncharted and Gears Of War are considered iconic franchises now, but in a new interview with Ars Technica, former Naughty Dog developer Lucas Pope admits huge gameplay changes were made to Uncharted as a reaction to Gears Of War.
One of the cool things about Uncharted 1 is, we had no f***ing idea what we were doing. Uncharted 1 was announced, and then Gears [of War] came out. And Gears invented the modern third-person shooter. Suddenly, Gears came out and showed them how to do it. So we changed everything, six months before release.
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Edit: This is the original article.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,384
Phantom88 said:
they dont have to be carbon copies, but RE4's influence is mostly non existent. I have a hard time understanding this weird reverence for it on resetera and the imaginary influences people keep seeing. First of, RE4 takes a majority of its gamedesign features from games as old as Half Life. The structure of its adventure, the cinematic cues, the setpieces - these are all as old as Half Life. RE4 didnt create them.

Second, those games you mentioned dont take "heavy" influence from RE4. They merely mentioned the game in passing among other games that they looked at. God of War mentions the change from re4 to re7. Thats it. Gears mentions re4 among multiple other titles, and killswitch is the main mechanical inspiration for it. Other than the character being tilted slightly to the left theres nothing else in gears from re4.

This idea that RE4 is some game that inspired everything is only something ive ever seen on neogaf/resetera and i always find it weird. Its just not true
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You can find dozens of interviews like this where developers go on and on about how influential RE4 was to their encounter pacing and design.
3q4Jgvy.jpg
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

Member
Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Gears of War codified modern third person shooting conventions. It's on par with Halo and CoD2/4 for the first person shooter genre for influence. One of the biggest.
 
Bede-x

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,389
Gears easily. It influenced the genre, the mechanics of it and the color palette, defining the "bro shooter". It also sold the Unreal engine and the features included with it, and might indirectly have affected Microsoft's decision to include more RAM in the 360. It popularised the horde mode as a feature for shooters (though to be fair that was Gears 2).
 
TheUnsungHero26

TheUnsungHero26

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Oct 25, 2017
3,348
Canada
Matemático

Matemático

Banned
Mar 22, 2019
332
Brazil
I played U1, U2 and U3 on PS3, and played all 6 Gears games on Xbox One. To me, both series are the same games, having only diferent plots.
 
Ignis

Ignis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,757
GoW for the mechanics.
UC2 for the cinematics.
Mix the two and you have basically every third person adventure game from the last 10 years.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,142
What a weird poll, the other options are literally proof that Gears was the most influential of these games, since they all aped it pretty hard.
 
Phendrift

Phendrift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,293
Virtualoso said:
The obvious answer is Gears of War, but I believe that second place is The Last of Us. It opened a door for interactive context and adult storytelling that no game before it had. The changes it brought to the industry are more subtle though, so it's no surprise that it's influences are not easily recognizable.
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MGS1 already did that in 1998 though

and if we're talking weaving interactivity into the story, did it way better
 
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Fredrik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,003
Equanimity said:
ND didn't change Uncharted combat to be more like Gears, it went in a completely different direction.

Have you even played the Uncharted series?
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I can't copy text to era for some reason but google "From Uncharted to Obra Dinn" on Arstechnica, it's an interview with Lucas Pope from ND. He said they changed Uncharted after Gears 1 game out.

And they did it good, the first thing that popped up in my head was "Oh cool! It's like in Gears!" minus throwing frags in a energence hole to avoid having more enemies rush in.

Edit: oh already mentioned
 
formasymphonic

formasymphonic

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,642
I *want* to say Gears, because there was definitely a period where a lot of studios were basically just trying to male their own Gears of War, but then I'm hiking how much of that was entirely Gears itself, and how much of it was a result of what UE3's tools had to offer devs.
 
TheUnsungHero26

TheUnsungHero26

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,348
Canada
Equanimity said:
Alright fair enough. I had no idea the first game was in some form mechanically influenced by Gears, especially given the short period between their release.

Check this video:

A lot of what you see in this prototype video made it into the final build
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Yeah it's crazy that something like the core combat mechanics can change so late in game development. I've always had a soft spot for the first Uncharted, but 2 definitely improved the shooting.
 
Rodelero

Rodelero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,513
TheYanger said:
What a weird poll, the other options are literally proof that Gears was the most influential of these games, since they all aped it pretty hard.
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I think that's just a poor interpretation of the question. The question isn't "which game has influenced the others the most", it's "which game is most influential". Gears of War significantly influenced the three other games on the list. Uncharted 2 by comparison has been more widely influential across a wider range of games (and Gears 5 is of course very heavily influenced by the Uncharted games).

The interpretation of the question many here are using seems pretty pointless. Gears of War came out before the others and clearly influenced a specific mechanic in the others. That doesn't mean it's 'most influential'. Cover mechanics aren't that widespread.
 
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