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Games that inspired you to get into games development (all areas)

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polycounter lvl 8
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SaboR1996 polycounter lvl 8
So, What games helped or inspired you to get into games, whatever role you are or want to succeed in

my 10, not listing specifics, just series names, this doesn't include the entire series.
1. Spyro
2. Crash Bandicoot
3. Final Fantasy
4. World of Warcraft
5. Ratchet and Clank
6. Jak and Daxter
7. Medievil 1 & 2 (That is the correct spelling for the game)
8. Tony Hawks
9. Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain
10. And a new addition which I could say is recent: Dark Souls

Hey, what can I say, I love my platformers and RPGs

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  • Eric Chadwick
  • rino
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    rino polycounter lvl 11
    gta san andreas
  • Justin Meisse
  • Clark Coots
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    Clark Coots polycounter lvl 12
    playing and level building for Day of Defeat: Source
  • GrevSev
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    GrevSev polycounter lvl 9
    Metroid Prime 2, 3
    Majoras mask
    [Other Earlier games]

    It was mainly me wanting to enjoy the go music Sitting around in those games gave me the chance to look at the characters and environments.
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time

    It was the game that made me want to create amazing 3d worlds myself and others could escape to and get lost in. It made me go from just wanting to play games to wanting to create them.
  • deohboeh
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    deohboeh polycounter lvl 5
    Assassin's Creed's open world climbing mechanic and how it gives a totally different perspective to gameplay. Funny thing is I haven't played any of them except the first. :D
  • D4V1DC
  • JamesArk
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    JamesArk polycounter lvl 10
    Starcraft for the map editor. Little Fighter 2 for being the first time I ever edited sprite sheets and tried to mod something.
  • Wishie
    Assassin's creed
    Guild Wars 2
    Final Fantasy Tactics Advance; someday I'll create a mock-up inspired by this game. I like how the scenes are set up.
    Pokemon Pinball: ruby & saphire
    Feevo (when it was on fb); made me have a greater interest in wanting to create puzzle based games. Same with Fractals: make bloom not wars.
  • NegevPro
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    NegevPro polycounter lvl 4
    In no order: Starcraft 1, Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, American McGee's Alice, UT2004, Quake 3, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Timesplitters, and Turok.

    Man I love gaming.

    EDIT: HOW COULD I FORGET TO PUT PERSONA ON THIS LIST?
  • GarageBay9
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    GarageBay9 polycounter lvl 13
    Total Annihilation, Homeworld, Deus Ex, and IL-2 Sturmovik.
  • StephenVyas
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    StephenVyas polycounter lvl 18
    While making DoomII wads, I never thought that it might lead to an actual career path, but I'd like to think that if DoomII never existed I probably wouldn't have had that stepping stone to learn from.

    &

    Quakeworld, because of Tyler Wilson, an old clan mate of mine, who helped me get my foot in the door. I owe him bigtime!
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    RPG in general (not nesseraly digital) and RTS (genere as whole).
    It's rather funny because RPG inspired me in a way that there is no RPG on the market that I would really enjoy so I decided it would be best to try make my own :D

    My issue with RPGs is rather odd one. There is just no combination of RPG mechanics, Slasher and TPP shooter that would be appealing to me. Ideal RPG for me should be shooter, with sword fighting with Gears Of War like camera and mechanics more complex than Arcanum (implemented in logical way, where player skill replace dice rolls where it make sense).
    It might be funny, but there is no such RPG on the market right now.
    Maybe it is to niche..

    RTS is different story as it started with Dune, and since then I played probably most of RTS that came out. Some really shitty, but never the less I did. I don't remember most of names now, but I remember images of them. It's sad I'd like to play some of them again ;/.

    In RTS I just enjoyed the idea of controlling everything.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Doom 3, Castlevania: Symphony of the night, Morrowind, Oblivion, Super Mario 64, and Pokemon.
  • Alphavader
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    Alphavader polycounter lvl 11
    Mostly the EDITOR of the games brought me into games:

    - Warcraft 2 + Duke Nukem + Age of Empires - they had great editors




    cybr1.gif

    and

    GruntFootman.gif

    aaaand

    dia-1.jpg

    aaaand

    halflife1.jpg

    aaaaand

    tumblr_mvnytxANuW1sla1zxo1_500.gif


    aaand:

    quake1.gif

    screenshot6.jpg

    screenshot1012-1.jpg

    aaaand

    Everquest.jpg

    and of course :

    Magic_the_gathering-card_back.jpg
    heroquest1.jpg
    echsenarmee.jpg

    pretty much my whole childhood ;) sorry for spamming
  • maximumsproductions
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    maximumsproductions polycounter lvl 8
    Warcraft Editor, Source SDK CS:S, that xbox platformer N+ and its editor, and Age of Empires II editor... All of which creating scenarios for a group of friends and playing them out together was probably what sparked my interest.
  • Farfarer
    It was Half-Life 2 (or rather, it's mod scene) that really got me into 3D art for games.

    Quake 2 was the first game I played around with skins and models for... but I had no idea what I was doing and didn't get very far. It never occurred to me at the time that folk got paid to do stuff like that for a living and it was worth pursuing (I was only 11 at the time).

    On a grander scale, Deus Ex was the first time I twigged that games could be more than the "shoot everything that moves" stuff that was mostly all I played. And, frankly, it's not been topped yet.
  • Hyderette
    PWI was the first mmorpg i played and that game really inspired me into playing more online games
  • unit187
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    unit187 polycounter lvl 9
    From recent (relatively) releases, 'Dishonored', "Bioshock: Infinite' and 'Mass Effect' - those are the games that keep my passion burning.
  • S_ource
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    S_ource polycounter lvl 9
    I started download skins for Counter Strike Source and Half Life 2, and thought it was really cool that you could make your own stuff and get it into games, so i started looking at tutorials and then it have pretty much just continued.
  • Rens
    legend of the dragoon
    final fantasy 9
  • Dave Jr
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    Dave Jr polycounter lvl 9
    Runescape (Classic Version)

    I was addicted since I was like 12 until I managed to speak to a developer in game and found it was actually a career.

    Gave me some advice, went to Uni and studied to become a 3D artist :) - practiced and still practicing today.. I was then lucky enough to be offered a Role by Jagex who make Runescape.. but had to decline due to a relocation costs and my current landlord...

    So yeah, had to turn down my dream job but I'm sure another opportunity will arise one day :( if they don't hold grudges anway...
  • Pegbird
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    Pegbird polycounter lvl 5
    The first piece of game art I did, circa 1991/92. I thought knuckles was a girl (Amy hadn't been invented yet).


    1Wm08kj.png
  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    this
    petazelda.png
    and this
    Homeworld+2.jpg
    and this



    warcraft1-8.gif
    and this
    Team_Fortress_Classic_2Fort.jpg
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    i didn't know what to do, i've been doing some 3d stuff, some modding her and there, but really i never planned on becoming a game artist. At one point i was just lucky meeting Hanno Hagedorn, who brought me in as a tester and from there on it is history.

    But there are games that inspired me the most and kept me going once i had my foot in the door.

    In no specific order

    from the zelda series those are
    Ocarina of Time
    Minish Cap
    Windwaker

    Team Fortress 2

    Pokemon

    Earthworm Jim

    Shadow of the Colossus
  • commador
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    commador polycounter lvl 14
    Warcraft 2, Goldeneye 64, C&C Tiberium Sun, C&C Red alert 2, and Halo. Those were the ones that had the biggest influence.
  • genwu
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    genwu polycounter lvl 7
    Planetside (1) was a huge influence for me that finally got me to start investigating 3d art (and at the same time Counter-Strike 1.5). Others that come to mind were Legend of Dragoon, FF8, FF10, Metal Gear series, etc. Then Gears of War came out and wrecked my life
  • Shiniku
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    Shiniku polycounter lvl 9
    Morrowind and Oblivion got me most into modding and figuring things out. I also spent a lot of hour sin the map editors for the Xbox Farcry games.
  • SaboR1996
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    SaboR1996 polycounter lvl 8
    Heh, Its great to see I actually got replies to this silly little thread, its great to see other peoples origins and inspirations that made them want to get in games!
  • LMP
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    LMP polycounter lvl 13
    I don't really know what games made me want to get into games development... I played a lot of Age of Empires back around then...
    Though, I think it was Unreal Tournament that nudged me into Environment Art, well before I really knew a thing about environment art.
  • Stormie
  • jocz
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    jocz polygon
  • Gav
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    Gav quad damage
    I've said it so many times, but it's so so true:

    DOOM
    doom0201.jpg

    And also:
    XCOM
    xcom.jpg

    Unreal Tournament
    unreal-tournament-win-title-58032.jpg

    Fallout 2
    fallout2.jpg

    Baldur's Gate
    baldurs-gate-win-ingame-37780.jpg

    Daggerfall
    The-Elder-Scrolls-II-Daggerfall-Full-Free-Game_1.png

    Obviously, a lot of these are just fond childhood memories. I drew fan art for Doom and XCOM constantly - probably more than comic book characters. So, while I didn't actually mode any of them, or look at them like "wow, I'm going to do this someday" it was obviously a childhood obsession. Getting into Quake 3, UT2k, Doom3, etc. is where I started getting more into this as a "career" and being more realistic about doing it as a professional. But, yeah, these were the childhood obsessions that had me dreaming.

    EDIT> Realizing that ALL of my choices are PC games which is weird considering I only really play console games now. What the fuck happened?
  • Higuy
  • Marcus Dublin
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    Marcus Dublin polycounter lvl 17
    Good Topic!

    Here are a few games that inspired me.

    1. Super Mario World
    2. Panzer Dragoon
    3. Nights
    4. Tomb Raider
    5. Street Fighter 2
    6. Final Fantasy 7
    7. Crash Bandicoot
    8. Zelda: Ocarina of Time
    9. Samurai Showdown
    10. Castlevania
  • Polygoblin
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    Polygoblin polycounter
    This brought about the first idea of making games:

    Robocop_-_1989_-_Data_East_Corporation.jpg

    I wanted to give the world the Robocop game it deserved.

    After that, Mortal Kombat and Twisted Metal got the ball rolling and I designed custom cars, fighters, and abilities. Wish I still had those drawings (props, Pegbird!)
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    If fan art counts, for some odd reason I drew a lot of Satan's Hollow fanart as a kid
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj3sED6EQqA"]Satan's Hollow Mame Arcade ROM Classic Game Satan - YouTube[/ame]
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    I think this started it for me.

    250px-US_NAB_FRONT.jpg

    nerf_b.jpg

    I picked this game up when I was 10. For those that do not know, this game is basically a re-skinned, toned down version of the original Unreal Tournament for kids. (My parents wouldn't let me play M games at the age of 10) It was completely powered by the original Unreal engine and even came with it's own version of the Unreal Editor (AKA NerfEd) which was exactly identical to UnrealEd in every way, except for having different art content.

    Here's a comparison between the two editors.

    UnrealEd10.jpg

    and

    2637Qj5.png


    Started learning and making maps in the editor by the age of 11. And here I am today still loving creating maps and now creating art content for them as well. :)

    The Unreal Engine and Editor sure have come a long way since then!
  • odd_enough
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    odd_enough polycounter lvl 9
    26-pwr02.gif

    Descent 1&2

    I was 10 yrs old when the Descent 1 demo came out in '94. And my endeavor into gamedev started when the mod team I was on (Midnight Squadron) tried to make a Descent 4 mod with Descent 3. Was torpedoed by Parallax, but that spark to build worlds never left. I still play D1/D2 on occasion.
  • Lephenix
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    Lephenix polycounter lvl 6
    Star Wars Battlefront 2

    That's how i discovered modding, and started 3d modeling. But I have now more interest in drawing/concept art/illustration.
  • Larkbeef
    Never been as lost in a game before or since then.

    sticker,375x360.u1.png

    Also, Quake 2, all those skins and models. visiting Polycount on 28.8 modem and downloading all of them. Good times.
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    Hmm this one is a little bit tricky, I believe it's most of the games I've played but the biggest impact for sure was. I've played a lot of really good games in my life, but these ones I love because of how open they are, the way they made me feel, like there was a secret in every nook and cranny of the game.

    Outcast
    (I even own t-shirt with the some logo...in the same color...which is not pleasant for the eyes.)
    8f2c05528b8a7c965ef99e58fdf86728.wix_mp_256
    Outcast1b.jpg

    Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

    ZELDA_OCARINA_OF_TIME.jpg

    The Legend of Zelda:
    Legend_of_Zelda_NES_ScreenShot1.jpg
  • MaVCArt
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    MaVCArt polycounter lvl 8
    tough for me to say - I spent most of my childhood in games on the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance sp, including the playstation 1 and 2, but I decided really late in life that I wanted to be a game developer... (around 17 - 18 I believe, which is only 4 - 5 years ago at this point) because that, I don't really have any games that I can say "made" me go into games, but the ones that I most fondly remember:

    Age_of_Mythology_Liner.jpg

    Rayman_3.jpg

    1215549-ratchet_and_clank_2.jpg

    Pok%C3%A9mon_box_art_-_Gold_Version.png

    super-mario-land-2-6-golden-coins-game-boy-boxart.jpg
  • leslievdb
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    leslievdb polycounter lvl 15
    this right here showed me i could create things for games
    basics_sectors_01.png
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
  • rogelio
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    rogelio greentooth
    Many games inspired me to go into my career. but these are the ones that made it easy for me to test out stuff in :D


    Excite Bike was one of the few games that let you make your own tracks and I loved it when I was a kid.

    250px-Excitebike_cover.jpg

    Metroid I did not edit in any form but I drew tons of drawings of levels with repeated tile sets on paper.

    metroid11.gif

    Wolfenstein I did not edit on it but it got me hooked to pc games and soon doom came out and I was able to edit level wad files.

    wolfenstein-3d.png

    Doom sooooo many fun times had with this game. Created tons of levels that I never released.

    Doom_cover_art.jpg

    WarCraft series but WarCraft in general was an instant hook. I remember downloading the demo and playing it I could not get off my pc I was damn addicted. Than the demo ended and I begged parents to buy the game lol. Than I found out it had an editor and omg I was in heaven!
    Warcraft_-_Orcs_%26_Humans_Coverart.png

    I made entire level episodes, new textures, even some enemy scripting with Duke Nukem 3D. This game blew the door open for me. I rally loved this game the editor was fantastic and simple to learn. Really this was true next gen at its time I was really something beyond.

    Duke_Nukem_3D_Coverart.png

    Dark Forces was a hack editor and I was able to make some pretty cool stuff I enjoyed making things for this game a lot and also ended up making almost episode like levels.

    Dark_Forces_box_cover.jpg

    Quake and the whole quake series I think really honed in to what I loved in the game industry I liked to create worlds from textures, modeling, scripting, and really anything. I enjoyed making levels using the worldcraft editor I preferred this one more than others I thought it was a well built tool for making levels for quake.
    Quake1cover.jpgQuake2box.jpg

    Unreal series I moded the crap out of these. I entered mod teams and made entire different games from them. This was really the catalyst for me to move forward with this professionally.

    Unreal tournament was huge for me this was offically the first game that I had something bought by Atari as a small contract so I guess technically I started in the game industry with this game as a small mod.

    Unreal_Coverart.png

    I joined a mod team that made it to the unreal make something contest and we ended up wining first place we completed the game and it got published and so forth a lot of people knew of us after that in the community and it was fun times. Besides modding I would also make levels that were almost or equal quality with the ones that came for UT.

    Unreal_Tournament_box.JPG

    I tried to do stuff with source but I went back to UT it was easier and funner plus UT 2003 was around the corner. The game fuckin rocked and sure opened everyone eyes to the amazing possibilities.
    Half-Life_Cover_Art.jpg

    This was my official big break in industry. After finishing the mod/game I started preparing a lot of higher poly stuff for UT 2003 the level designers (level designer in the past were everything from scripting, art, fx, etc) in the community had a few connections with Epic so we sort of knew what were the specification before the release and we took full advantage of this. I made tons of assets before the game came out and when I came out I did not really play it much... I just opened the editor up and worked on the level pre-planned. The levels created ended up impressing people at Epic and eventually I got a contract gig for UT2004 which was amazing! I consider myself lucky.

    The one level that gave me the gig was DM-1on1-Nirvana-][ pretty much, and also some contacts which I will always be extremely thankful for.

    5987_118399_small.jpg
  • Digital Cantina
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    Digital Cantina polycounter lvl 11
    The first game I ever played was Wolfenstein 3d. Thais right the original. I wasnt yet old enough to sit in the chair and reach the keys so my grandfather (who never got to fight in WWII and always wanted to kill some nazis) would help me play and we would take turns. This more than anything made me want to be in gamedev
  • Polygoblin
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    Polygoblin polycounter
    This thread is nostalgia overload.

    Notable omission: MYST
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    Console gamer ahoy :) I'm not sure games got me inspired to get into games but these are the games that got me inspired and rip out the sketchbook when I was younger

    Donkey kong country
    Zelda - a link to the past
    Super mario world
    Street fighter 2 turbo
    Metal gear solid
    Jet set radio
    Shenmue 2
    Soul calibur
    God of war
    Ico
    Shadow of the colossus
    Kingdom hearts
    Zone of the Enders 2

    Games still do inspire me though, the first batman arkham game really inspired me, god of war 3, uncharted 2, gears of war a bit, mass effect 2, these all made me get into character art. And nothing to date has inspired me as much as seeing the last of us stuff.
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