It's been mentioned, but it wasn't really revolutionary. Yes it's the biggest & most successful, but it also wasn't the 1st and doesn't really do anything others don't. The award for revolutionary MMO rightfully belongs to Ultima Online.

Well, just to chuck my 2 cents into this "discussion":

Revolutionary games: (Strictly IMHO)
*Wolfenstein 3d - First (iirc) "3D" shooter game. Ran in DOS, and likely caused a stir due to the "extreme violent content".
*DooM - Much more popular than Wolfenstein 3d was and was observed to be a sizeable cause of "slacking off" at workplaces
*Duke Nukem 3D - Well I wouldn't call it revolutionary, but the fact that the player's character shot off one-liners - and more importantly, could jump - led to it becoming a very popular post-DooM game, lending it's style to other build engine games such as Shadow Warrior and Blood.
*Quake - First "True 3d" FPS game (AFAIK)
*Mario - A real "no duh".
*Age of Empires - AFAIK and in my personal experience I think this is the game that gave birth to the modern RTS genre.
*Spore - Being able to create an entire universe of stuff (excluding storyline, gameplay, and to a degree, planets) and give birth to your own personal creations and see them being used so well in a game is what makes me consider this game revolutionary. At least in the character creation sense, since I found the gameplay itself so-so.
*Adventure - Personal preference. Simply because it made it's own genre.
*Rogue - Also personal preference because it also made it's own genre.

Not Revolutionary games:
*Halo
*Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (I'm a bit iffy on this, but i'd put it down to it just being over-hyped)
*Gears of War (Although I love the "Over the Top meathead" style)

> implying revolutionary = new

I wonder how you explain the way WoW changed the face of MMO gaming without bringing anything new.

Definition time

revolutionary
-adjective
of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.

K, so I'm not taking it literally because that would be far too anal, but for a game to be revolutionary it should either do something new or do something new with an existing mechanic.

Halo is a prime example of taking existing stuff, sticking it together and doing nothing new with it.


WoW's success can be pointed at many things, the most obvious being that it came from a relatively large company who had the money & manpower to make it what it is today.

Still it doesn't bring anything new, it just happened to do a better job of the things others had been trying for years. IMO not revolutionary, just an example of how to do the genre correctly.

Eve however could be argued into the list, since being able to use the ingame currency to pay for your subscription is a huge change from the norm.

System Shock series together with Deus Ex was revolutionary, but, sadly, failed to gain much appreciation. X-wing and Tie-Fighter series also revolutionizer space-flight sims, although Wing Commander was first to introduce ''the feeling'', those two I mentioned form the look of future space sims.
After Wolferstein 3D, Doom 1 and 2 put the first stones in the path of shooter genre.
That is just some look at the past. I'm glad that I was there when those games where first out. Experiencing it for the first time...

You want a revolutionary game? here is one not mentioned much. Fallout 3 and what it did and is doing for both shooters and shooter RPGs

the game pretty much proved that you can have both at once plus a long and exciting story all wrapped in one. before fallout 3 you thought a shooter had to be call of duty where you went from A to B, after Fallout three combined that with their unique style, showing that you can now have both an open world and a first person shooter with RPG elements and a great story with sidequests, nothing will be the same after a few years. they basically put all the great things about a lot of genres and mashed them together into an amazing game.

Rage will be the game that perfects it though, keep an eye out for it

Metal gear!! Indeed...
Metal gear solid--> brought new type of non combat stealth style
Metal gear solid 2 ---> made better ai
Metal gear solid 3 --> i really loved: healing yourself when shot, camouflage, and enviroment
Metal gear solid 4 --> if you expect an explanation why this game is revolutionary... Just an indeed.

Something that might very well be too young to call, but take a look at Achron. It's really, really serious about making time travel work sensibly in a game.

Call of duty killing off the health bar was pretty signifigant, but other than that and introducing the concept of war in the modern age, i dont think its much of a game changer long term

The first call of duty was a pretty big deal as I remember. The way the campaign made you part of a squad instead of fighting alone was a big change. Also it was the first game to have a TDM I enjoyed. Counterstrike and Unreal Tournament can suck my dick.