

1998 and 2004 have strong cases, as other comments have mentioned, but I think 2007 has got to be up there as well. The Orange Box alone was massively influential, even for just the new-to-'07 releases (TF2, Portal, HL2EP2), and was almost entirely unique - I don’t think we’ve really seen anything like it before or since. Beyond that, you have stuff like Halo 3, CoD 4, Assassin’s Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, and Guitar Hero 3.







I was always disappointed that they bound the skillbar to weapon types and removed secondary professions in GW2. The possibilities for character builds were virtually endless in GW1’s system, and you could make your character really feel like your own. I did play GW2 for a while, and it was fun in its own ways, but the original still holds much more nostalgia for me.