Super Mario 64

In 1996 nobody knew how a platformer should work in three dimensions. Super Mario 64 worked it out and set the rules everyone else followed. You explore worlds you reach by jumping into paintings on the walls of a castle, hunting for stars hidden in each one. The real achievement is invisible: the way Mario runs, jumps, long-jumps, wall-kicks, and slides feels so good that just moving him around an empty courtyard is fun. The camera, controlled by a second stick on a new controller, taught players how to look around a 3D space. Half the joy is mastering the movement itself.