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The single most influential game, in my opinion is ID Software's DOOM. It is widely considered to be the father of all the FPS genre, and all the games in the entire genre definatley have a lot to thank it for. It also started the entire Multiplayer scene off. True, Online RPGs (mostly MUDs) had been around for ages, but only the pointy-hatted beardy-weirdy peoples. DOOM made multiplayer gaming popular over networks, and generally created a second Genre almost by accident.
The only game i'd say DOOM has to answer to, would be Ultima Underworld (worked on by System Shock and Deus Ex guy Warren Spector dontcha know ^_^), simply because of Doug Church's groundbreaking First-Person 3d engine, that was effectivly the predecessor to all others (true, Wolfenstein 3D was out at the same time, but UU had an engine that was about 30 generations ahead : a fact seen again when System Shock 1 is compared to DOOM.) But neither UU or Shock1 are as groundbreaking as DOOM : DOOM single-handedly made PC gaming popular whereas the other two i've mentioned were hardly played by anyone. Fools ^_^
Oh and C&C did a similar task, in the way it made PC gaming more popular and helped establish the RTS genre (the genre was actually started by another Westwood game : Dune 2). But it loses out to DOOM beacause it came after it.
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