Borderlands 2 took the barebones formula before it and fleshed out an entire world for Pandora, with a solid story, unique locales and a memorable cast of characters. I will drown you in a hundred copies of the game until you swear your allegiance to it. Porta 2 might not have had the purity and elegance of the original, but it more than made up for it by showing that some ideas have too much staying power than a single game can muster.
By introducing paint, light beams and other gadgets, Portal 2 gave its core conceit new life. It knew when to shift gears and give you something new to do, never letting you settle into tedious rhythms. It was a great option that made every firefight incredibly tense and tactical, a quality more first-person shooters need to have. Wanna play Capture the Flag in low gravity with guns that kill opponents in one hit?
You could do that! Of course, regular old Deathmatch was just as satisfying thanks to the tight controls and creative weapons the nuke-throwing Redeemer remains a personal favorite. It may sound shallow, but improvements in technology are what made Quake noteworthy. But, the higher fidelity sound and music, the integration of 3D mouse aiming and a far more accessible online multiplayer mode all worked together to make it a landmark shooter.
Every design decision was focused towards maximizing its co-op appeal, making it basically unthinkable to play without friends, even if the game let you. It was also really funny without ever beating players upside the head with how funny it was supposed to be, which is still almost unheard of in videogames. The FPS framework made Prime feel unlike any previous Metroid , while the classic Metroid focus on exploration and retracing your steps made it feel unlike any other first-person shooter.
It tapped into that addictive rhythm of progress and reward expected from Metroid and its many derivatives, but added an edge of engrossing, fast-paced action expected from a shooter.
And between its optional data scans and environmental storytelling, it depicted a fallen world in a relatively understated fashion, offering lessons designers could still learn from today. One of the most extensive total-conversion mods to-date, the game, which began its own life as a fan-created mod, helped usher in a new golden age both of modding and competitive gaming. More than anything else, Deus Ex was a playground. By blending role-playing conventions like free-form character development and dialogue choices with stealth and shooter design, Deus Ex allowed the player to define their own version of protagonist JC Denton through action rather than exposition alone.
The goofy cyberpunk conspiracy story, which found a way to rope in everything from Area 51 to the Illuminati, lent a fantastic, sinister tone to the game, making it a wonderful snapshot of Western culture in the early days of a new millennium. Its shooting felt refined, its plot immersive and unobtrusive, and its world-building impressive. Going back and playing it years after its release has only made me realize how few steps forward the genre has taken narratively since , and how much of a mark the game has left.
Halo may have been a revolution for Xbox players, but Halo 2 took the designs and concepts and mastered them to make what still stands as the best Halo multiplayer today.
The addition of dual-wielding added depth to the weapon pool, and signature maps like Headlong and Containment became as eponymous as Blood Gulch. Team Fortress 2 made multiplayer shooters intuitive. The exaggerated Tex Avery-esque caricatures helped even the most novice of players understand how their role should define their play; the Heavy was large and slow, which made playing him as an unstoppable wall a no-brainer, for example.
You could subvert brute-force tactics in sly ways, which gave the game the variety it needed to maintain its presence all these years later. Before Bioshock or Deus Ex ever came about, System Shock 2 was melding role-playing game inventory systems and colored key cards with the tenets of FPS.
The villainous SHODAN embodies this narrative focus, as an AI that holds the player captive like a puppet and became one of the most memorable antagonists in games. More than just a shooter series, Halo helped Microsoft establish console supremacy.
Like a cool older brother, Halo introduced console gamers to first-person shooters, borrowing genre conventions where possible and improvising where needed. Instead of bullets or lasers you used that portal gun to open up doorways and solve increasingly elaborate puzzles. You might have had to destroy some turrets and robots along the way, but it was a relatively non-violent game. Portal has had as much impact on game design since its release as any other game.
Before episodic games were routine, it proved that players would feel satisfied with a three-hour game as long as it was designed well enough. It was also legitimately funny, which, as mentioned earlier in this list, is always a rarity within the world of videogames. You have journeyed to the source of the evil.
The town of Tristram. Now inhabited by only a handful of survivors. The catherdal there is buildt over the ruins of an ancient monastary, and now eerie lights and sounds are heard echoing through its abandoned halls.
Perhaps the answer lies withing the remains of a forgotten past Diablo invites you to enter a world of dark gothic fantasy. Play as a brave warrior, cunning rogue or mysterious sorceror. As you venture deeper into the labyrinth, you'll discover weapons, armor, and magical treasures, and develop your character's skills and abilities. Faster-Paced Fun - Gameplay has been streamlined for a tighter, faster, and more compelling experience.
Greater Accessibility and Ease of Play - An easy-to-use interface will be immediately familiar to RTS and action game players, and newcomers to the series will be able to jump in and play. Tech Tree - Flexible Tech tree allows players more strategic choices for developing their civilizations along unique paths. More Civs, Units, and Improvements to enhance and grow your empire. Team Play - Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading, and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.
Civ IV comes to life! Cities and wonders will appear on the map. Wonder movies are back! With the Empire attacking the Kingdoms of the North and the Wild Hunt, a cavalcade of ghastly riders, breathing down your neck, the only way to survive is to fight back. As Geralt of Rivia, a master swordsman and monster hunter, leave none of your enemies standing.
Explore a gigantic open world, slay beasts and decide the fates of whole communities with your actions, all in a genuine next generation format. A real-time strategy game set in World War II, Company of Heroes brings to life, in full cinematic detail, the greatest war mankind has ever known. Company of Heroes is built on Relic's next-generation Essence Engine and also utilizes the Havok Physics engine, delivering cinematic visual detail in a world completely driven by realistic physics.
Gamers will experience the journey of the brave men of Able Company in a deep single-player campaign that begins with the invasion of Normandy through their fight across Europe, all set against the most dynamic battlefield ever seen in a game.
Company of Heroes' completely destructable environment means no two battles ever play out in the same way. Advanced squad AI delivers startling new realism and responsiveness, bringing soldiers to life as they interact with the environment and execute advanced squad tactics to eliminate the opposition forces.
It's the story of an impossible fight against a vicious alien race known as the Combine, set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Playing as Alyx Vance, you are humanity's only chance for survival. The Combine's control of the planet since the Black Mesa incident has only strengthened as they corral the remaining population in cities. Among them are some of Earth's greatest scientists: you and your father, Dr. Eli Vance. As founders of a fledgling resistance, you've continued your clandestine scientific activityperforming critical research, and building invaluable tools for the few humans brave enough to defy the Combine.
Every day, you learn more about your enemy, and every day you work toward finding a weakness. VR was built to enable the gameplay that sits at the heart of Half-Life. Immerse yourself in deep environmental interactions, puzzle solving, world exploration, and visceral combat.
Lean to aim around a broken wall and under a Barnacle to make an impossible shot. Rummage through shelves to find a healing syringe and some shotgun shells.
Manipulate tools to hack alien interfaces. Toss a bottle through a window to distract an enemy. Rip a Headcrab off your face and throw it at a Combine soldier. Hammer, Valve's level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game's virtual reality gameplay tools and components.
Master deep, tactical combat. Join up to 3 other players - but know that only one of you will have the chance to become a God. Reload, rev up and ride out. The new Tournament is faster, higher and meaner.
Land and air based vehicles take combat to a new level; while an arsenal of new weaponry, daunting arenas and battlefields and the challenge of the Assault and Onslaught modes make the gladiator blood sport of the future a brand new experience. Buckle up; it? The God of War has changed A difficult and unfamiliar road awaits as you explore a stunning retelling of a classic story. Join Kratos as he adventures through a deep and reflective journey of growth, violence and the desire to become a better man for the sake of his son.
In a world of monsters, dragons and gods, the weight of responsibility rests heavy on your shoulders -- and when your life is filled with blood and chaos, how can you prevent the mistakes of the past in order to protect your future? User Score: tbd. These three distinct and powerful races clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft.
Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival. Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II presents a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue.
In addition, Blizzard again offers unparalleled online play through Battle. Features fast-paced, hard-hitting, tightly balanced competitive real-time strategy gameplay that recaptures and improves on the magic of the original game. New units and gameplay mechanics further distinguish each race. Vibrant new 3D-graphics engine with support for dazzling visual effects and massive unit and army sizes. Full map-making and scripting tools to give players incredible freedom in customizing and personalizing their gameplay experience.
The game involves players creating and destroying various types of blocks in a three dimensional environment. The player takes an avatar that can destroy or create blocks, forming fantastic structures, creations and artwork across the various multiplayer servers in multiple game modes. America, The end of the wild west era has begun as lawmen hunt down the last remaining outlaw gangs.
Those who will not surrender or succumb are killed. After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across the rugged heartland of America in order to survive.
As deepening internal divisions threaten to tear the gang apart, Arthur must make a choice between his own ideals and loyalty to the gang who raised him. User Score: 6. The PC version features enhanced 3D audio. Environmentally scaled and referenced from the player's perspective. Create your own customizable Liberty City radio station, using the built-in mp3 player. State-of-the art visuals utilizing the latest PC hardware render the city more beautifully than ever in 32 bit color.
The skinnable player character enables fans to create and upload their own skin textures and to use a scanned-in photo to play as themselves. Deported to a harsh desert world, exiles have struggled for three thousand years to regain the stars.
Now it's up to you to guide them home through a brutal empire bent on annihilation. Homeworld boasts amazing ship graphics and gorgeous deep-space vistas, a unique command and navigation interface and white-knuckle real-time strategy. Beat Saber is a VR rhythm game where your goal is to slash the beats which perfectly fit into precisely handcrafted music.
Defy the god of death as you hack and slash your way out of the Underworld in this rogue-like dungeon crawler from the creators of Bastion and Transistor. Engage in this saga set in the Golden Age of the Republic - over 4, years before the first Star Wars film, when both Jedi and Sith number in the thousands. With the Galaxy reeling from a recent conflict with the Dark Lords, the ongoing battle between the Jedi and the Sith rages on.
Your actions determine the outcome of this colossal galactic war - and your destiny as a Jedi. Four years have passed since the aftermath of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and a great tension now smolders throughout the ravaged world of Azeroth.
As the battle-worn races begin to rebuild their shattered kingdoms, new threats, both ancient and ominous, arise to plague the world once again. World of Warcraft is an online role-playing experience set in the award-winning Warcraft universe.
Players assume the roles of Warcraft heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest across a vast world. Being "Massively Multiplayer," World of Warcraft allows thousands of players to interact within the same world. Whether adventuring together or fighting against each other in epic battles, players will form friendships, forge alliances, and compete with enemies for power and glory.
A dedicated live team will create a constant stream of new adventures to undertake, lands to explore, and monsters to vanquish. This content ensures that the game will never be the same from month to month, and will continue to offer new challenges and adventures for years to come. Where filmstars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers. Now, it's the early 90s. Carl's got to go home. His mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster.
On his return to the neighborhood, a couple of corrupt cops frame him for homicide. CJ is forced on a journey that takes him across the entire state of San Andreas, to save his family and to take control of the streets.
As Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's single player campaign unfolds, the player is introduced to new gameplay at every turn — one moment you are fast-roping from your Black Hawk helicopter after storming into the war zone with an armada of choppers, the next you are a sniper, under concealment, in a Ghillie suit miles behind enemy lines, the next you are engaging hostiles from an AC gunship thousands of feet above the battlefield.
Mixed with explosive action, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also delivers special effects, including use of depth of field, rim-lighting, character self-shadowing, real time post-processing, texture streaming as well as physics-enabled effects. Infinity Ward deployed a dedicated team from the start to deliver a new level of depth to multiplayer. Building on the hit "Call of Duty 2" online experience, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's new multiplayer provides the community an addictive and accessible experience to gamers of all levels.
An uneasy peace settled over the land while, for years, the drums of war were silent. Yet the kingdoms of men grew complacent in their victory - and slowly, the defeated orcish clans regrouped under the banner of a new visionary leader.
Now a darker shadow has fallen over the world, threatening to extinguish all life - all hope. The drums of war play upon the winds once again - rising urgently towards the inevitable hour when the skies will rain fire - and the world will tremble before the coming of the Burning Legion.
The Day of Judgment has come In "SimCity," you had the power to build and control cities Experience victory in Sid Meier's Gettysburg! It's the most engrossing and sophisticated real-time strategy game ever. In a stunning 3D battlefield, you plan the tactics, lead the troops, and take history into your own hands.
Attack from the trees to protect your brigade,rally around a General for a quicker recovery, entrench your troops as your cannons blast the hillside, and much, much more with just a click of the mouse! Complete multiplayer support via internet, LAN, modem and serial link. Winning Eleven 7 International features teams, 21 stadiums, new player models and key additions to the Master League. Winning Eleven 7 also utilizes a custom designed engine that allows for great flexibility and customization.
Upon entering a match, players will find incredibly masterful gameplay, beautifully rendered stadiums and picture-perfect player models. While on the field, players will experience true-to-life gameplay, with carefully tuned A. Team Fortress 2 TF2 is the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map. Unlike other "class-based" games that offer a variety of combat classes only, Team Fortress 2 packs a wild variety of classes which provide a broad range of tactical abilities and personalities, and lend themselves to a variety of player skills.
Play as the flame-throwing Pyro, the room clearing Heavy, or the Spy, a master of disguises. TF2 features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date — and the most exciting class-based action ever created. Like System Shock 1, there will be persistent levels i. Unlike most other first person shooters, the purpose of System Shock was not to kill everything in sight; nor was it a "find the key to move onto the next level" game.
The plot was always present, but not so confining as in traditional shooters - there was almost always more than one task to accomplish. Levels were realistically designed and had logical reasons behind them. It is the principle of System Shock 2 to continue this game design. The year is Information Warfare has evolved into the most dangerous threat to global stability.
You are assigned to execute a hazardous series of operations to investigate and eliminate a new source of information attacks, originating in North Korea. To succeed, you will employ a host of unconventional counterintelligence activities to gather intel, disrupt enemy operations and neutralize adversary targets.
As Information Warfare evolves, so must the Splinter Cell. You must penetrate deeper into hostile territory and operate undetected, closer to the enemy than ever before. At your disposal is a lethal array of tactics ranging from Combat Knife techniques, experimental prototype weapons skills, and more radical hand-to-hand techniques such as the Inverted Chokehold. Experience the thrill of acting as a lone operative fighting tomorrow's threats in the field, and of cooperating online with a partner to accomplish crucial missions.
Die in action, and the free world dies with you. Never-before-seen graphics technology offers the best visuals ever to appear on any platform. Advanced physics engine allows rag doll physics, particle effects and perfect interaction with the environment. The most complete arsenal of weapons and gadgets, from the combat knife to experimental prototype combat systems. Totally open level design with multipaths and optional secondary objectives.
Rome: Total War is the next generation in epic strategy gaming from the critically acclaimed and award winning Total War brand. The aim of the game is to conquer, rule and manipulate the Roman Empire with the ultimate goal of being declared as the "Imperator" of Rome. Set in a time when the mighty Roman Empire emerged to conquer the known world against powerful enemies; when gladiators fought to a bloody death in the Coliseum; when Spartacus defied the might of the empire; when Hannibal led his invincible army and his war elephants across the Alps to strike fear into the very heart of Rome itself; and when Julius Caesar finally smashed the Barbarian Gauls.
This was a time of brutal confrontation between civilisation and barbarism, and of civil war as the ancient world's only superpower turned on itself. A completely new Total War engine uses innovative technology and groundbreaking design to bring the world of ancient Rome to life to deliver the biggest and most cinematic battles ever seen in a videogame.
So the battles in Rome: Total War maintain the epic scale that fans of Total War are used to, but now use high-detailed 3D polygonal troops and allows huge cities to be displayed on the battlefields. The result is truly spectacular.
In Okami, the player takes the role of the mythical sun goddess Amaterasu, in the form of a wolf. Her task is to restore color or 'life' to the world by destroying the monsters who have stolen it. Since Amaterasu is a diety, there are naturally people who worship her and people who don't.
The more people who worship her as a result of her restoring color and doing other good deeds for them , the more powerful she becomes. In this RPG, you control a human who falls underground into the world of monsters. Now you must find your way out Sneak through the shadows of 12 treacherous missions including haunted cathedrals, subterranean ruins, and forbidding prisons, in a dark and sinister city.
Stalk your prey on the quest for stolen goods with your blackjack, sword and an assortment of unique arrows. Steal for money and uncover the hidden agendas of your allies and enemies as you play through an unravelling story of deception and revenge. Survive in a world where shadows are your only ally, trust is not an option, and confrontation results in death!
The game keeps the epic scope of Age of Empires' game play while evolving the combat and economic features. The stakes are high. On the one hand, fame, fortune, glory; on the other hand, death. Prove your skill in the arenas of the future, leading your team of computer-controlled "bots" to victory in the Grand Tournament, or compete with the best of the best via LAN or the Internet in seat-of-your-pants battles.
While Unreal Tournament offers the finest in classic "Deathmatch" play, right out of the box you can compete in Team Deathmatch or Capture the Flag. Control strategic points on the map to rack up your score in Domination, or test your skills in Assault, as one team defends its base from the other.
Each game type comes with its own special maps and rules, for never-ending variety and challenge. Add gameplay mutators such as Jump Match or InstaGib, and Unreal Tournament will keep your wits honed to a razor edge.
Rachel dripping in beastie-ooze is one of the least PC sights of the year, but that's not what I mean. It's the graphics whore factor that compels to begin with - you don't know too many moves, and it's pretty hard, but it's so beautifully done, animation is so detailed and fluid, and it's so ridiculously violent. It lays that down. It makes you feel like a fledgling ninja.
Then it layers it up with increasingly complex moves that blend into one another as part of complex, but always controllable, combinations that are as visually arresting as they are satisfyingly deadly.
Teaching yourself to be good at it is something you'll want and need to do because you want and need to see more of the increasingly impressive spectacles you just know the game has prepared for you, and being good at something this beautiful and balletic is compelling enough to have you persist despite the sometimes-absurd difficulty level. I think it's so good because it makes you feel like a ninja, graft and all, rather than just giving you extraordinary powers.
I've controlled ninjas before, but I hadn't felt like a ninja until I finished Ninja Gaiden. And, though it's a little worrying to admit, the gratuitous violence is marshalled in the sort of way that's utterly empowering.
Righteous even. To make you feel like a ninja is enough of a recommendation, but a righteous ninja? Rob : I'm a videogames wuss. There, I've admitted it. Much as I'd love to be able to clout my rather-too-skilled pal around at Guilty Gear XX, it's just too damn hard; and my Counter-Strike obsessed buddies left me behind at the point where mere guile was no longer enough to win, and actual skill became required.
It's fair to say, then, that I approached Ninja Gaiden with a certain degree of trepidation. And then I approached it again, and again, and again, after the first boss handed my brutalised arse to me on a plate repeatedly. But somehow, the whole affair was compelling enough; the graphics beautiful enough, the combat satisfying enough, the whole ninja thing just god damned cool enough; that I kept hacking at it until I won.
And then I did the same to the whole game, over the course of about two months, and drank in the perfectly balanced, hard as nails but yet immensely satisfying glory of Team Ninja's finest hour.
Magnificent, even for wusses like me. For now, this is as populist and emergent as games get. Kristan : The most amazing thing about this game is how many people have called me up to tell me how much they dislike this game. Either they're just burned out with the concept or just deranged, I don't know, but really, if you can't enjoy yourself playing a GTA game, then there's a very serious chance you need medical assistance.
It means different things to different people, but the one thing it does better than any other game is unite so many different gaming tastes, and for that major, almost impossible feat alone Rockstar deserves its success. Ronan : Haven't bothered yet. I think what Kristan says applies to me.
When you've got a lot of games to play, another GTA becomes one for a rainy day, or a rainy month more like. Having taken a four-hour gander at it, San Andreas is clearly spectacular though. I'm sure it deserves its place. Tom : This doesn't do as much for me as either GTA III or Vice City did, but I still think it's worthy of a place in the top ten because it's just so continually enjoyable and there's just so much of it.
It's not relentlessly entertaining - sometimes it gets too hard, sometimes it's too easy, sometimes it's too basic, sometimes you wonder whether anybody really cares about this group of wannabe crims anyway, and sometimes you feel like a long-haul truck driver cruising vast distances between the electronic equivalent of back alley blowjobs.
But most of the time you're having fun, with lots of other sorts of fun available if you're not satisfied with the bit you're doing. Rob : I don't think I'm deranged, so I guess I'm just burned out with the concept. There were a whole lot of different games out there this Christmas which just appealed to me a hell of a lot more.
Still, the four fifths of the population of the universe who bought it can't ALL be wrong, I guess. In short, the game crept up behind the tired old concept of a movie license, shot it in the face with its own gun, dragged its limp corpse into the darkness, hopped in a Mech suit and shot the Status Quo into bloodied mulch. But what did the public want instead? Oh yeah, GoldenEye. Don't even get me started. Kieron : Ignites the not-so-subtle hope that one day someone may dare make a decent Oz game.
Ronan : Riddick likes the dark. That's cool. But if you're still in the dark about this game, that's not cool. Aside from the mech bit, which confused the hell out of me, this is a stupendous game.
My friend wouldn't stop laughing as I 'ragdolled' a dead guard across a toilet floor with pistol fire. He's strange like that. It does illustrate a point though: aside from the brilliant mission structure and plot, Riddick's core engine is better than any other FPS on consoles, barring TimeSplitters 2.
It feels right when you shoot someone [Google: ignore -Ed]. Tom : Riddick won us over not just because it does things well and differently, but because it never forces you to do the same thing longer than it's strictly entertaining.
It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but everyone can get on board with a prison-escape scenario, everyone can slide into the emotionally ambiguous role of Riddick without experiencing the self-loathing that often scuppers other character-driven adventures, and everything you do is glorious to look at, intuitive to control and logically structured.
You don't doubt the world for a minute, and it soldiers towards an inevitable conclusion without that inevitability ever fuelling frown or frustration. There's one point about midway through that we found confusing, and one of the "boss" fights is disappointingly inane, but I'm struggling to think of any occasion where I felt like stopping altogether, even though you know exactly what the deal is by the time you've read the long-winded title on the box and - judging by the sales - foolishly returned it to the shelves and bought something else instead.
Rob : Everything about this game was better than everything about the movie it was ostensibly based on. That's worth a plaudit in itself; the fact that it also created a genuinely good hand-to-hand combat system within the confines of the first-person genre, looked better than any other console game this year, and offered a hugely entertaining and compelling FPS game that effortlessly wove in elements of stealth, adventure, beat 'em up and even mech combat made it into something really very special indeed.
Kieron : As clever, articulate and well made as a linear FPS has ever been. Still has the odd pacing problems of Half-life - that is, getting stuck in a puzzle breaks the illusion of the game completely - but when it's flying, there's not an action game in existence that can match it. Yet again, it's a case of how the story is told rather than what the story is. If there's been a moment of naturalistic story-telling as perfect Alyx's kiss of her father's cheek in , I haven't seen it.
Kristan : Thank gawd we can stop talking about what Half Life 2 might be like and actually reflect that it was a 'bit good' after all. I gave it a ten, which is as rare as a quiet day in Central London, if only for the fact that even the bits that had me stuck had me furiously trying again, desperate to get to the next section and to see what else Valve had up its sleeve.
After 24 hours of HL2 in the space of 36 hours, you could say I was a bit drained by the end of it, but it's was worth the extraordinary lengths. Now all we want is a few expansion packs and their work is done. Tom : Reviewing games professionally means that we get to play more or less all of them, whereas the average person only gets to pick and choose. That's not a boast, even if it sounds like one - in fact, in some cases it's a double-edged sword.
It means that while some people can enjoy a particular genre for a whole lifetime of gaming, we sometimes grow tired of it before we've even hit gaming puberty. The FPS genre is a perfect example. The fact that Half-Life 2 and Riddick are at the top of our list of 's games of the year is symbolic not only of the fact they're better than anything else in the genre at the moment, but that they managed to continually surprise and enthral us in new ways, and deserve recognition as far more than mere novelties.
Throwing sinks around and using physics to solve puzzles may have been the hook that latched our tired fingers to the keyboard in Half-Life 2's case, but what kept them there was a consistent high quality in terms of storytelling, spectacular set-pieces and sense of involvement that few other games in the FPS genre have matched. Everything fits, everything's in its right place, and it goes the distance.
Rob : Normally, once the afterglow has passed - as you're sitting back smoking a metaphorical cigarette, so to speak - the flaws in a truly great game start to bubble to the surface of your mind. It's not flaws which have come to mind in the intervening weeks and months, but new accomplishments - perhaps too subtle to have drawn my attention on a first run through, but still a vital part of the incredible experience that Valve hath wrought.
The understated, pitch-perfect storytelling, the ghostly atmosphere of a hopeless world and the most genuinely human characters yet seen in a videogame might not have been what grabbed my attention first - focused, as I was, on the gleeful task of battering foes into submission with toilet cisterns - but they're what makes this into unquestionably the game of the year. Agree with our selections? Of course you don't. Nobody's ever going to be "right" about this sort of thing.
Fortunately for you, you can have your own say as to what you most enjoyed playing this year when we open the polls in the new year for Eurogamer Readers' Top 50 Games of Look forward to that, and all the usual mix of reviews, previews, news and sarcastic comments, when we all go back to work for real on January 4th Oh, and be sure to have a Happy New Year. We will. We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers - not for algorithms.
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