0 Everyone at IGN loves video games. From Assassin’s Creed to Zelda, there’s no feeling quite like getting a brand-new game, hitting Start, and immersing yourself in another world’s mysteries and challenges. But which games are the best of the best? Which games were so far ahead of their time, so much pure fun, that they stand apart? Since we love games - and hate ourselves - we decided to answer this question once and for all.

Inside these pages you’ll find our selections for the 100 Greatest Games Ever Made. The primary criteria we considered when creating this list was simple: How much fun did we have with this game when it came out? Games, like all art, are a product of the era in which they were created.

So with that in mind, we put less emphasis on whether decades-old games can “hold up” against the modern AAA greats, and placed more importance on how incredible that gaming experience felt in its own era. After all, which is a greater achievement - a game that breaks significant new ground and feels a decade ahead of its time, or a game that comes out a generation later and finally manages to make some small improvements to the formula? A few other considerations: • All video games across all platforms were eligible, as long as they were released before June 1, 2015. • We placed no specific emphasis on different editions or versions of a game, if it has appeared on multiple platforms. • All entries must be a single video game - bundles or compilations are not eligible. (Sorry, Super Mario All-Stars). • This list was formed from the collective opinions of everyone on IGN’s.

Read more about our in our behind-the-scenes feature. Alright, with all that fine print out of the way, let’s jump right in, with the 100th greatest game ever made. Mitch Dyer The first thing I did once I finished The Walking Dead’s devastating Season 1 finale was pull then-IGN Editor Greg Miller into a room to talk about it.

He’d finished it the day before, and I desperately needed to talk about the feelings I had after it was all said and done. 'You cried,' Greg said.

It wasn’t a question, and it must have been obvious. When we discussed Metal Gear Solid, Persona, or other games we loved, Greg and I got loud, animated, and excited.

SAM AND DEAN MEET THE GHOST OF AMERICA'S FIRST SERIAL KILLER - Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) investigate the brutal slayings of blond women from an apartment building and discover the demon responsible is the ghost of the first serial murderer, H. Meanwhile, defying her.

Alone in a meeting room for an hour, we talked about The Walking Dead like we were at a funeral. The story of Lee and Clementine had been brutal, exhausting, effective, and amazing. We felt connected to Telltale’s characters more than we felt toward anybody in Robert Kirkman’s comic book series. People rarely talk about The Walking Dead as a great game, which it is, and often doesn’t get enough credit for. It has a handful of great puzzles between its dramatic, dialogue-driven scenes and tense action sequences. But this typically gets lost amid conversations of what a particular moment meant to a player, what they did or said in a given situation, and how far they were willing to go to protect their people.

The Walking Dead is a deeply engaging story, one of the best gaming has seen. This is the game that proved adventure gaming — and interactive drama — still worked, and works better than it ever has. It can cut you deep enough to hug a coworker in a strange, surreal sense of grief before you dissect your uniquely unforgettable experiences. Justin Davis Don’t let its cheerful aesthetic fool you - Advance Wars is one of the greatest turn-based tactics games ever created. The unit balance is perfect, the campaign is huge, and the War Room - with a huge pile of maps to S-Rank - makes the tiny GBA cart feel massive.

Advance Wars is full of so many little details that make it an absolute joy to play, even a decade later, but the greatest of all is activating a CO power. It creates such a powerful rush of pure bliss - the music blaring, the enemy troops exploding and most important of all, the knowledge that you’d finally broken through an entrenched enemy position. I was such a huge fan of Advance Wars in my younger years that I ran a massive Advance Wars fan site for more than 14 years. It’s more than worthy of that devotion. Brian Albert Rare’s excellent N64 follow-up to the insanely-popular GoldenEye was yet another hit first-person shooter. It lost the James Bond license, but it added even more weapons, modes, and some of the most robust multiplayer options around – even by today’s standards. Everyone loves a good James Bond story, but without the license, Rare was free to do some amazingly goofy stuff.

Perfect Dark introduced us to a big-headed alien named Elvis. It gave us a laptop that’s also a gun, and a floating computer with giant glowing eyes that guides you through a crashed megaweapon. The story is silly, but Perfect Dark knows it, embraces it, and is all the better for it. The multiplayer suite was one of the best on the N64. It had a ton of maps, and you could customize everything about your character, the weapons, your enemies, and more.

Just make sure you don’t accidently set it to Dark Bot difficulty. They will wreck you. Jared Petty Galaga is the closest gaming has ever brought me to zen. I just sort of fall into a semi-conscious groove, and all the sweeping enemy formations, bonus stages, stolen fighters, and near-death experiences blend together into a cacophony of frenetic arcade action and then melt away into nirvanic bliss. I’ve played 40-minute games that felt like they lasted five, and once came very near to missing a redeye flight because I didn’t want to walk away from a hot Galaga streak in an airport arcade. You really do have to play Galaga on arcade hardware to get full experience.

Something about the two-way joystick and that big red fire button, and the unique tinny music and chipsounds bleeping through old the cabinet speakers, and the softening effect of the CRT on the colorful, pixelated graphics, and the slightly rough feel of the control-panel under your hands.they all come together to define the experience I’m not sure vertical shooters ever really got better after Galaga. Early games like Space Invaders and Galaxian were inventive but uniformly clunky. Galaga seemed to be programmed out of pure silk. The fluid, pixel-perfect control precision and exquisite balance it pioneered is ground deep into the DNA of all the other great shmups that arcade and console fans have since been privileged to enjoy. Miranda Sanchez The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a sensory delight; the music is cheery and memorable and the cel-shaded art beautifully depicts a Hyrule centuries after Ocarina of Time.

Finding Easter Eggs and references back to the Hero of Time’s world feels like a treat, but Wind Waker is never overshadowed by its predecessor. Instead, the seafaring journey is fun to navigate as Link takes to conducting the wind instead of controlling time. The Wind Waker is also wonderfully imaginative, not only in its story, locations, and characters, but also with its combat. More often than not, enemies, especially bosses, are defeated with Link’s impressive arsenal of items. It was difficult to resist picking off an item from an enemy while sneaking around the Forsaken Fortress. The Wind Waker gives the player a sense of exploration, creativity, and mischief — Link does travel with pirates, after all — that isn’t felt in other similar games of the genre.

Lucy O'Brien Super Mario Galaxy 2 has no business being as imaginative as it is. Hell, I’ve played entire games that are less interesting than a single one of its 49 galaxies, which twist you and discombobulate you and shoot you through space so fast it’s still hard not to gawp at its finesse, at the fact Nintendo actually managed to make it all work. And like all the best Mario games, there’s something incredibly joyous about Mario Galaxy 2; it’s an antidote to the cynicism that can sometimes feel omnipresent in the industry; the reminder that the medium can produce beauty and wonder.. Justin Davis Donkey Kong ‘94 might be one of the most surprising games ever made. It opens with the original four man vs. Ape arcade stages, and then becomes something brand new.

97 more ultra-addictive puzzle-platforming levels follow, making this one of the most epic adventures available on the Game Boy. Mario (aka Jumpman) still runs and jumps in more or less the same way, with the critical new ability to grab and toss items ala Mario 2. But unlike classic Donkey Kong, each stage is now an exceedingly clever and puzzle-filled challenge. New obstacles are introduced at a steady clip, ensuring that as soon as you figure out how to safely collect each stage’s key and reach the exit, new wrinkles will keep you on your toes. Gamers have slowly caught on to Donkey Kong ‘94 being much more than the game it initially appeared to be, but it remains an underappreciated classic to this day. Destin Legarie Ico could have easily scared a lot of players off when it launched on the PlayStation 2 back in 2001. The entire experience is focused around leading a female character through a set of puzzles while being pursued by black plumes of smoke that look like humans and attack you relentlessly.

On paper it sounds like the worst escort mission of all time. But the charming interactions between the boy with horns and the strangely entrapped girl in white became your motivation for moving forward. Who was this girl? Why was she captured? Why would they imprison someone so sweet? It all seemed quite odd, but as a player those questions kept you moving through the puzzles and story to discover more.

The first time I played Ico it was on a demo disc that came with a magazine. I hadn't heard much about it until that point, but I was immediately interested in what else would happen after my short play session. Fast forward to the full release and what was included in the full experience continued to pull at my heartstrings. I cared about these two characters and the relationship built between them. An outcast and a prisoner trying to escape a fate beyond their control was more powerful than any negativity associated with an escort mission. I had to see it through to the end. Sam Claiborn In this era of Trophies and Achievements, completing 100% of everything in a game is a common thing.

But when Yoshi’s Island came out, the reward for exploration was greater than a Gamerscore: For collecting all of the extremely well-hidden red coins and flowers and then finishing a level with 30 stars (which basically means you can’t get hit), you received a 100% rating. If you did this on every level in a world, you unlocked two more levels in each of the six worlds.

And these levels were even harder than the others! I spent many hours one-hundred-percenting my Yoshi’s Island cartridge and the save stuck with me all the way until an unfortunate incident while reviewing a contemporary knockoff Super Nintendo. I’ve never been so excited to start over from scratch. Mitch Dyer On paper, Arkham Asylum was a great idea, if a bit unoriginal. It mashed the best bits of The Legend of Zelda and Super Metroid’s exploratory design with a new branch of the DC universe, and a near-perfect melee combat system. The game surprised everyone.

Rocksteady’s superb combat system redefined melee combat in a way that’s tangible today, but Arkham Asylum's true ace-in-the-hole is its genuinely great and unpredictable Batman story. Sure, it goes off the rails at the end, but Arkham Asylum is full of terrific horror scenes, memorable psychedelic sequences, and a constant, sharp reminder that nobody does a better Joker than Mark Hamill. Arkham Asylum is a dense, dark, claustrophobic adventure game that’s laser-focused on what it wants to do, and it does it tremendously.

It is good that I insisted to my Batman-loving dad that he check it out. After years of not playing games, it got him completely hooked on open-ended action games, the DC universe, and my Batman books. I want those books back, by the way, Dad. Jared Petty System Shock 2 exists at a weird nexus of shooter, traditional adventure game, and survival horror.

The corridors of the Von Braun and Rickenbacker echo with the cries of spectral apparitions. Mistrust, misdirection, and deception are the order of the day. Brutal combat and tense puzzle solving coexist with superb dialogue and a few genuinely chilling moments. While thematically informed by popular culture icons like Neuromancer and Alien, System Shock 2’s galaxy feels wholly its own, a unique teetering fusion of biological and technological horrors simmering at the edge of deep space demanding your exploration. Jared Petty When I was a kid, elementary school computer labs were crammed with Apple IIe microcomputers, ubiquitous taupe-colored boxes adorned with blinking lights portending a marvelous and mysterious technological future. Our teachers didn’t actually know how to use them all that well.we mostly made Print Shop banners, typed dirty words, and practiced drawing shapes with the LOGO programming language.

And we played The Oregon Trail. We didn’t really expect educational games to be fun, but Oregon Trail took a remarkably progressive approach to teaching that hid the bulk of the learning within the engaging game mechanics. If I exceeded my budget by buying too many wagon tongues in Missouri, I stood a good chance of watching my wagonful of friends starve to death in the Rockies.

I learned way more about economics from 3rd grade Oregon Trail runs than 9th grade Social Studies class. Everything was risk and reward, planning and negotiating, and when I screwed up and died I knew it was my own fault. Oregon Trail succeeded in teaching us about history and scarcity because it was first and foremost concerned with being fun, allowing us to make mistakes and learn from them.

Brandin Tyrell As the second 3D game in the now mega-series Grand Theft Auto, Vice City had enormous shoes to fill coming off the groundbreaking statement that was Grand Theft Auto 3. And did it ever deliver. Set during the 1980s in Rockstar’s facsimile of Miami, the violence, sex, and excess of this defining decade was slathered across a fully playable world of wannabe gangsters, sports cars, mountains of drugs, and briefcases full of bills. Mining veins of content from Scarface, Miami Vice, and other seminal pop culture pillars of the era, Vice City had it all: a cast of larger-than-life characters and a rags-to-riches protagonist who builds his empire on the blood, sweat, and more blood of the sun-soaked, drug-addled, sex-crazed slice of beach city. And it's that ‘80s personality that propped up Vice City any time its open-world gameplay started to falter - much of that personality coming from the incredible soundtrack that is alone worth the price of admission. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a sexy, sour, excellent sendup of the decade that will never die.

Tal Blevins SimCity 2000 had a profound influence on my life. I was playing a lot of SimCity 2000 when it was first released in the ‘90s. I mean, a lot! I loved the design, organization, and interdependency; you could build your city any way you wanted, but you had best make sure you have all the perks and services to make your citizenry happy lest they move away. Varuthapadatha Valibar Sangam Full Movie Download Avi. I was in college at the time, and was a big PC gamer; SimCity 2000, X-COM, and Civilization were some of my favorites in those days. I hadn’t declared a major yet, so I searched deep inside myself to get a sense of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I love X-COM, so what about alien hunter?

Yeah, let’s do it! Oh, they don’t offer that as a major? What kind of lame-ass college am I going to, anyway? Okay, okay -- fine. Civ is a lot of fun, so what about history? Interesting for sure, but what will I actually do with it?

Become a history professor, or worse, Editor-in-Chief of IGN?!? Nah, not gonna happen. Let’s see, I also love SimCity 2000 -- but it’s not like there’s actually a major or job that’s specific to the concepts in the game. What’s that you say? Urban planning is a thing? Okay, what the hell, I’m fascinated by the systems in SimCity 2000, so I’ll declare as a geography major with a concentration in urban planning. So I almost ended up being an urban planner because of SimCity 2000, but instead I ended up writing about video games, so I guess in that sense SimCity 2000 was one of the most personally influential games I’ve ever played.

Thanks, video games! Did you know? • The phrase 'reticulating splines' which appears during load screens on several Sim games originally began with SimCity 2000.

Creator Will Wright and team made up the term as an inside joke. • If you continually type 'damn', 'darn' or 'heck,' your residential areas will be rezoned to churches. • You can find a short essay called 'Ruminate' by author Neil Gaiman about the living nature of cities if you build a library, click it, then select the 'Ruminate' option. • SimCopter, also by Maxis, let you import cities you built in SimCity 2000 and fly around them. Sam Claiborn I avoided Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! Due to its boxing/sports theme back in the day but I wish I hadn’t. Is the perfect combination of action, puzzle, and rhythm gameplay; it’s not really a boxing game at all.

It’s also goofy, with oversized, gorgeous sprites thanks to a special chip only used in Punch-Out!! Playing it as an adult I realize I’ll probably never have the muscle memory of my peers who played it decades ago -- and can still dominate Mike Tyson. As proud as I am of my TKOs against the second Piston Honda or Bald Bull, seeing people take out the hardest boxers in seconds is truly inspiring. Dan Stapleton X-COM’s magic is how it makes the war to defend Earth from a vastly superior alien invasion force feel so intensely personal, even with its extremely dated (but expressive) graphics and spreadsheet-like interface. Part of this comes from the way that every decision you make, from where on the globe you place your bases, to which alien technology to research, to whether to spend your soldier’s last few time units to reload his weapon, crouch, or take a hail-Mary shot at a distant alien, has enormously high stakes. Choose right, and your team of alien hunters will gain a leg up on the battlefield from advanced weapons (like the guided Blaster Launcher missiles), armor, or tactical positioning; choose poorly and literally everyone could be slaughtered - or worse, transformed into drooling zombies to serve as incubators for horrific Chryssalids.

If you’re doing it right, you’ve named each of your very mortal soldiers after your friends and family, making the inevitable casualties you’ll take in combat sting far more than losing nameless fodder. Randomly generated maps ensure you never quite know what might be lurking around the next corner, and destructible terrain means that knocking down a building is always an option. The unpredictability makes the feeling of going from scrappy underdog to elite alien-butt-kicking futuristic super soldier squad incredibly rewarding, every single time. Except when you lose horribly. Jared Petty Say it with me: “UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START.” The most iconic secret in video game history became a litany for the millions of kids who joined Bill and Lance on their quest to destroy Red Falcon. While a truly skilled player can clear Contra on a single credit, the power of the thirty lives code gave all of us a fair chance to power our way through the gauntlet of alien invaders, or more likely die trying. Contra was one of the few cooperative video games of the 8-bit era where player two didn’t feel like a burden dragging you down with every step.

With plenty of weapon drops to go around and hordes of enemies coming from every direction, a partner’s firepower was a welcome addition in most situations. And if a friend couldn’t keep up the pace on the waterfall level, you could easily incentivize him to improve his skills by scrolling the screen upward and killing him, which I did whenever my little brother lagged behind. Dan Stapleton Starting the journey of Fallout 2 as a tribesman with nothing more than a loincloth and a spear to my name and gradually fighting my way up to a power-armored, gauss-gunning killing machine is a fantastic and surprisingly natural feeling of progression -- one that few games have been able to match. Exploring a vast and open post-apocalyptic world full of deadly raiders, supermutants, and deathclaws is daunting but exciting, and thanks to attention to detail, atmospheric music, powerfully written morally ambiguous quests, and voice-acted interactions with key characters, the world feels personal and vivid even though we view it from a distant third-person camera. In fact, it’s a game you have to replay just to appreciate how flexible and open it really is. I’ve done it so many times, experimenting with the ways in which different character builds and perks would dramatically affect the way events unfolded, from killing the final “boss” using stealth to playing all the way through with a character so dumb they can only communicate through grunts. Plus, you never knew when you’d stumble upon random events that would sometimes deliver game-changingly powerful items.

Fallout 2 will surprise you again and again. Brandin Tyrell Resident Evil 2 will always have a special place in my heart. Firstly, its story of mysterious conspiracies, corporate greed and espionage, and a small mountain-town hellscape of walking corpses and mutated monsters was more engaging than a survival horror tale had any right to be. But its use of dual protagonists, both experiencing their own events simultaneously and sending ripples through one another’s side of the mystery, riddled the campaign with 'ah-ha!' Moments that sucked me deeper into the unfolding events of Raccoon City. And of course, its tense, white-knuckle, survival horror gameplay ensured that every bullet mattered.

X was on your ass, turning a blind corner could mean walking into a death trap. And to top it off, giant sewer ‘gators are more than just an urban legend. This all combined to create an atmosphere of dread that was exhilarating to enter and a huge relief to conquer. Ryan McCaffrey Comedy didn't really exist in video games until Monkey Island. Or at least, I'd never seen it. But then along came Guybrush Threepwood, a wannabe pirate who couldn't seem to get out of his own way -- or that of the evil pirate LeChuck.

His bumbling point-and-click adventure, which included bottomless inventory pants, literal red herrings, and insult sword fighting, was not only funny, but also featured great characters (Stan!), colorful graphics, memorable music, and a playful Caribbean vibe. It remains every bit as wonderful today as it was 25 years ago. Luke Karmali The first time I picked up Final Fantasy VII, I was around eight years old and woefully unprepared for its complexities. I swiftly put it down, swore it off as a poor entry in an equally dull series and vowed never to touch it again.

Five years later and having conquered both Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X, I was persuaded to try once more, and I'm so glad I did. Though I don't perhaps have the similar level of nostalgic connection with the game as others do, it remains clear how crucial Final Fantasy VII was for the video game medium. This was the title that proved how powerfully games could do narrative, and introduced characters that still top the lists of peoples' favourites to this day.

On a personal level, it's the game that cemented Final Fantasy as my favourite video game series, and also marked the stage where I was happy to gush about this hobby of mine to parents and friends alike. More than a decade on, I've got a lot to thank it for. Cam Shea When Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 came out, I felt like gaming had peaked. In my mind it was close to being the perfect video game, and the reason was simple – the manual. With that deft design decision, levels were no longer a series of single trick opportunities, but one connected canvas with any number of creative trick lines to discover.

It opened the gameplay up masterfully, paving the way for iconic levels like School II, and did so atop incredibly satisfying core mechanics. As a street skater, I was never all that interested in the vert side of the game, or chasing high scores. For me, the greatest pleasure was found in smaller stuff – hitting a rail just so or landing a backside heelflip down a set of stairs perfectly. This was a game that gave you the freedom to express your individuality – just like real life skating – and that’s why it had such a huge impact. Lucy O'Brien Fallout 3 was the first video game to make me sick. Not because it’s a bad game – on the contrary, it’s a phenomenal one, which rightfully deserves a place on any top 100 ‘all time’ list. I got sick because I couldn’t stop playing it; because I stayed in my crummy student bedroom staring at the screen for so long that I got all unhealthy and socially withdrawn and spindly.

It was the world that kept me hooked. The Capital Wasteland may be as brown and dusty as any other post-apocalyptic effort created circa 2008, but scratch at its griminess and a multitude of fascinating characters, sub-plots and bizarre environmental touches spring to the surface; a a smorgasbord of invitations to never stop playing. Somehow held together by a focused story, Fallout 3 remains a complex, remarkable achievement for Bethesda, and definitely worth getting sick for. Sam Claiborn You can ask Siri to tell you a joke.

It’s a funny little trick. Your phone is pretending to be alive.

When I asked Zork in 1980-something a question and it answered, it was electrifying. And, like Siri, sometimes Zork would just apologize and ask me to try again. Zork held a giant fantasy world that it did its best to describe it to me -- and I did my best to tell it what I wanted to see. We were partners in exploration, both imperfect.

But Zork surprised me a lot more than I surprised it, and that was what made it so special. Zork was potentially endless, and infinitely mysterious. How big was it? What did it know? I’m still not sure today. Asking Siri doesn’t help. Vince Ingenito After a big misstep with Devil May Cry 2, the franchise’s future rested squarely on the shoulders of Devil May Cry 3, and it turned out to be exactly what the series needed.

Survival was difficult enough against the hordes of interesting enemies, many of which sported a variety of distinct attacks with which to threaten you, but style was the true end goal. With a wider assortment of weapons than the original two games, and a bunch of new tricks to master, Devil May Cry 3 may still be the deepest character action game ever made. Almost every attack on Dante’s massive move list has subtle properties that, in the hands of a well-versed player, can be exploited for the sake of building the sickest possible combinations, to the point where, for a time, YouTube was exploding with Devil May Cry 3 combo videos. That’s the kind of technical grand-standing usually reserved for fighting games, but even years after its release, players were still finding hidden nuances and re-inventing the way they played.

It’s that mix of complexity and hard-boiled challenge that solidified Devil May Cry 3’s place in the pantheon of character action greats. Marty Sliva EarthBound is probably the game that I rented the most. I know it's a weird thing to say, but I was a weird kid back in 1995, which is probably why Shigesato Itoi's RPG resonated so heavily with me. The story of Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo's journey across a strange, slanted version of America was such a vast departure from previous RPGs I'd played like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. It wasn't drenched in fantasy tropes and pathos, but rather brimming with color, humor, and some of the weirdest characters and events I'd ever seen in a game. Simultaneously, it knows how to pack an emotional punch, and really So yeah, I rented it. Obviously, it didn't come with the pack-in player's guide, so I only made it so far before I had to return it.

Then I rented it again. Eventually, my parents noticed that my college fund was being given to Blockbuster, so they nipped the problem in the bud and bought it for me. It's been my favorite JRPG ever since. Miranda Sanchez League of Legends exists in a magical place that lies somewhere between intense competition and fun and enjoyable strategy. Though there’s a lot to master with a roster of nearly 130 playable Champions, League of Legends is equipped with great modes that make the MOBA easy to learn, yet is still incredibly challenging as players scale the competitive ladder.

While the excellent Summoner’s Rift stands as the primary battleground for competitive play, the other modes like ARAM, or All Random All Middle, also provide a great means for a fun chance to practice with Champions for when things get too tense. Developer Riot’s initiative to reboot League of Legends’ lore has also made it more captivating on the narrative front as well.

Each new Champion or Champion makeover is presented with such beautiful pageantry that it’s difficult not to get sucked into catching up on any lore you may have missed. With continuous improvement updates and a constantly changing roster, League of Legends stands as one of the best competitive games in existence. Justin Meader For me, Warcraft II spurred a lifelong love of strategy games and fantasy settings. I have vivid memories of time spent thumbing through the instruction book, repeatedly reading the history of the Orcish clans and memorizing the build order of every unit. I'd play for countless hours, often in just one scenario, raising bases that sprawled the map and gathering resources until the world was barren. I didn't just enjoy Azeroth, I lived for it. When my time with the campaign was exhausted, I quickly turned to the map editor.

I no longer needed Blizzard to tell the story: I could create my own. My friends and I would make entire campaigns and pass them around school on floppy disks. We were mystified by the notion of playing against each other over the Internet – something rather uncommon at the time – which was only exacerbated by the fickleness of the game's network client, Kali. The one time I remember successfully connecting with a friend ended quickly when my mother picked up the telephone to make a call. Kids, ask your parents what dial-up is. Warcraft II is a shining example of the quality of we've now come to expect from Blizzard games.

It cemented one of the greatest studios in the industry, and laid the groundwork for one of the most successful game franchises of all-time, creating countless lifelong fans along the way. It is to imagine what games would look like in a world without Warcraft. Andrew Goldfarb Spelunky is a game about patience.

It’s punishing, and no matter how far along you are, death means starting from the beginning. But each time, you’ll die in a different way—an educational way. You’ll learn how to avoid it next time. Spelunky is a game about pattern recognition. Each level is randomly generated, but you’ll recognize familiar elements. You’ll know what separates the Mines from the Ice Caves from Temple.

You’ll be more prepared. You’ll get just slightly further than last time, and further still the time after that. The game has taught you how to be better. Spelunky is a game about triumph. When you finally make it to a new area for the first time, when you finally beat Olmec, when you finally beat your best time, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. You earned this.

But maybe you should go back and try to beat it. You can shave a few seconds off, right? Spelunky is a game about always being able to improve.

Tal Blevins Rainbow Six 3 holds a special place of reverence among the old-timers at IGN. While Battlefield 1942 is a close second, Rainbow Six 3 is the game that has seen the most multiplayer matches at IGN over the years, and many nights ended with Fran hiding beneath the stairs on Warehouse with a grenade primed while Kevin sat on the other side of the map peeking through an upstairs window with his sniper rifle. Just go find each other, guys! We’re all waiting for something to happen! What made it so fun? It just felt right. Guns meant something, and switching equipment gave you a totally different experience.

Getting that headshot kill from across the map was super satisfying. It was the game we all couldn’t wait to play after work, and we’d often have to set up two or more servers just to make sure everyone who wanted to play could. It had a solid single-player campaign, but playing against -- or with -- friends is where the real fun was. After a night of playing together we’d all have war stories in the morning, and we’d talk about the matches until lunch, when we’d play again and have all-new stories to tell. We had our own language that we used to talk about each map, and although there were no official names for locations, everyone knew where the “suicide doors” were on Presidio, likely because they’d met their demise there at least a couple dozen times in the past. And if we got tired of competitive play, we’d go in as a synchronized unit and coordinate a terrorist hunt. Now before I get out of here, I better take one more look under those stairs to make sure Fran’s not still there.

Did you know? • As part of the Rainbow Six franchise, the game is based off of author Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six novel, originally released in 1998.

• Rainbow is a secretive global anti-terrorist organization. The 'Six' in Rainbow Six refers to the director of Rainbow: John Clark. • Tom Clancy also founded Cary, NC video game developer Red Storm Entertainment in 1996. • The Rainbow Six series was concepted as a cross-media franchise, with the book and original video game both released at the same time. Zach Ryan Mega Man 2 is one of the most rewarding and beautifully crafted platformers of all time.

It is leaps and bounds more polished, better balanced and generally more fun than its predecessor. It's a game that I still pick up at least once a year and blast through, in part to humble myself, but also to help me remember how cool robots are. And these robots are super cool. I can't lie - I don't like the original Mega Man. It's too hard. And, despite being one of my favorite franchises, I've never beaten it.

I think that's what makes Mega Man 2 shine so brightly in my eyes. It's not that the original is a bad game, it's just that Mega Man 2 takes those ideas and makes them so much better.

It introduced E-Tanks, transport items and, most importantly, a password system so you didn't have to defeat all eight robot masters AND all six stages of Dr. Wily's Skull Castle in one sitting. Couple these additions to some of the most challenging and meticulous platforming ever created, and you've got more than enough justification to put Mega Man 2 on our Top 100 list. Luke Reilly My copy of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec temporarily bankrupted me; it cost me $750 Australian dollarydoos.

Admittedly that’s because it came bundled with a PlayStation 2, but it was still a bloody outrage. I couldn’t afford to go out, I couldn’t afford to fuel my car, and I couldn’t afford to eat anything that took longer than two minutes to prepare.

I played a lot of GT3. As far as I was concerned, at the time, it felt like the sexy promise of the original Gran Turismo’s pre-rendered intro had been realised in real-time. It didn’t matter that it had fewer cars and tracks than GT2; the leap in fidelity was astonishing. I can’t hear that Feeder track without feeling 18 and broke again. Jared Petty Akin to Chrono Trigger in stunning art direction, mechanical simplicity, and musical significance, Suikoden 2 diverges from Square’s masterpiece in its sense of moral ambiguity and dark storytelling. For the longest time, Suikoden 2 was locked behind a near-impenetrable wall of scarcity that kept it out of the hands of most American gamers. Now that it’s finally available to a wide audience, it’s a must play for any RPG fan.

Suikoden 2 isn’t about saving the world. The scenario instead favors an extremely local perspective, gradually expanding outward from your personal circle of acquaintances to encompass your place in a war of feuding nations populated by characters with complex, realistic motivations. There are very few real villains (with one extreme and terrifying exception), a web of constantly conflicting loyalties and alliances, and a Machiavellian pragmatism that will ethically strain you as you try to balance your obligations to family, friends, mentors, and your own conscience. Suikoden 2 manages to support an enormous cast of interesting characters by tasking the player with building a stronghold of their own in the world, a frontier nation of sorts populated by men and women from all walks of life eager to contribute their skills to building something better for everyone. It’s a remarkably optimistic and surprisingly fun diversion from the typically-reactive storytelling stance of most RPGs. Jared Petty I've lost more of my life than I'd care to admit watching the hypnotic wheel of sprites rotate as I gamed the Final Fantasy Tactics job system with exploits worthy of a mad genius, experimenting with strange and extraordinarily potent skill sets to create the ultimate party.Tactics enticed me with intricate mechanics that constantly rewarded my tinkering and micromanagement.

Every battle was a new invitation to innovate, a battle of wits with the scenario developers, a test of inventiveness that repaid both foresighted strategic preparation and quick tactical thinking. The delightful systems were backed up an exquisite story of betrayal laced with delightfully insidious melodramatic tragedy. Not even the baroque translation could significantly mar the excellence of this PlayStation classic. Alex Simmons When I was younger, few games settled an argument like GoldenEye. Living in a flat with three other people, if we couldn’t decide like rational adults whose turn it was to do the household chores, it was decided over a game of GoldenEye’s multiplayer.

The battleground was always the Facility and to truly sort out the men from the Bonds it was Slaps only. Anyone who picked Odd Job was instantly disqualified. In 1997, GoldenEye was a revelation. Not only was it a more-than-decent movie tie-in – I’m hard pushed to think of one that’s come close, even to this day – but it became the blueprint for console first-person shooters, serving up a wonderfully engaging single-player mode that made you feel like Bond, with split-screen multiplayer that quickly became a staple in dorm rooms across the world. It was also the first time I realised how satisfying it is to take out a target from afar using a sniper rifle.

18 years later it’s still my go-to weapon in any game. Jon Ryan While it may not be as old as Super Mario Kart or Road Rash, when it comes to arcade racers, Burnout 3: Takedown is an undeniable classic. I must have logged 60 hours in this game, and that was well before the days where I get paid to do that. I defy you to bring up arcade racers and not have someone mention Burnout 3. It's predecessor, Point of Impact, had fine-tuned the balance of high-speed racing and vehicular destruction, but Takedown perfected it. This was one of those games you could easily lose hours playing, either alone or with friends. Among our nerdy cadre, there was no greater source of joy, sorrow or white-hot rage than Burnout 3.

Few things could ruin a friendship faster than wrecking someone's ride just before the finish line - though thankfully all was (usually) forgotten during the next round of Crash Mode. Brandin Tyrell Skyrim was a pivotal turning point for me and my over twenty-year love affair with role-playing games. It was the moment that worlds became so big, so immersive, and so detailed that I resolved I would have to abandon my burning desire to overturn every rock, chase every quest, and collect every thingy. To me, everything about Skyrim was a vast improvement over its predecessor, Oblivion. The craggy, intimidating peaks of the Nord homeland and the saga of the Dovahkiin were much more interesting than the relatively sedate happenings of their neighbors in Cyrodiil. But what’s more, there’s so much lying just around the corner, off the beaten path, that you could never even stumble upon it in a hundred hours as the Dragonborn.

But the fact that such care for detail, for world-building, for exploration and for immersion was paid to every tome, tomb, and quest, is enough to cement Skyrim as one of the absolute best role-playing games we’ve ever seen, and one of the best games of all time. Brendan Graeber If Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64 was the appetizer, then Super Smash Bros. Melee was most definitely the main course. Huge by comparison, it piled on more and more fantastic additions that Nintendo fans had been clamoring for - more characters, more stages, more modes, collectibles galore, and a soundtrack featuring both new and re-arranged music from all of Nintendo's best franchises (The live orchestra CD that came with Nintendo Power remains one of my favorite gaming soundtracks to this day!) In an age before gamers would sit alone in their room playing online, Melee was king of the couch. Entire sleep-overs were dedicated to unlocking characters like Mewtwo and Mr. Game & Watch, or taking turns trying to defeat Giga Bowser in Event Match 51.

Even long after everything was unlocked, the thrill of a 4-player brawl would remain a highlight of having friends over. Ryan McCaffrey When Monkey Island 2 came out, we knew who Guybrush Threepwood was, so we knew what to expect. Or so we thought. Somehow, creator Ron Gilbert threw everyone for a loop, ending Monkey Island 2 in a carnival, leaving us to wonder if everything we'd played in the first two games took place in a boy's imagination, or if the ending itself was simply another LeChuck voodoo spell. Regardless, the story, jokes, and pacing were all tightened up for the second Monkey Island, making it arguably the best of the incredible run of LucasArts adventure games. Marty Sliva Few games manage to create a sense of place quite as well as Grim Fandango. Tim Schafer’s final adventure game during his time at LucasArts is also arguably his best, and that’s saying a lot considering his portfolio.

Lead character Manny Calavera’s incredible journey through an afterlife inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead is marked with fantastic characters, impeccable writing, and clever puzzles. Right from the get-go, stepping into the shoes of a travel agent for the Department of Death, it’s an absolutely hilarious adventure brimming with creativity.

It’s one of those video games where you want to continually revisit conversation trees and select every single dialogue option just to hear what Manny and the rest of the cast will say. It’s a testament to the game’s design that over 15 years after its initial 1998 release, the 2015 remaster proved that Grim Fandango’s wonderful puzzles, story, and aesthetics hold up wonderfully. Not many games of the era can say the same. Sam Claiborn When you walk into a room full of arcade games, something looks different about Donkey Kong.

It’s pastel blue cabinet is a bit shorter than the others; a bit rounder, more welcoming. The glowing marquee and art on the game depicts characters that belong on a 1960s pizza delivery box. This machine clearly doesn’t hold a Star Wars-inspired space battle -- but what’s in it? When you put a quarter in, the machine shows you a little cartoon of an ape clambering up a ladder, mocking you. It asks “How High Can You Get?” and the instructions end there. Barrels and fire fill the screen while the characters’ intricate animations for every movement continue the illusion that you are playing this cartoon.

You probably don’t get very high. Hopefully you have more quarters. Andrew Goldfarb There’s a point in Persona 4 where you can forget you’re playing a game. You’re hanging out at school, checking in with friends, going about your daily routine; it’s familiar. There are people who annoy you, people you care about, people you’re concerned about – and all of them feel distinct from one another, like they’re real.

You get attached. It feels authentic. Persona 4 is a special RPG. The Persona series excels at fusing dungeon crawling with social elements, but Persona 4 makes each character feel like a cohesive group -- more than a team working toward a goal, they’re friends. Each dungeon is themed after their innermost secrets, and by the end of each one, you feel like you’ve gotten to know them. You’ve been through a lot with them. In a way, they’re like family.

With even more voice acting and characters, Golden only accentuates that feeling, and by the time Spring in Inaba comes to an end, you don’t want to leave. Brendan Graeber As someone whose never been a huge fan of shooters, Valve's Team Fortress 2 tickled an itch I didn't know I even had. Perhaps it was the simplistic yet vibrant design, or the goofy yet sadistic humor. I do know that the diverse cast of characters certainly helped - as I wasn't just limited to firing a gun. Whether you were more a 'in your face with a flamethrower' guy, or a 'hide behind enemy lines with nothing but a knife and a disguise' guy, TF2 had a role that everyone could get behind. The other half of what made Team Fortress 2 a favorite of mine was its longevity.

Long after any FPS game had a right to be relevant, TF2 found new ways to live - both with community mods that shaped the course of the game's future, and the decision to go free to play. Add that to the inclusion of hats, along with new gear and modes, and you have a self-sustaining team-based shooter that can be played by all types, whether your into crafting weapons, trading hats, fighting robots, or just having a quick match against friends. Tal Blevins Who didn’t (or still doesn’t) dream of trudging around in a huge, metallic robot blasting other rob-jocks with lasers and rockets? I was so fascinated with battle bots when I was a kid that a friend and I drove from North Carolina to Chicago just to try out the Battletech Pods at Navy Pier in the early ‘90s.

A few years later, MechWarrior 2 finally let me live out that same experience in my own home, and it was glorious! While it wasn’t a new concept to gaming, MechWarrior 2 refined the giant robot game, adding a deep level of simulation never before seen. You were the pilot, and this wasn’t just a quick action arcade game -- you had to monitor your heat levels to avoid shutdown, ration ammo for your physical weapons, and watch out for multiple targets on the radar, all while running around on the battlefield.

There was also a lot of tactics and strategy involved in MechWarrior 2, and it was best to keep your well-armored front aimed at the enemy while picking off just the legs if you wanted to reap the most scrap at the end of the battle. It was intense and it was a hell of a lot of fun, especially when playing against your friends online once the free NetMech update was released. The heavy simulation days of the ‘90s and early 2000s is over, but I still long for a modern take on the giant robot sim where you have to think about a lot more than just running and gunning. Did you know?

• Mechwarrior 2 was remade six times for six different video cards: 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics, ATI 3D Rage, Matrox Mystique, PowerVR, Quickdraw RAVE, and S3 ViRGE. • Despite all of its remakes, MechWarrior 2 only had one expansion pack: Ghost Bear's Legacy. • Online gaming wasn't the norm back in the mid-'90s, so players had to wait for the release of the NetMech upgrade to engage in multiplayer battles. • The manual for MechWarrior 2 was dense. Even the 'basic piloting' chapter had nine subsections and there were six appendices at the end. Destin Legarie Cutscenes were one of the driving forces behind the success of PC gaming in the late 1990's and Blizzard was regarded as the king when it came to jaw dropping visuals.

They took things to an entirely new level with StarCraft and the Brood War expansion in 1998, though. Not only were players treated to an excellent RTS experience, but their reward for completing sections of the campaign were evocative visuals that further immersed you in a world where humans are losing a war against brutal space aliens. Taking it a step further, those cutscenes were paired with some truly talented voice acting and narrative design. As I played through the storyline I learned to love the different little characters I interacted with and felt genuine anger when the Zerg managed to capture Kerrigan and bend her to their will. This character had been with you through thick and thin and after she's captured you of course begin the mission to rescue her. Still, the highlight of StarCraft is easily the multiplayer. Few gaming moments are as satisfying as defending your base against a Zerg rush as the Protoss or successfully sending in a fleet of Terran to decimate an enemy's base.

StarCraft is still played competitively in parts of the world, making it remain relevant for longer than almost any other video game in existence. There's a reason too. It's because the gameplay is so expertly crafted and balanced that players can continually go head to head with a different result each time.

It's those near losses and photo finish victories that keep you coming back and have kept the series alive all these years. Steve Butts Jedi Outcast II is the ultimate realization of the dream of every Star Wars fan who wanted to be a Jedi. More than any other game, Jedi Outcast delivers on the fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-pushing hero who battles his through iconic Star Wars locations, like the Jedi Temple on Yavin IV or the sunlit corridors of Cloud City. Whether you’re flinging stormtroopers down elevators shafts, slicing Rodian mercenaries in half, or Force-choking Dark Jedi, this is the Star Wars game that lets you be a Jedi. It also gave us Kyle Katarn, who is, in our opinion, one of the best characters in the entire Star Wars franchise. He’s a cynical mercenary, a former Imperial officer, a Dark Side/Light Side flip-flopper, and the guy who stole the plans to the Death Star.

What’s not to like? It’s always worth playing, particularly with the dismemberment cheat enabled. After all, it wouldn’t be Star Wars unless someone loses an arm. Brendan Graeber Thief II took everything right about stealth games, and then added a dash of steampunk-infused magic. Developer Looking Glass Studio crafted a believable world where technology was on the rise and the magic of the old world was on the run. Adding to the mix was the perfect anti-hero who wouldn't even consider the possibility of saving the world unless the end of the world meant no more houses to steal from. Thief II gave the player all the right tools for the perfect heist, along with interactive maps for writing notes.

It rewarded taking your time, and of course, listening to some of the best guard banter in any game to date. Silently sprinting along rooftops, ducking through secret mansion passages - the game didn't just make you feel like a thief, it made you feel like a master of the craft. Sam Claiborn I restore classic arcade and pinball machines and one of my favorite projects was bringing a Ms. Pac-Man cocktail machine back from the dead.

With a rebuilt monitor, restored art, and of course the speed chip that makes it many times faster, Ms. Pac-Man made a popular addition to my homecade. We run an occasional high score competition at IGN and so I thought it would be cool to bring it into our lunch room for a bit. For a month, the machine was never left alone. We work in an office surrounded by the latest toys and games, but Ms. Pac-Man attracted crowds.

People changed their commutes to come in early and stay late just to play. Frequently we'd be across the office in a conference room and the strains of the Ms.

Pac-Man cutscene music would waft over and make everyone giggle. There are very few games which can create so much happiness after so many decades.

Did you know? Pac-Man began as a conversion kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, but Midway licensed the game and made significant changes, such as adding a bow and a beauty mark to Pac-Man. • You cannot use standard patterns to solve the mazes in Ms. Pac-Man like you can in Pac-Man thanks to semi-random ghost movements. • Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, had nothing to do with the creation or release of Ms. Pac-Man, instead working on a less popular (but pretty good) Pac-Man sequel, Super Pac-Man.

Miranda Sanchez Before you can catch all 151 Pokemon, Pokemon Yellow first teaches you how to respect and care for the sometimes temperamental creatures. Pokemon Yellow takes all the best elements from Pokemon Red and Blue and upgrades it to make it feel more like the anime. The best change to the originals, of course, was a Pikachu following you around on your journey. Suddenly, the Pokemon weren’t just creatures you summoned for battle; they become emotional creatures that accompany on your adventure. They’re no longer just fighters you bring along. The small story elements that link Pokemon Yellow back to the anime were a fun way to let the player relive the beginning of Ash’s journey, but ultimately, Pokemon Yellow is simply one of the best ways to experience the Pokemon universe - it's as simple as that.

Miranda Sanchez Where Mass Effect set the stage a futuristic Milky Way, Mass Effect 2 let you explore and experience so much more of it. As Commander Shepard, I traveled the galaxy on the best recruitment trip I could have wished for, and experienced possibly one of the most heart wrenching stories — but whether or not the game ends in tears is entirely up to you. As you head out for a suicide mission, you’ll meet some of the best written characters that feel original and have the power to evoke true emotions. Perhaps one of the best parts about earning loyalty of each of the companions was discovering more about their respective species and seeing how they’re surviving in a violent galaxy. Maximum loyalty for my companions in Mass Effect 2 was not an option; for my heart’s own good, it was a requirement. Brian Albert If you’re committed to getting good at Dota 2, prepare yourself. Dota isn’t a game; it’s a lifestyle.

Valve’s MOBA is one of the deepest, most mechanically complex games ever made. The high barrier to entry will drive away most new players, but those who crack the shell and get hooked have a very strong chance of never playing anything else again. Its 100+ heroes all play differently, and mastering even one could take hundreds of hours.

Getting better isn’t just about making numbers go up – you really feel the improvement, and every time you outplay an enemy feels as satisfying as the first. Dota 2 is at its best when you’re playing with a team of five friends. Gathering gold, killing enemies, and taking objectives as a coordinated team, and then making a final push to victory together is an incredible high that you’ll want to experience again and again. Alex Simmons E3 2007 was memorable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it marked a shift away from the glitz and glamour of the Los Angeles Convention Center, moving to the more low-key setting in nearby Santa Monica. Secondly, it was the first time Call of Duty 4 was shown off, its modern-day setting a dramatic departure from the World War II backdrop of previous games.

All Ghillied Up was my first glimpse of it in action, as two camouflaged snipers worked their way through an irradiated Pripyat in Ukraine. The highlight – not just of the demo but arguably of the entire game – was watching, breath held, as an entire armoured patrol trundled past, inches from our hiding spot, and it’s a moment of tension that’s never been matched in a shooter since. Electric set-pieces and superb pacing make Modern Warfare’s single-player campaign one of the most memorable first-person shooters ever, but it’s the perfectly balanced multiplayer that made it the de rigueur online game for years to follow. Cara Download Video Hd Dari Youku here. Multiplayer shooters were never the same again. Vince Ingenito It took 20 minutes for The Last of Us to get its hooks deeper into me than games that spend 20 hours or more begging me to care for their characters manage to. This is a feat of sheer, exemplary craft - a team working at a level that few, if indeed any others have reached. In terms of raw storytelling, exploration of themes, and detailed character study, The Last of Us represents the ceiling; it is the one fully formed example of a video game narrative standing shoulder to shoulder with the fine works of other artistic mediums.

Amazingly though, it doesn’t achieve this at the expense of the player. The Last of Us doesn’t force you to sit and watch while it self-indulgently spins its wheels going nowhere like many story-driven games do. Rather, Naughty Dog exercises great judgement regarding what plays out in a cut scene and what plays out interactively. Through the development of two Uncharted games, they learned how to effectively direct players through their story without stifling their need for exploration and experimentation. But what The Last of Us doesn’t get nearly enough credit for is its gameplay, a carefully measured balance of traditional third-person shooting, stealth, and survival mechanics. A simple, yet meaningful crafting and upgrade system provides an incentive to explore your surroundings for resources so scarce that every shiv used and bullet fired has weight. Coupled with the unsettling presentation of violence that other games fetishize, these ever-dwindling supplies make every squeeze of the trigger feel like a consequential choice.

Daniel Krupa Many games attempt to emulate cinema, dealing in the same tropes and stock characters. Initially, it looks like Uncharted does the same thing – it focuses on a treasure hunter who frequently finds himself in danger across exotic locations.

But when you play Uncharted, especially the second instalment Among Thieves, you realise it surpasses so much of Hollywood’s recent output with ease. So often action exists for action sake – too look cool – but Uncharted 2: Among Thieves uses it to reveal more about its central character, Nathan Drake, and his relationships with a strong cast of supporting characters. That’s not to say the action isn’t spectacular. From being pursued by a helicopter on a moving train to being harassed by an angry tank in a Himalayan village, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves set a new bench mark for cinematic action, graphical fidelity, and established Nathan Drake as one of the great video game characters of his time. Sam Claiborn When Metroid Prime hit the GameCube it was one of the prettiest, most technologically advanced games on any platform. In a post-Wii era, it's hard to fathom Nintendo ever shaking up the industry again with a cutting-edge, first-person shooter, but that's what made 2002 such an exciting year for GameCube owners. I didn't play the previous Metroid games, so I bought Metroid Prime just to see what my GameCube was capable of -- and because IGN gave it a 9.8.

It was gorgeous and fast, but it was also amazingly packed with detail: Birds, bugs, and other wildlife occupied the ruins of the game, while hieroglyphs and etchings revealed its history. Metroid Prime was also a lonely game. Metroid Prime dropped you into the Chozo ruins with no one to talk to. Exploring an alien planet solo is what the series is all about, and why the subsequent games with space marines and hunters just didn't work as well. Cam Shea I came to the Diablo II party incredibly late.

The first time I actually played it properly was in 2011, more than ten years after its initial release. Could this iconic game possibly live up to my lofty expectations that late in the day? In fact, I was surprised by just how good it was.

After all, Diablo II doesn’t exactly go out of its way to be user friendly. Even choosing a class and build is daunting, let alone learning the quirks of its many systems. What hooks you in, however, is just how perfectly measured the core gameplay loop of killing, looting and upgrading is. Whether you’re just starting out or wading through Hell with a hardcore character, Diablo II has a momentum that’s impossible not to be swept up in. The odds are always overwhelming, the atmosphere always malevolent, and the reward always worth the risk. And as is typical of Blizzard as a studio, Diablo II can be played on countless different levels. I never even touched most of what the game had to offer, but ultimately I didn’t need to.

The simple joy of wading through thick knots of enemies with my necromancer and his summoned brood of skeletons and mages, setting off chains of corpse explosions and painting the world red was an end game in itself. Marty Sliva I’m probably going to lose some friends by saying this, but here it goes: Banjo-Kazooie is the best Mario game ever made. Before you pull out your pitchforks, let me explain.

Rare’s Nintendo 64 masterpiece took the formula that Nintendo created with Super Mario 64, and injected it with an incredible sense of charm, character, and depth. Right off the bat, the banter between the titular duo and the rest of the curious critters that populate the world is genuinely funny. From there, Rare keeps on pushing forward, delivering some of the most interesting and varied worlds ever seen in a platformer. From the way Mumbo’s Mountain introduces you to the game’s varied mechanics, to the ingenious puzzles of Click Clock Wood, each world is absolutely brimming with creativity. I could go on and on about the perfect balance of collectables, or the vast secrets like Stop ‘n’ Swop.

But it’s the little things that make Banjo my favorite platformer of all-time. For instance, the way Gruntilda’s theme adapts to the stage you’re nearing, becoming spookier as near Mad Monster Mansion, or developing a pirate-theme the closer you get to Treasure Trove Cove. Mitch Dyer Resident Evil 4 changed my perception of both shooters and the long-running Resident Evil series.

Cradling the camera above Leon Kennedy's shoulder and pulling it in close maintained the RE series' claustrophobic sense of fear even while the hero aimed-and-fired more aggressively than ever. Having to stop to shoot made a faster-paced, more action-oriented horror game keep its sense of identity, too. Despite massive, necessary changes, this held on dearly to the spirit of Resident Evil.

RE4 married the best of the franchise with some massive accessibility improvements, all while deepening the universe with terrifying new enemies, disgusting and beautiful scenery, and inspiring, memorable moments in the form of awesome quick-time events. RE4's killer boss battles are burned into my brain, and remain the series' peak -- something I hope Capcom returns to as soon as possible. Chloi Rad Counter-Strike is the game that’s been with me the longest, in one form or another, but for me, it all started here. Many of the things I value most in games, I value because of Counter-Strike: good level design, team-based dynamics, the emphasis on skill, the dedication required to master it, a friendly sense of competition, and a solid sense of community. It taught me the joy of earning my victories in a game, but also the importance of learning from my failures. It’s the reason I love first-person shooters and the reason I stuck by PC gaming at a young age, and I owe it all to its earliest iterations.

Brian Albert Outside of indie games, it’s rare to find a game that so thoroughly represents its creator’s vision. Metal Gear Solid is one of the special few. From the crazy dialogue to the anti-nuke messaging to the patrol guard who constantly goes to the bathroom, Hideo Kojima’s vision and sense of humor are always front and center.

Metal Gear Solid further popularized and refined stealth genre, and created more than a few iconic video game mainstays along the way -- the “!” sound, sneaking under a cardboard box, and Snake’s hilarious insistence on repeating everything he hears in question form. Plus, it treated us to excellent, crazy boss fights that, even today, stand out as some of the most imaginative ever made. Brian Albert Dark Souls has a reputation for punishing players – and a well-deserved one, at that – but Souls fans know From Software’s masterpiece gives players much more than just a hard time. The world of Lordran constantly finds ways to surprise you.

Its inhabitants are horrifying and dangerous. More impressively, it somehow makes a lava dungeon, a zombie-filled shantytown, and a golden sky city feel connected.

When I first played the game, I’d wandered far away from my last bonfire, which served as a checkpoint. If I were to die, all my souls would likely be lost for good. I entered an elevator in a church, and it dropped (along with my stomach). Oh great, I’m going underground. There’s probably a boss down here or something. When the elevator opened, I realized it had taken me back to a secret area near where I began my journey.

I’d completed a loop I didn’t know I was walking, and in my head, it instantly made sense – like a movie detective who finally figures out the mystery. I saw the old bonfire, burning brightly, and sat down to rest.

It’s one of my favorite video game moments of all time. Daniel Krupa Journey is the closest a video game has come to emulating the effects of poetry.

In terms of structure it’s so simple: you must reach a snowy mountain peak visible in the distance. Along the way, your character surfs across glistening deserts, hides from flying creatures made entirely from cloth, and occasionally meets other players embarking on the same pilgrimage. Journey has a unique and special tone: it’s dreamlike and melancholic for the most part, but it’s the rapturous conclusion which truly elevates it. Words like ‘breathtaking’ are used so liberally their meaning has been hollowed out, but Journey deserves to command its full significance. Mitch Dyer I hadn’t been as excited for anything - ever - as I was for the first Mass Effect. The developer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was taking a stab at a new sci-fi universe!

It had new aliens, cool-looking characters, and you could talk to basically anyone who wasn’t shooting at you. That surface level excitement was selling Mass Effect short. From moment one, it’s an emotionally affecting, dark-but-hopeful epic starring characters who were as close to people as any game I’d ever played.

Making moral choices had drastic consequences on the direction of your story, and as promised by developer BioWare, the future of the franchise. It was terrifying and intoxicating to fight for a friend’s life, not knowing whether they’d be dead and buried for the next 30 hours of play time. Mass Effect’s worldbuilding, music, art design, and story created a stunning and unforgettable universe that captured my imagination exactly the same way Star Wars did.

I replayed Mass Effect five times, and writing this paragraph has me seriously considering reinstalling it on PC again. Chloi Rad The first four Silent Hill games will always be dear to me, but Silent Hill 2 holds a special place in my heart. It was the first Silent Hill game to establish the town itself as a character – in a genre overrun with run-of-the-mill killers, zombies, aliens, and other types of tangible adversaries, Silent Hill 2’s focus on horror in architecture, in the layout and personality of a space, was vastly more interesting to me.

Most of all, it was scary – like, actually scary: an exploration into the depths of human depravity and the effects it has on the people and places around us that few video games have handled with such a disturbing grace and maturity. As a hardened horror fan who’s tough to frighten, I appreciate Silent Hill 2’s ability to stick with me even a decade later. I may be immune to Silent Hill 2’s scares now, having spent countless hours wandering its foggy streets and haunted otherworlds, but I still remember its power that first time I walked into town. Vince Ingenito In a time when contemporary urban landscapes, fantasy-themed townships, and shiny futuristic cities were so prevalent that one seemed to blur into the next, Bioshock introduced me to Rapture, a world completely unlike anything I had ever seen in a game, or just about anywhere else. Mechanically, it was a competent successor to System Shock 2, but it was the pervasive, palpable presence of Rapture and its creators that make the game one of the greatest of all time.

A lot of pieces needed to come together to support such an ambitious vision, but in a rare way, they actually did. An evocative score that mixed licensed post-depression-era tunes with original orchestral arrangements, Art-Deco-inspired architecture, and excellent performances of a nuanced, well-written script fused together to reinforce the heady central themes. Bioshock is a treatise on the dangers of a true meritocracy, and a subtle contemplation on the nature of play itself. Luke Karmali I started playing World of Warcraft when I was 16, shortly after its launch in Europe. I’d been in England a couple of years, but wasn’t overly comfortable with the people I went to school with, along with the odd family issue. I’d get home, do my homework, and jump into Azeroth.

Was it healthy? But I looked forward to it every day.

I played pretty religiously until the start of The Burning Crusade, when I went off to University, meeting friends and finding myself confronted with a wealth of social and academic opportunities. It was pretty natural then that I quickly stopped feeling the inclination to log in, instead choosing to familiarise myself with the many cheap alcoholic beverages on sale at the student bar. Wrath of the Lich King lured me back, as I wanted to see the conclusion to Arthas’ story (as Warcraft III was the game that piqued my interest in the MMO to begin with). I’ve never been as into it since, but I still find myself resubbing for about a month a year just to keep abreast of what’s going on. The fact is, Warcraft has been in my life for over nine years. That’s longer than any of my friends from university, people I’d argue know me better than I know myself.

When I was a teenager I played it almost daily. Sure, I have mixed feelings towards it now, but it’s irrefutably shaped me.

If you’ve seen some of the features I’ve written, you’ll know I love the MMO genre. This is where it all started. Marty Sliva The world that comes to mind when I think back on Shadow of the Colossus is “scope.” The first time Wander takes Agro out into the open field left me overcome with the same sense of awe I had after seeing Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen. Likewise, the moment you stumble across one of the game’s 16 Colossi floods you with an overwhelming sense of scale, fear, and wonder. The thing I remember most about Shadow of the Colossus is the gamut of emotions that ran through me during each boss battle. That initial moment of fear and awe quickly took a backseat to contemplation, as each fight unfolded a lot like a puzzle game.

Learning your surroundings, observing the Colossi’s movement patterns, and experimenting with various tactics provides an amazing sensation of trial and error, all in the confines of truly epic, cinematic encounters. But once I my sword finally pierced a beast for the last time, an overwhelming sense of melancholy and regret flooded over me. Was I doing a bad thing? Many of these ancient creatures were simply existing in the world, and I was a murderous outsider focused on nothing more than selfishly saving a person I loved. Few games compelled me forward while simultaneously making me regret my decisions quite like Shadow of the Colossus. Brandin Tyrell As the very first game what would become a landmark shooter series, Battlefield 1942 laid the groundwork for how I would be spending hundreds and hundreds of hours of my life. Though not the only cooperative, team-work oriented shooter of its time, Battlefield 1942 was in a class by itself.

As full battles ripped across huge, open landscapes, waged from land, air, and sea, the realization of a being able to command a capital ship, lob tank shells from one point to the next, or changed the tide of the war with one well placed bomber payload was intoxicating. There was simply nothing like the size and scale of Battlefield 1942, and its legacy has only gotten bigger in nearly 15 years since. Ryan McCaffrey I'd heard about Guitar Hero, but I only had an Xbox and Xbox 360. So when Guitar Hero II hit, I fell for the plastic-guitar genre hard. And in 2007, when Rock Band – from Harmonix, the very same creators of Guitar Hero – released, my co-workers and I swooned for the full-band game.

We were justified in doing so. Rock Band literally invented a new form of multiplayer – one that was not only cooperative, but also one where four of you could share a physical energy in the room.

It remains a feeling that no game has replicated, and the very act of learning the 'language' of the game – teaching your hands to work the guitar neck, or your hands and feet to work in concert to 'play' the drums – was a game in and of itself. Even once you learned that language, moving up the ranks, from Easy to Expert, was an adventure with a tangible payoff: you could see and feel the results. And dominating a classic song you and your friends all know and love as a four-player 'band' playing on the highest difficulty made memories that last long after the console turned off.

Vince Ingenito Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, and video games is a combination akin to a peanut butter, chocolate, and marshmallow sandwich. It’s this intoxicating mix that made Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic a runaway hit when it came out in 2003. I still remember the rush of excitement I felt when I learned that Bioware, the studio behind the Baldur’s Gate franchise, was looking to bring Infinity Engine-style gameplay into the third dimension, and in the Star Wars universe no less, and I was not disappointed by the outcome in the least.

KOTOR would become the first console RPG where I felt like I needed to really understand the underlying statistical systems that determined the outcomes of my choices in combat, and where that information was readily available in-game. That might sound like work to some, but for me, seeing the math made gear and skill decisions far more significant.

I remember working out the formula for a really good crit build for my character in my head, and when it worked exactly the way I thought it would, my journey towards the dark side was complete. Beyond the mechanics however, KOTOR is notable for giving console players the opportunity to make big, world altering decisions. If you really wanted to play the bad guy, there were some truly vile things you could do down the stretch, and for my money, KOTOR’s central plot twist is still the best that gaming has ever seen. Brendan Graeber The Legend of Zelda holds a special place in my heart as the first real game I attempted by myself. Up until then, I was content to watch my dad or sister play games and offer what limited advice my child mind could come up with. But once I saw the mysterious expanse that Zelda had to offer, I knew I would take on this challenge myself. Never before had I thought that a virtual space on a TV screen could be capable of such wondrous exploration.

Each new screen I sent Link to had more enemies, obstacles, and mysteries. I had began drawing dozens of maps (with the help of my dad), labeling them with notes and tips I had picked up on my journeys, and the locations of dungeons I knew I would have to conquer. The Legend of Zelda set the bar very high for how open a game world could be, and how to cleverly guide a player through a treacherous journey with subtle nudges in the right directions. I owe a lot of my early childhood imagination to this game for igniting that spark, and helping it continue to burn to this day. Jon Ryan If you're reading this list and haven't played Red Dead Redemption, go find yourself a copy of the game and the appropriate console to play it on.

We'll wait the 30+ hours - this is important. 2008's GTA 4 may have been the reason that I bought an Xbox 360, but RDR is the reason I kept it.

Not only did I get completely lost in the massive single-player world, to the point where I'd started talking with a bit of a drawl because I was so used to hearing it, but it also drew me into online gaming unlike anything I'd played before. Sure, CoD was fun for a bit and racing games were okay, but never before had I so successfully crafted my own stories and adventures (with friends and strangers alike) than in Red Dead's Free Roam mode. It was the kind of game you couldn't wait to discuss with your friends the next day. 'Did you save that woman on the train tracks?' 'No, but I found this cabin that had, like, 1,000 cougars in it,' 'That's cool, but did you kill Sasquatch?' Everyone had their own amazing tales to tell about their time in the old west, and you were constantly making new ones every time you turned it on.

The only real downside to Red Dead is that it never came out on PC - which is mostly sad because my 360 died last year and I really want to play it again. Meghan Sullivan Final Fantasy VI was a revelation for me back in the mid ‘90s. It’s dark, steampunk-laden world was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and I loved how the heroes were more brooding and complex than their cheery predecessors. The music affected me profoundly as well; some of my favorite Nobuo Uematsu pieces (including 'Dancing Mad' and 'Aria di Mezzo Carattere') are from the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack.

But what really sets Final Fantasy VI apart for me is its many iconic moments: Magitek armor moving slowly through a snowy field. Celes singing at the opera house. Running into Deathgaze while flying around in Setzer's airship. Kefka destroying the world and becoming a god. These moments have stayed with me for over 20 years.

Along with its incredible story and soundtrack, Final Fantasy VI also features a fantastic combat system, which includes the ability to freely swap out party members between battles. (There are a whopping 14 playable characters in all.) The tetradeca of heroes isn’t stacked with useless filler characters either, something I remember very much appreciating when I was faced with a tough Boss fight and needed to adjust my strategy. I also liked switching out spells and abilities using magicite, which allows players to freely customize characters however they see fit.

Final Fantasy VI is considered a milestone in the Final Fantasy series, and with good reason. It’s unique combat and incredibly dramatic story sets it apart from most games of its generation. Even today, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I loved Final Fantasy VI then, and I love it now. Justin Davis Symphony of the Night is beloved by gamers the world over thanks to its responsive controls combined with its expansive, rewarding game world. If you make a game character that’s fun to control, and then put that character in a unique world full of secrets that reward the inquisitive, the end result is a game that’s very hard not to love. But it’s one specific moment in Symphony that elevates it from merely being a “game I love” into its position as one of the best games ever made.

It’s also one of the most epic video game secrets of all time. After you’ve played through the entire game, defeating massive bosses, equipping badass loot and discovering dozens of secrets, right at the moment you think you’re about to win, you discover you’re only halfway done! Symphony’s (spoilers!) inverted second castle is much more than just a lazy way to extend the quest. It has devilish new enemy patterns, new bosses, and fantastic new equipment. Not bad for a secret that is easy to miss entirely.

Symphony of the Night is much more than just a fun side-scroller with an awesome twist, though. Dracula’s castle has never been more varied, filled with gorgeous gothic pixel art and backed up by a fantastic soundtrack. Alucard and all of his monstrous foes are lusciously animated. It’s basically the entire package. Art, animation, sound, gameplay, design even replay value, thanks to multiple playable characters. It all comes together perfectly.

Dan Stapleton When Half-Life first came out in 1998, it was immediately obvious how transformative a it was. Valve not only proved it was possible to tell a real, atmospheric story from within a first-person-shooter, but did it so brilliantly that its lessons have informed virtually every shooter campaign since. Stepping into the Black Mesa Research Facility as mild-mannered Gordon Freeman and bearing witness to the accident that sets off an interdimensional invasion is a master class in introducing a game’s universe. Instead of stopping the action and playing a cutscene to advance the story, Half-Life’s tale all plays out from Gordon’s perspective, never taking control away from us, but directing our eyes toward its scripted events.

That technique was surprisingly effective at making me feel like Gordon and I were one in the same. Iconic monsters - most notably the Alien facehugger-like Headcrabs that transform scientists into gruesome zombies - and impressive soldier AI gave Half-Life a spooky atmosphere backed up by enemies that pose a real threat. Great and memorable weapons, from the simple crowbar to the silent sniper crossbow and the biological homing weapon that shoots alien bees, made fighting through the spooky ruins of Black Mesa a fantastic battle. Chloi Rad There’s a reason a snake’s skeleton, and not a snake itself, features prominently in the title sequence of Snake Eater. This was the game that stripped the Metal Gear formula down to its very core and proved that it could still function even outside our expectations. It forced us to take what we knew about espionage and infiltration and learn how to apply it in a new, unfamiliar environment, and it did so with a bold and elegant understanding of its own systems.

You could have all the stealth know-how and military training in the world, but out there in the unpredictable jungle of the Russian wilderness, you were exposed, vulnerable a Naked Snake. And it worked. This weird shift in tone, structure – it all worked beautifully, and with a poetic edge that is unrivaled in other Metal Gear installments. Snake Eater is arguably one of the most interesting love stories ever told in a game, one of the strangest and most exciting Cold War-era adventures, and one of the first games to truly make me reflect on my actions as a player. It manages to be tragic, sometimes devastatingly so, and yet still maintain that absurd comedic flair that I admire about this series. Any game that can make you emotional about climbing a ladder deserves some kind of recognition.

Steve Butts Civilization is the reigning franchise in the 4X genre, and Civilization IV is the best game in the series. It takes absolutely everything that makes the series so enjoyable and re-energizes the experience with a streamlined interface, new systems that add depth and detail to all your interactions with your civilization, and a robust multiplayer component that finally makes grand strategy games work for simultaneous play. The best part of the game is not the tanks or legionnaires or frigates (although those are definitely cool), but the way the game reflects the values you bring to it as you lead your civilization through 6000 years of history. If you want to be a war-mongering despot, crushing your rivals under your iron-shod boots, you can do that. If you want to be a peaceful aesthete, using your advances in art and culture to assimilate other civilizations, you can do that.

If you want to be a focused research, striving to unlock the secrets of nuclear power and interstellar travel, you can do that too. Civilization asks you how you want to conquer the world and then turns you loose to pursue that goal in a world where every decision results in a tradeoff or consequence that adds layers and layers of meaning to your story. Steve Butts There was a run of fantastic space combat sims in the early 1990s and Star Wars: TIE Fighter is the best of the bunch. Starting right after the Battle of Hoth, the game tips the Star Wars experience on its head by putting you in the role of an Imperial pilot who works for a shadowy group protecting the Emperor. While games like Wing Commander might have had better overall presentation between the missions, the action and story in TIE Fighter is as good as the genre’s ever seen.

The mission design and combat model puts you right in the action, mixing it up with X-Wings as they attack your Star Destroyer, chasing down pirates trying to escape with Imperial cargos, and investigating cargo containers smuggling Rebel contraband. All the Star Wars space action you could want is here in this one game, and the story actually develops and changes in the course of the missions.

As space combat goes, this is as good as it gets. Brian Albert Bungie’s 2001 shooter was a success on every front.

It was one of the first games to make guns, grenades, and melee all feel satisfying and useful. Its setting, the ring-world called Halo, was sprawling, beautifully designed, and packed with mysteries. It brought us fun vehicles that have since become video game icons, like the Warthog. Its multiplayer mode was full of great maps and modes, and was responsible for many late nights and incomplete homework assignments. It just did everything. Halo blew my teenage mind when it introduced the Flood.

It’s rare to see a new enemy added halfway through the game – let alone one so terrifying and important to Halo’s overall story. Flood infection forms are funny little things now, but at the time, I held down my assault rifle trigger like there was no tomorrow. Jose Otero In 2007, I had nothing but apathy for platforming video games. I respected the genre, especially after years spent tracking down trinkets and princesses alike, but I was pretty sure I’d taken my last trip through the bright and colorful Mushroom Kingdom. I’d seen and read good things about Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii, but I’ll never forget the moment that pulled me in. An E3 demo showed Mario rocketing through the galaxy, as the plumber bounced from tiny planet to tiny planet. One second he was running up a wall and the next he was on the ceiling.

I simply had to try this game. And when I did, I discovered that Super Mario Galaxy took everything I loved about 3D platforming games, the precise controls and delightful open spaces to run around in, and it turned genre upside down and then it shoved it down a gravity well. It was always changing, and it was always challenging me with fun new ideas. A groundbreaking achievement, and a game that rekindled my love for a genre, Super Mario Galaxy deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Vince Ingenito Karate Champ, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and Street Fighter got me started on fighting games, but when I saw the first pictures of Street Fighter 2 ahead of my local arcade getting it in 1991, I actually couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Its massive, vividly detailed characters and vibrant special effects looked so far beyond everything else I was playing that I thought the magazine I was looking at was from the future. When I played it, it felt as ahead of its time as it looked. Though its predecessor had switched to a six button setup eventually, that many buttons was still unheard of in a time where most arcade games had two or three.

In addition to the quarter circles the original introduced (which had remained a secret to all but the most dedicated players), there were moves you’d have to hold the stick in one direction, only to move it in the opposite direction with a timed button press. Combining inputs in this fashion had never been done, anywhere. Additionally, button presses did different things depending on your distance from your opponent, representing one of the most successful early examples of using context-sensitive controls to greatly expand the number of different actions available to the player. It isn’t much of a stretch to say that these design discoveries transformed the landscape of game theory, giving Street Fighter 2 significance far beyond the massive arcade renaissance it inspired. Dan Stapleton Finding out just how deep the multi-layered near-future conspiracy goes is a driving force that encourages exploration of every corner of Deus Ex’s large and semi-open levels.

It’s a surprisingly rich and juicy mystery that poses interesting questions about the future of human civilization amid ever-advancing technology. Building JC Denton up as your own custom-built cyborg secret agent is a joy, allowing you to mix and match upgrades to suit your playstyle anywhere on the spectrum of action to stealth. This, naturally, leads to a great deal of replayability -- no matter what augmentations you choose, Deus Ex’s levels have a different path that can only be accessed by someone of your particular skills. You might fight your way through a group of enemies, sneak past them undetected, or hack their automated gun turret and turn it against them. You might even complete the entire story without harming a soul.

Brandin Tyrell Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn was very much a leader of the pack during the RPG renaissance of the early 2000s and is still an excellent example of that genre’s strengths. From its fantastically written characters and story to its vast arsenal of weapons, armors and magic, Baldur’s Gate 2 was an adventure that you could not only get lost in, but that could be lived in, spending hundreds of hours exploring every hidden secret and mystery. But, personally, Baldur’s Gate 2 was a truly digital representation of the world and rules of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D video games have historically been hit-or-miss, and as a kid I was enamored with games like Eye of the Beholder, but these virtual dungeon-crawling adventures were a far cry from the real thing. Baldur’s Gate 2 changed that for me, finally making good on the digital promise of its tabletop ancestry.

And though it may be a little dusty, it’s still as good today as it was when the saga of the Bhaalspawn first unfolded. Daniel Krupa Puzzle games can sometimes be a little dry – more concerned with logic, reason, and the elaborateness of their design.

Portal was totally different. Its challenges were embedded in a much bigger story, filled with memorable characters and enduring moments. Video games in general manipulate space and perspective better than any other medium, and Portal takes full advantage of that unique strength. Enter the portal gun – one of the great video game tools. Instead of firing bullets, it rips through space, allowing the player to traverse a level almost instantaneously.

Sounds simple, almost like a cheat, but the intelligent design of each test chamber prevents players from making a beeline to the exit. Other variables, like velocity, also had to be considered. Portal’s design remains exemplary and its humour, undiluted. Escaping Aperture Science elevated the puzzle genre beyond mere interactive conundrums.

Mitch Dyer I took vacation and flew to Los Angeles to play Grand Theft Auto V with my friend Tom. Despite my relative ambivalence for previous games in the series, GTA 5's pre-release promises and spectacular trailers excited me for it so much that I flew across California and stayed up until 4am every night playing with a friend. We bounced between characters and handed the controller off between lethal car crashes and ill-conceived firefights. We wondered what was going on with that alien mountain before trying to bike down it without dying. We tried for three hours to steal a jet from a military compound. We marveled at nearly every moment, exclaiming our disbelief for GTA5’s outstanding cast, much-improved driving, gorgeous artistic variety, fantastic and involved heist design, and the seeming impossibility of its depth.

Playing GTA 5 in Tom’s Hollywood apartment while making an absolute mess of a beautiful recreation of his city remains my favorite single gaming experience. GTA 5 is the sort of game that leaves a strong, lasting impression no matter how you played it. It’s the sort of game that can invert your admiration for a franchise. It’s the rare game that’s worth flying for. Steve Butts It’s nearly impossible to overstate the importance of Minecraft but, unlike most very important things, this one also happens to be incredibly fun.

The ultimate sandbox game, Minecraft delivers an experience that’s really about what you want. Even in Survival mode, where Creepers and hunger and traps and broken picks all conspire to put pressure on you, the only boundaries are those that you put on yourself. Whether farming pumpkins to make snowman golems who fling fireballs at your enemies, or unlocking the door to the Nether to do battle with flying jellyfish in a flame-blasted hellscape, or creating your own working calculators out of wires and circuits, Minecraft is a game where you get to decide what it’s all about. Outside of Survival mode, Minecraft players have used the game as a digital sculpting tool, recreating everything from Winterfell to the starship Enterprise. The options for making content are nearly limitless and entire careers have been made by people who can show the enthusiastic community how all the different toys in this toy box work together. Marty Sliva Super Mario World means so many different things to me.

On a base level, it’s my personal favorite game in what’s probably my favorite series of games. It’s an incredible platformer that oozes charm, creativity, and challenge. It took what Nintendo built with the first three games on the NES, and cranked it up to the next level. Everything was bigger, brighter, and more complex. But on a personal level, it’s the game that I associate with my introduction into thinking about video games on a deeper level.

I was just absent-mindedly gazing at the television as my fingers adhered to years of muscle memory. Rather, I was looking past what was on the surface level, and really thinking about what went into the design of the game.

I distinctly remember practicing with Mario’s cape for hours on end until I mastered the ability to glide across entire levels. In an age before the internet, I combed every inch of every stage, eventually finding every single secret exit and finally getting that perfect “96” next to my save file. It’s still a game I go back to on a yearly basis, and I’m shocked that almost 25 years later, my fingers are still familiar with every little nuance of the game. Jared Petty Developed in an era when console RPGs were spiraling toward ever-more intricate heights of convoluted complexity, Chrono Trigger’s designers pared back the scope of their masterpiece, carefully choosing from only the most intuitive and marvelous necessities. Every design decision reflected a refreshing self-discipline.

The small cast of characters practically blazed with personality, with each hero’s distinctiveness reflected in their snappy dialogue, unique abilities, and vibrant animation. Combat was fast and fun and exploration of the lovingly-crafted world was a pure delight.

Free from the tedium of random battles and overly-verbose cut scenes, the superb story subverted expectations on several fronts, boldly killing a hero halfway through the story, introducing complex motivations for antagonists, and granting you the chance to team up with archenemies for the ultimate good of the world. Chrono Trigger drips with charm, playing on a whimsical sentimentality that never feels saccharine. Nostalgia, friendship, humor, and a sense of wonder are ever-present, even in the darkest moments.

The tone of the writing is perfectly reflected in the extraordinarily colorful art direction and a musical score that ranks among the best of its era. Exploration and experimentation are rewarded with frequent story hooks and a huge stable of endings which account for even the most audacious players.

Tal Blevins Pirates! Holds a special place in my heart because it’s the game I’ve played the most in my life.

I was first introduced to Pirates! As a kid back in the ‘80s when I played it on my Apple IIe, and I’ve been hooked ever since. So much so that I’ve owned it on at least nine different systems over the years, from the aforementioned Apple to most recently carrying around the enhanced version with me on my iPad so I can play it at any time. Sid Meier and the team at Microprose created one of the richest, most dynamic virtual worlds at the time. When you played Pirates! You were immersed in a salty high seas adventure. Not only was the game fun, but you learned a little history in the process.

Made me want to learn more about the Golden Age of Piracy, and I was often at my local library reading about the real-life exploits of the historical pirates I would meet in the game. Just writing this makes me want to go play now where did I put that puffy shirt? Did you know?

• Sid Meier’s Pirates! Has been released on over 20 platforms in the three decades since its original release. Was originally scoped as an RPG with multiple storylines, more NPCs in towns, and fleet battles.

• The game features historical pirates and privateers you can take on such as Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd and even Blackbeard. • Bigger's not always better -- sometimes a small, fast ship is the right way to go. You sacrifice total number of canons, but enemy firepower can easily be avoided by a swift ship. Daniel Krupa Mario games are synonymous with fun and innovation, and perhaps Mario 64 is the best example of the latter. It gathered the core elements of Mario’s best 2D, side-scrolling adventures and worked out how to translate them into a groundbreaking 3D world.

It was still recognisably Mario – he collected mushrooms and ran and jumped his way to success, but he was forever changed. He could now long jump, triple jump, and backflip.

While the underlying challenge remained the same and the locations were reassuringly familiar, the shift in perspective changed everything. What’s even more impressive is that Mario did not simply enter a new dimension with ease, he did it with style that few games unburdened with such technical challenges ever achieve. Mario 64 might now look a little blocky but it remains bold and brilliant, too.

Meghan Sullivan The classic Russian title-matching puzzle game by Alexey Pajitnov blew my mind way back in the day. Even as a little girl, I was obsessed with Tetris.

I’d never played a video game that mentally stimulating, let alone that addictive. I still remember spending hours sitting in front of the TV with the Nintendo Entertainment System sitting at my feet, rotating brightly colored puzzle pieces as they fell from the abyss, attempting to arrange them into horizontal lines that when assembled correctly would disappear and cause me to advance to the next stage.

It was crazy fun, even when blocks began to fall at an alarmingly fast pace and I fell into a frenzied panic. (I still remember how frustrated I’d get making careless mistakes that resulted in giant, pixelated Towers of Pisa.) But no matter how many times I had to start the game over, it was just too much fun to stop. There was always the chance that this time I’d get the right puzzle piece at the right time and could move on to the next stage. I never got tired of it, and even now Tetris remains one of my favorite games of all time. Ryan McCaffrey I'm not sure I've ever been more hyped for a game release than I was with Halo 2.

The 'Save Earth' marketing campaign had fans practically dizzy at the notion that Master Chief's fight with the Covenant was coming back home, and my first hands-on with the game – a five-on-five CTF match on Zanzibar behind closed doors at E3 2004 – was all I could think about for weeks after. When November 9 finally came and Halo 2 released (as Peter Moore's tattooed bicep promised), Halo 2 somehow lived up to the hype.

Single-player was a well-told interweaving tale between Chief and the Arbiter that was, in hindsight, probably underrated, while multiplayer literally changed gaming. Besides the multiplayer hopper system and party setup that raised the bar for everyone else, gameplay-wise, Bungie was at the peak of its powers. Weapons and vehicles were tuned to perfection, while the collection of multiplayer maps – even the 11 added later via a large map pack – were not just good but amazing. Lockout, Zanzibar, Midship, Coagulation, Ivory Tower, Ascension.the list just keeps going.

Halo 2 is still my favorite multiplayer shooter ever. Mitch Dyer I didn't like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time until I solved my first puzzle. I felt like a genius solving a temple, and watching Link make his way back out into Hyrule.

That's when I realized this wasn't a simple hack-and-slash action game set inside strange structures -- this is a world full of fun people and memorable places, bizarre quirks, and a subtle, brooding atmosphere. This enthralling, incredible open world captured our imagination, stunning us with its scale, and hooking us on its exploration. It felt like a real adventure, something that required work and time that paid off perfectly.

Years later, Ocarina of Time holds up as well as it ever did -- that this masterpiece is so readily replayable on Nintendo 3DS is a blessing. Justin Davis Super Metroid’s minimalistic environmental storytelling set a bar, way back in 1994, that I believe has still yet to be eclipsed. The planet Zebes is atmospheric, oppressive, and extremely lethal. At first glance, there doesn’t even appear to be any story. But then you start to look more closely.

The parasite-riddled dead soldier outside of an early boss room. The crashed, half-submerged alien spaceship that may or may not be haunted. The techno lair of the space pirates hiding under your nose the entire game. It’s brilliant and confident. It doesn’t explain to you what each new area is all about. It’s all there, for you to figure out (or ignore) on your own. But it’s Super Metroid’s ability to consistently invite the player to be curious - and then rewarding that curiosity - that makes it one of the greatest video games ever made.

It’s not just that there’s secrets hidden everywhere (although there are, and it’s awesome) - it’s that the game teases you with tantalizing clues - items, always just out of reach. An energy tank embedded in a seemingly impassable wall. A pair of missiles only obtainable from the collapsing blocks above, leaving you no idea of how to get up there, just with the knowledge that you can get up there. Super Metroid is an impeccable action-platformer - that’s the “easy” part. What makes it truly special is its genius combination of puzzle-solving, atmosphere, storytelling, exploration, game design, and gameplay.

There’s nothing else like it. Mitch Dyer More than a decade after its release, Half-Life 2 is still ahead of many other shooters. This is a game more about utility and thought than blind violence. Its reliance on physics, environment, and improvisation makes it one of the most interesting and unique action games around.

The beloved gravity gun remains its most interesting hook, allowing players to turn almost any object into a weapon or puzzle-solving tool. Its dynamic cast of memorable characters led an outstanding sci-fi story that is still smarter than most games since. Tack on its two episodic expansions, and the Half-Life 2 saga is a brilliant shooter with unforgettable and empowering action, as well as a heartbreaking cliffhanger that, even now, and every time I think about it, cuts just as deep as it did in the moment. Jared Petty When a sequel to Portal was announced I was surprised and a little disappointed. Let a masterpiece stand on its own, I thought.

A game so wonderfully unique didn’t need an obligatory follow-up. I trusted Valve to create something interesting, but I didn’t imagine it could hold a candle to the mad-genius wit of the original.I walked into Portal 2 expecting a competent, enjoyable, but ultimately unsatisfying effort. Instead, Portal 2 stunned me with better puzzles, fascinating new personalities, and comedic dialogue that had me pausing the game to gain control of my laughing fits. Every time I play Portal 2 I try to qualify how Valve managed to cultivate such a fertile ground for humor from such a limited cast of characters.

Despite existing only as a series of archival recordings, Cave Johnson seemed every bit as alive as GLaDOS, Wheatley, or myself. The design is a case study in the kind of environmental storytelling Valve introduced in Half Life and perfected in Portal 2. Every new area I entered had me eagerly anticipating what gags, story twists, and ludicrous logic-jumps might be waiting for me next. I’ve rarely enjoyed anything more than my unexpected return to Aperture Science. Jared Petty Super Mario Brothers might as well have come down from another planet. In an age where Pitfall was the standard of console game sophistication, showing a kid Mario was like buzzing Kitty Hawk with the Space Shuttle while the Wright Brothers were taking their first flight. Thirty-two scrolling levels, eight bosses, undersea adventures, power-ups, warp zones, coin heaven, dozens of secrets, and an unforgettable musical score were almost too much to get our minds around.

Fortunately, Nintendo’s ingenious and instructive World 1 level design taught us everything we needed to know to begin our quest across the enormous Mushroom Kingdom. Ryan McCaffrey DOOM changed my life. My gaming life, at least. Having spent my entire existence up to that point playing platformers, side-scrolling action games, etc.

On 8- and 16-bit consoles, DOOM's first-person shooting was a jaw-dropping paradigm shift. Everything about DOOM was incredible. Graphics were colorful and convincing.

Lightning was spooky. It felt like you were on a Martian moon. Music was memorable.

Weapon design was brilliant, and enemy design even more so. From the imps to the Cacodemons to the Cyberdemon, nearly every creature in DOOM was the stuff of nightmares – and in a then-unheard-of gameplay twist, they hated each other as much as they hated you.

And then there was DeathMatch. Whether you were connecting two PCs with a serial cable for one-on-one action or throwing a LAN party where four people hauled their PCs to the same place (bulky CRT monitors and all!) to chainsaw each other in the game, DOOM DeathMatch changed everything. And, incredibly, it's still fun. Vince Ingenito The Super Nintendo was home to all the first games that gave me the sense that video game levels could feel like actual places. When Link stepped out into the dark, stormy night at the beginning of Legend of Zelda: A link to the Past it really clicked for me: I’m not traversing a series of enemy-filled screens, I’m exploring Hyrule. I knew immediately that I was experiencing something magical, but I wouldn’t find the vocabulary to understand or describe it until much later. It’s the special sort of design alchemy that Nintendo has always excelled at: make every little micro-interaction “feel” good.

Written dialogue scrolls onto the screen accompanied by delicately played flute notes, slashed bushes scatter into a pleasingly animated whoosh of leaves, and the clompy splish-splash of Link walking over a puddle echoes against the dimly-lit walls of dark caves. Even today, few games take such great joy in tiny details. Link to the Past was a genuine design marvel as well, with an open world that struck a perfect balance between giving players enough open space to get a little lost without ever feeling they were aimlessly wandering.

Combat found a similar sweet-spot, with a mind towards spacing and timing that made fighting feel a little perilous while stopping short of being punitively difficult. Both artistically and mechanically, Link to the Past is about as close to perfect as I can imagine a game can reasonably be.

Justin Davis As a kid, I played almost any game that had a cool character on the box or starred my beloved Ninja Turtles. But even then, although I lacked the vocabulary to explain it, I knew that Super Mario Bros. Was special, and better than almost everything else. So when I received Super Mario Bros. 3 from Santa one year, and saw on the back of the box that Mario could fly, I knew I was in for something special. The game exceeded my every hope and wish for it, and I spent hundreds of blissful afternoons defeating Koopa Kids, rescuing kings, and discovering secrets strewn throughout Mushroom World. Mario 3 earned a place on my list of favorite games way back in 1990, and 25 years of gaming progress have yet to dislodge it.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is a textbook example of how to make a perfect video game sequel. It’s a mixture of the original’s best elements, combined with an almost excessive amount of imaginative new ideas. So much of what we consider so quintessentially Mario - the suits, the boos, the overworld - all actually originated here. Mario 1 had secrets. Mario 3 had something special to reward your curiosity in almost every level, not to mention the ultra-hidden warp whistles.

Mario 1 had Super Mushrooms and Fire Flowers. Mario 3 let you soar through the skies (as a Raccoon, of all animals), let you turn the tables and toss hammers back at your foes, let you gracefully slide through the water as a frog, and so much more. Every stage is an exploration of a new design idea, with almost no concept reused twice.They’re remixed and expanded, building on one another across 8 worlds, until they crescendo into a master class of platforming excellence, the likes of which has arguably never been topped. Super Mario Bros. 3 remains imminently playable to this very day.

Put the cart in the NES, watch the curtain rise, and hand the controller to anyone - young or old - and they’re almost guaranteed to become engrossed the moment they see they find their first hidden P-block in level 1. But what makes Super Mario Bros.

3 such an almost impossible achievement isn’t that the game still holds up. It’s that Nintendo made the masterpiece in 1990, without the benefit of decades of advancing game design and advancing technology. Nintendo had only been making video games, most of them early primitive efforts, for a little over 15 years before it created Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. 3’s imagination and sheer joy on display in virtually every stage is unmatched.

It is the greatest video game ever made.

Advertisement, with Microsoft releasing its new operating system on July 29th, 2015. Microsoft needs Windows 10 to do well, and couldn’t afford another mess up like Windows 8 or Vista, especially as Windows 10 is likely to be the.

So, on a scale of 1 to 5, how do you rate Windows 10? While we cannot guarantee your feedback will find its way to anyone at Microsoft HQ, we certainly want to know what you think of Windows 10. Welcome to this week’s MakeUseOf Poll. Doomed to Succeed To answer this week’s question please scroll down the page until you see the poll staring back at you. But first, we need to look at the results from last week, when we asked, “” Out of a total of 749 votes, 49.3% chose “ Windows 10 will be a huge success,” 38.1% chose “ Windows 10 will do OK, nothing more, nothing less,” 6.9% chose “ Windows 10 will be a huge failure,” 5.3% chose “ I don’t care either way,” and 0.4% chose “ What is Windows 10?” The vast majority of people think Windows 10 will do at least OK, with a majority of those thinking it will do phenomenally well. Only a small minority think Windows 10 will fail, while a similar number of sneaked in to register their complete lack of interest in the subject being discussed.

Microsoft will surely be heartened by this assessment of the state of play. Comment of the Week We received a lot of great comments, including those from Richard Cranium, Mike Myers, and Ali Khan. Comment Of The Week goes to Keefe Kingston, who earns our admiration and affection for: I think Windows 10 will be successful not because of the new stuff it brings or the improvements, but rather the the switch from Windows as a product to a service. We have to remember that mostly every operating system from Microsoft (if not all) always faced problems that early adopters had to deal with such as poor performance and features. While this was apparent in some some versions of Windows then others, many were a lot stabler and had their performance increased by the first service pack.

Because Windows 10 is now going to be offered as a service, Microsoft will now be focused solely on improving the operating system instead of just supporting it while also building the next latest and greatest Windows. I am lead to believe they will continue to come up with new features and fixes and add them into Windows 10 instead of holding them out so that they can drive the newer OS Microsoft just happens to want you to buy or get.

So that’s why I believe Windows 10 will have success. It may not be the best thing now, depending on what you want from an operating system but I’m sure that they’ll improve it over time just as they have any of their operating systems (like Windows XP [may it rest in peace] and Windows 7.) We chose this comment because it offers an extremely good reason why Windows 10 will succeed. Switching from merely supporting an existing operating system in order to keep it safe and secure, to actively improving it with new features added over many years, is a huge step in the right direction. Rate Windows 10! With and running free in the wild, we want to know what you think of this latest (and possibly last) version of Microsoft’s famous operating system. We’re keeping things as simple as possible, asking you to rate Windows 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. If you need to spend more time with Windows 10 before voting, choose that option and we’ll make a note to run this poll again at some point in the future.

Possibly just before Microsoft announces Windows 10 is a bust, and Windows 11 is happening after all. It could happen! Once you have voted in the poll above, please explain in the comments section below why you voted that way. For how many days/weeks/months did you use Windows 10 before voting in the poll? How would you improve Windows 10?

Do you plan on switching back to an older version of Windows? The more information you can provide with your comment, the more accurate our conclusions can be based on the results. The best comment of the week will win our everlasting admiration and affection. At least until we all meet back here again this time next week with a new question.

Image Credits: via Flickr.