7. Half Life (1998)
Metal Gear Solid and Half Life are two sides of the video game storytelling coin. Where the former saw a future of cut scenes and heavy exposition, the latter went in the other direction, eschewing these entirely in favour of total immersion. Half Life's opening sequence, in which you wander through an expansive scientific facility, is still remarkable in its humdrum, just-another-working-day atmosphere, with potentially relevant information drifting by as easily-missed background chatter. It's also influential viewers of the Playstation 4 conference may have spotted echoes of it in the video reveal of Killzone Shadow Fall... http://youtu.be/JUZJTjns6Qg Most games fall somewhere in between Metal Gear Solid and Half Life on the Cut-Scene/No Cut-Scene spectrum, of course. It is therefore in their definition of these polarities that they have both earned a place on this list.