10 Greatest Programming Milestones In Gaming History

5. Half-Life

Half-Life proved that shooters could be about more than shooting monsters in the face and hitting them with a crowbar - they could be thoughtful, atmospheric and full of science references that only the nerdiest of nerds would get. Valve's breakout game was way ahead of its time when it came out in 1998. It told its story solely in the first-person without resorting to using cheesy, pre-rendered cut-scenes like so many games of its era. More importantly though, it was the first game to make use of scripted set-pieces that would later become a staple of the FPS genre. Featured advanced physics that allowed the player to pick up everyday objects within the environment and use them to solve puzzles (or to abuse annoying NPCs), Valve's impeccable attention to detail made Gordon Freeman's world feel like a real place. Their sophisticated skeletal animation system and artificial intelligence caused characters in the game to move and behave with a new level of realism that was unlike anything else around at the time.