10 Immortal Video Game Moments You'll Replay Forever

9. Arriving Late At Black Mesa (Half-Life)

What's this? Shifting from playing a steroid-munching muscle man with guns aplenty to a nerdy scientist running late for his first day on the job? That's video gaming in a nutshell. The diversity of the medium is really quite breath-taking times, even when games (technically) exist in the same genre.

Half-Life is an FPS, but it's pretty much nothing like Doom, at least not in the beginning.

Somehow, despite being forced to watch an on-rails tram journey through the mystical Black Mesa facility, there's something altogether charming about Valve's introduction to the Half-Life universe. Voiceless and faceless, Gordon Freeman takes a backseat and the player controlling him begins to assume his role.

That's clever writing, and Valve managed to achieve something special by keeping their protagonist mute. Rolling through Black Mesa with an authoritative narrator welcoming you to your new line of work shouldn't be this deep and immersive.

Nobody could have imagined that a largely non-interactive 10-13 minutes of "gameplay" could be so fun.