7. Mass Effect 2
We all thought it couldn't be done, but Bioware managed to exceed every expectation for Mass Effect 2, delivering not only one of the finest third-person sci-fi shooters on the market, but a landmark genre milestone for the medium of gaming overall. Starting you off with one of the best narrative setups in history (Commander Shepard gets killed, then reanimated back into being, throwing all your previous alliances into disarray), it allowed them to essentially let you revisit the galaxy's various hierarchies all over again. Graphics across the board were something else, player agency in terms of conversation options and character-speccing was on another level than anything we'd seen, and all-round the main story was perfectly paced to last close to 60+ hours without ever letting up for a moment. Even now, despite all the hoo-ha around Mass Effect 3 (a wound that may heal if we'd all stop tonguing it), ME 2 is
the defining entry in Bioware's greatest achievement yet. It was many outlets' Game of the Year, and remains number two on
our own site list from 2014.