10 Video Games So Great They Ruined The Series

1. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty, it's an okay series really, isn't it? Despite our moaning about its retrograde plots, simplistic gameplay and elitist multiplayer modes that reward the best players at the expense of the weaker ones, it remains a solid shooter.

But there was a time when Call of Duty was more than good - it was great. From the very first game, set in World War II, the series was on a mostly steady ascent right up to Modern Warfare - a powerful and at times poignant romp that explored the then rarely charted theater of contemporary conflict (which is just my roundabout way of saying modern warfare without saying modern warfare).

The campaign took us from night-vision assaults on villages, to the bum-clenchingly intense All Ghillied Up sniper mission, to the unsettling Death From Above, where you shoot enemies using a monochrome heat vision camera that eerily distances you from the carnage you're causing.

Subsequent games upped the multiplayer features, and tried keeping us interested with 'shocking scenes' and visceral violence that in the end became too predictable. This was the zenith and there was no way to surpass it.

Which video games in big franchises were so good for you that the series was just never the same afterwards? Let us know in the comments below!