1. Half-Life
When released in 1998, Half-Life set the bar for all future first person shooters to be measured against, and its sequel, Half-Life 2, is often named as the greatest FPS of all time. If you have somehow gone all this time without hearing about Valves ground-breaking series, the story follows Gordon Freeman, a scientist who accidently helps create a portal to an alien dimension in a secret underground lab. After seeming to contain this threat, Gordon is frozen in stasis by the mysterious G-Man and is awoken decades later to find Earth enslaved by an even worse set of aliens known as the Combine. In City 17, where a lot of Half-Life 2 takes place, humans are ruled over by a totalitarian police state and are stopped from reproducing by a Combine suppression field. City life is pretty terrible in the Half-Life universe, with regular beatings, limited food, poor housing conditions and citizens disappearing. So why not get away from it all and move to the countryside? Well, if you do somehow manage to escape City 17, youll most likely get attacked by some of the original aliens who are still floating about, including the delightful head-crab who, like its name suggests, attaches itself to your head and turns you into a mindless zombie. Oh, did I say mindless? When its on your head, you are still fully aware of whats happening to you, but theres nothing you can do to stop it (in case you havent already come across this,
listen to the groans of the head-crab infected zombies backwards, as they will translate into audible phrases such as "Oh God" and "Dear God, help me"). So you can either stay in the city with no food and no sex or you can head for the countryside and get killed by aliens. What a life!
Agree with this list? Think there are other modern video game universes that are worse to live in? Let us know in the comments section below.