10. Her Story
Critical darling Her Story is the latest to be put under the now-standard 'Is it a game, though?' magnifying glass. Well, yes, it is - it's an interactive story where you play a character, and the events of the tale won't play out until you've done some very specific things. That's a game. Written by Sam Barlow (the chap who brought you Silent Hill: Shattered Dimensions), you're plonked in front of an old 90s computer screen, tasked with thumbing through a huge number of interview clips, all with the goal of exploring whether or not the woman featured on them is guilty of murder. Where it goes from there is truly brilliant - especially when who you are and what you're really doing comes into play - but the main glue that holds it all together is one Viva Seifert, whose alluring live-action performance is what'll simultaneously make you trust and be forever weary of her innocence. Thanks to the 90s setting you'll only have access to a limited number of programs on the computer itself, but that just forces you to start making notes of your own. As the atmosphere and tone lays just enough of the plot out for you, it's in taking up the mantle of a detective yourself, compiling real-world notes, searching for answers and compiling your own version of events, that all makes for a brilliant endgame when you'll then venture online and discuss it all with the rest of the world.