12 Most Influential Video Games Of The 2000s

7. Halo: Combat Evolved

Goldeneye may have proved back in 1997 that first-person shooters shooters on consoles were a viable thing, but the suffix to Bungie's inaugural Xbox shooter really does sum up the game's monumental role in moving the genre forward.

Halo alone made the original Xbox worth getting. It had wonderful personality despite all those space helmets covering everyone's faces, breathtaking action sequences, and shooting mechanics that were almost as satisfying as using a keyboard and mouse (almost...). It was the little touches such as the excellent sniping, vehicular combat and incredible enemy AI that set a new watermark for console shooters to aspire to, and its brilliantly realised space opera universe is one of the few to actually inspire a half-decent movie - remember Elysium?

It was the definitive shooter package - a balance of phenomenal single-player campaign and multiplayer by way of the some of the best-engineered gameplay ever seen in a console shooter. It's here, that the modern console shooter truly began.