18 Essential Landmark Titles Every Gamer Must Play

10. Gears Of War

Up until Gears Of War, third-person shooters were a mixed barrel. Most were clunky, unintuitive, and not all that fun. Epic revitalised the genre in 2006 by delivering one of the finest shooting and cover systems to date. In fact, just about every third-person shooter released afterwards had more or less adapted the system themselves. Though a fairly straightforward shoot 'em up at heart, a decent story and a fine protagonist make it far more enjoyable than some of the other shooter titles released around the same time. Perhaps even more importantly, Gears Of War implemented a superb co-op mode to the campaign, offering something more than just running and gunning to those who preferred objective-based gameplay with their friends. Released just a year after the launch of the Xbox 360, Gears Of War was a key factor in many gamer's decisions to buy the console over the PlayStation 3. Although the sequels struggle to live up to the success of the original, the franchise remains one of Microsoft's finest, and required gaming for any 360 or PC gamer.