20 Essential Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

7. Fallout 3

Everything about Fallout 3 was stunning. Everything. From the scope and grandeur of the story, to the unprecedented way this post-apocolyptic world was realised on screens, the game placed the player right in the heart of a wasteland that was both familiar and completely unfathomable.

Returning to the desolate and warped world of the Fallout franchise, the third instalment finally gave the setting the modern adaptation it so richly deserved. Setting the player off on a quest to track down his scientist father, the game crosses the ruins of Washington DC and pits you against warring factions, a resurgent government, super-mutants, and other nuclear beasties over almost 100 missions in the game and its DLC.

The setting is stunning, the dialogue is fantastic, and some of the weapons and armour you can acquire are brilliantly fun. Even the Pipboy player interface, the learning of new skills and improving of your abilities is inspired in its amusement and its simplicity. As story telling goes, there are few titles that can rival Fallout III.