4. Grand Theft Auto III
Weird as it is to think, GTA III was a PlayStation exclusive back in 2001, only coming to Xbox as part of a bundle with Vice City in 2004. As such - and alongside the three previous 2D iterations - it very much found its audience on PlayStation, which to be honest couldn't have gone better for Rockstar if they tried. The PS2 was already riding the crest of a wave so high even Sony couldn't have imagined, and for GTA III to arrive and revolutionise everything we thought we knew about game design - that was a match made in heaven. Everybody's played GTA III at this point, but that slow-realisation of it being an actual world laid out in front of you was mind-blowing - taking up missions was just just as much fun as darting off in a random direction and seeing what you could find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM8KKIoZ5dA Gaming had long-since championed experimentation through the discovering of glitches or new ways to play your favourite titles, but now we had something that not only encouraged such a thing, but actively rewarded you with one of the best-designed cityscapes and overall gaming worlds in history.