25 Best Video Games Of The 2000s

8. Assassin's Creed II

Forget the barely iterative money-grabbing abomination AC has turned into, and remember the good days; the days when we were still interested in the modern day story, when climbing up the sides of buildings still made your eyes bulge in excitement, and when stabbing dudes was routed in stealth, not taking on entire platoons of people to create an opportunity.

The first Assassin's Creed suffered in the eyes of some by having too many similar-feeling quests, building up to an assassination, Hitman-style. Personally I loved that approach, but you could tell Ubisoft were hungry to please, taking onboard all criticisms and creating the swagger-happy Ezio as a loveable Italian Renaissance-man, giving you a simple-sounding revenge arc to kick things off. As this was 2009 and the second instalment, iteration and refinement of the core experience was of utmost priority.

That meant now you could pull off double-kills, chain attacks together between enemy guards, leap greater vertical distances - all set in sun-dossed Italy, meaning even the look of watching it all come together felt incredible.