25 Most Critically Acclaimed Games Since 2000

The relationship between video games and technology is strange. Unlike film, television or even literature, the quality of a video game is so intrinsically linked to technological advancement that the concept of a 'golden oldie' can never really apply. Films are judged primarily on their acting talent - TV too - and books on the writer's ability to draw you in with words. All of those are timeless concepts, but with video games? Not so much. That may sound like a thinly-veiled attempt to say that all games made prior to the year 2000 are total rubbish, but it's quite the contrary. It's simply not fair to lump in archaic video games with modern examples when the technology gap is so ridiculously huge. GoldenEye 007 is and was a classic of the FPS genre, but compare it to any Call Of Duty game in recent years, and the former will look (and play) like a dusty artefact from the Stone Age. A period of fifteen years is still a lifetime where video game advancement is concerned, but the turn of the Millennium is when game budgets became the size of Hollywood blockbusters and manpower rivalled that of a film crew. But what are the best games of the last decade and a half according to the critics? Rest assured, there'll be some surprises...

Rating: Metacritic Score: 98

This list may exist in a post-GTA V world, but that doesn't make its predecessor any less accomplished.

Niko Bellic's gritty tale of a seedy and corrupt Liberty City is still marvellous to behold and maintains its own identity by having a more realistic and darker narrative.