30 Best Video Games Of All Time

8. Half-Life 2

Speaking of shooters, chances are COD 4 wouldn't even know how to comprehend storytelling done through a first-person perspective, if it wasn't for Half-Life 1 and 2.

I'm omitting the original here simply because the sequel improves upon it in every conceivable way, but together, Valve's experimental shooters represent a turning point for how the first-person perspective was used in gaming. Atop the various expositional scenes that let you interact with a variety of NPCs and parts of the environment, we had a physics-driven shooter where - for the first time - it felt like every bullet mattered.

Outside of levelling half the environment as you mowed down various Combine foes was the Gravity Gun; a literal way for the developers to let you weaponise any part of the landscape and blast it at enemies coming your way.

Let's just say you've not lived until you fling a few buzzsaw blades across the room to dice headcrabs in half, or obliterated a pack of machine gun-toting goons with a well-aimed car door. It was this blend of narrative, protagonist intrigue and experimental combat that will always see Half-Life 2 regarded as a unique, boundary-pushing, true great.