14. Metal Gear Solid
We've been treated to a sh*t ton of sequels in the aftermath of this seminal game's success, but who would have thought 15 years have gone by since we got our first taste of this video game that tricked itself into thinking it was a movie? Actually the third game to be released in Hideo Kojima's acclaimed series, Metal Gear Solid became a whopping success story back in the September of 1998, thanks to its heavily-plotted and endlessly innovative gameplay. Also, there was Solid Snake, who is obviously the biggest badass ever (pixelated as he looks here).
Obscure Fact: Hideo Kojima actually set out to create "the best Playstation game ever" when he started developing Metal Gear Solid all the way back in 1995. Many would claim he succeeded.
13. Google
Nah, the internet was invented around 2003, wasn't it? No? 2002, then? C'mon - nobody was browsing the likes of Google before the year 2000, that's insane! And yet, apparently people were so doing that, given that Google first launched in the year 1998, back when things like "YouTube" and "Facebook" were just random words you could say to other people if you wanted them to think you were mental. To put all this into context, Mark Zuckerberg was just 14 at the time. Nowadays, of course, Google secretly rules the world (well, it's not even a secret, to be fair).
Obscure Fact: That button labelled "I'm Feeling Lucky" you never, ever click? You probably know that it causes Google to skip the results page and instead takes you directly to the first search result, but were you aware that it costs the company over £100 million in lost revenue every year, despite the fact that they know people rarely ever click on it it? Go figure.