Somewhat belatedly, due to recieving IRL exam results and stuff, heres my top 25. 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -360,PS3, PC Call of Duty 4. I consider it the best game for myself personally, because it really got me in to playing online and with friends. Despite being almost 3 years old and having 2 sequels out, its still holding its own online, testament to how good it is. I dont think I need to elaborate on why the multiplayer is so good, apart from to say that no game has better maps, game modes, weapons, and progression system. But its the campaign that really raises it up to the number 1 spot. Its so well executed in terms of its cinematic style, graphics and sound. Also the way the missions are varied is excellent; you can go from sneaking through a Russian night to piloting an AC-130 gunship, to sneaking through a photo realistic Chernobyl and then to saving the world from a nuclear holocaust. Just such a shame they had to ruin it all with the sequel. 2. Rome: Total War -PC Rome Total war is a game that Ive lost hundreds of hours to. The game works on so many levels, from the battle mechanics to the empire management. Theres so much to do as theres a ton of factions to choose from, even in the vanilla version, which suffers from wild historical inaccuracies, and stacks the deck pretty firmly in the Romans favour even though they start as four factions to try and recreate the civil wars. With the mods though the game really shines, and theres a ton of great ones out there. 3. Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings/The Conquerors expansion -PC This is the first strategy game I really got into, and I still play it to this day. Its just so intuitive in its controls, so varied in its campaigns, civilisations and their unique units and technologies, and in its maps as the random map generator means its literally a different map every time. Its 2d style looks great even to this day, and its opening cinematic is great, as is the musical score. Not a fan of AoE3 though. 4. Resistance: Fall of Man PS3 This game struck a particular chord with me as its the first next gen game I played as it came with my PS3, but mainly because the game uses famous English locations in its campaign, such as Manchester Cathedral which caused loads of controversy for the game. Fighting your way through a 1950s St Pancras station before driving through Trafalgar square in a tank blasting aliens is a pretty awesome experience. The campaign has a great back story and is told very well, with plenty of action, which the game excels at due to its amazingly inventive weapons, e.g. guns that burrow through walls, bounce off walls, sniper rifles that slow down time, lay down living mines, fire controllable rockets, create force fields etc. The multiplayer is extremely strong as well boasting 40 players and custom games that are still played to this day across stellar maps. Again they kind of messed up the sequel by adopting a kind of failed CoD mindset involving killstreaks and classes, and limiting the number of weapons you can carry at once to a mere 2 compared to the first games 10 or so. 5. Stronghold -PC Stronghold is an incredible castle sim. The basic premise of the game is to either build a castle and have it withstand sieges, or to conduct your own siege. The game is extremely deep in its economic management, so deep that you can play the game without any combat in purely economic modes. The game has massive replayability in that youre always trying to build a better, more efficient castle, and there are some great player made maps out there, e.g. map based on Lord of the Rings. The 2d graphics are still very easy on the eyes. 6. Age of Mythology/The Titans expansion -PC Age of Empires with mythical creatures, powers, and heroes, and a really good story driven campaign. It looks a lot nicer than AoE2 as well, with more attention to detail, e.g. as you upgrade weapons and armour troops look visibly different. I ranked it lower than AoE2 though as it didnt quite capture me as much. 7. Zoo Tycoon/Dinosaur Digs/Marine Mania expansions -PC This was just a really fun time sink for me when I was a kid. Theres tons and tons of animals, cages, trees, grass, plants and terrain as well as hundreds of things to make your Zoo with. The dinosaur expansion allows you to make your very own Jurassic Park. I dont think the marine animals really worked all that well, but all the new items and stuff was welcome. 8. Resident Evil 4 PS2,GC,Wii,PC Actually played this on the Wii, and its mainly the controls it had that put it in the top 10. For most games the Wii controls are just downright gimmicky or inferior but they really worked on this game because of the way you stop moving to shoot, so it effectively became a mix of action and light gun shooting. The game itself is the best horror game Ive played, in that it marries excellent action with a great horror atmosphere. I was never really afraid (apart from the regenerators bit), but the atmosphere was really well constructed especially in the village and castle sections. The system of levelling up guns added an RPG element as well, and the cheesy voice acting adds an element of humour. 9. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -PC Dawn of War is just a great RTS with plenty of depth and awesome units. Im not a WH40k player but the deep universe creates a great atmosphere, as does the great voice acting of the units and characters in the campaign. Great graphics and animations. I played the first game and the Winter Assault expansion, not so sure I would have liked the other expansions because they did away with a story based campaign. 10. Call of Duty/United Offensive -PC The original Call of Duty deserves its place in the top 10 both for being an incredible game and for starting the series off to lead to Call of Duty 4. I remember it mainly for the incredibly atmospheric Russian missions, especially the Stalingrad one. One of my top gaming memories is that mission, starting off by crossing the river with German Stuka dive bombers on all sides, leading to some Russians jumping over the sides and being shot in the water by the Commissars. Then getting off the boat and being handed a 5 round clip of ammo and being told to draw machine gun fire, before charging across Red square straight into machine gun fire while still carrying only the ammo. 11. Gears of War/Gears of War 2 -360 Gears of War Ive recently rediscovered, mainly due to the horde mode in GoW2. The graphics are awesome, as is the cover system and the generous amount of gore. The story is good for what it is and theres a good variety of enemies and weapons, including the famous chainsaw bayonet. Horde is just pretty awesome, 5 players in coop just digging in against a ton of Locust. Simple but it gives so much replayibility. 12. Batman: Arkham Asylum -360,PS3, PC A game where you can truly feel like Batman, coupled with amazing production values, story, voice acting and a simple but effective control scheme. Theres a ton of collectibles and riddles to solve, and when youve finished the game you can play through the generous challenges, as Batman or the Joker if you have the PS3 version. 13. Uncharted: Drakes Fortune PS3 This game marries beautiful graphics and excellent storytelling in the mould of Indiana Jones. The platforming works very well, especially as youre often climbing up cliffs in the middle of a jungle, so the views are just stunning. The gunplay works well and the characters are very likeable, and theres a ton of collectible treasures to find. My only criticism is the kind of weird turn the last 1/3 of the game took. Ive not played the sequel yet though. 14. Dead Space -360,PS3, PC Dead Space has a great horror atmosphere similar to RE4, as well as great graphics and a similar system of upgrading guns, extended to your suit as well. There are inventive enemies as well as an inventive combat system in which you blow off limbs rather than go for the head. 15. Gran Turismo 4 PS2 Gran Turismo 4s just a great driving simulator, thats well ahead of its time for the PS2, boasting tons and tons of cars and tracks as well as brilliant graphics for the hardware, with an added almost RPG system of progression. 16. Lord of the Rings: The Third Age PS2,Xbox The Third Age is a really solid RPG in which you play as a kind of second fellowship shadowing the first. As a result youre present for all the events of the films but the game has the freedom to go off and do its own thing. Its a very well put together RPG and the turn based combat and exploration work well. My only real criticism is that some of the characters are pretty annoying, and some of the special attacks have very tedious animations. 17. Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth -PC This is a really great RTS which recreates the events of the films really well. It looks great and controls great, and the heroes have really cool powers. My favourite part was a user created map which pitted all the heroes against increasingly difficult enemies, starting with just Orcs and ending up with armies of trolls. 18. Red Dead Redemption -360,PS3 I havent had this game for that long but I can already see that its [bleep]ing amazing. Apart from doing crazy stuff Ive never liked GTA that much, but this game stands on its own merit without needing stuff like flipping cars and ramming helicopters into the Empire State Building. The graphics look brilliant as well especially the horses, and theres pretty much everything you could thing of in a western to do, from capturing bandits to herding cattle. The multiplayers pretty sweet as well. 19. Star Wars Battlefront -Xbox,PS2,PC Basically this game is a Star Wars version of Battlefield. You can cruise around in an AT-AT or fly around in an X-Wing, all the time bringing the pain to AI bots, which was pretty much all I used to do in splitscreen with friends. 20. Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast -PC Basically this game lets you play as disgraced Jedi Knight Kyle Katarn, with all the badass force powers you can imagine, as you work to uncover an evil plot hatched by some evil dark Jedi. The force powers were what really made this game awesome, as well as the lightsaber play and the really nice graphics for its time. My only problem with it is that for the first few levels you didnt have force powers or a lightsaber and it played as a kind of boring FPS. 21. Spartan: Total Warrior PS2,Xbox,GC This is the first game I got on my PS2, and it basically plays a lot like God of War without the platforming. Its from the creators of the Total War games and its a shame it never took off to become a franchise because its actually really good, with plenty of badass weapons, enemies and god powers to use, and a nice arena mode and collectibles. 22. Forza Motorsport 3 -360 Ive not had this game for long either but the amount of cars, tracks and attention to detail is staggering. The ability to create your own decals is amazing and you can literally create anything, and then you can sell it on the marketplace as if it was a MMORPG. The tag multiplayer mode is hilarious as well. 23. Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force PS2,PC I dont even like Star Trek Voyager but this game turned out to be surprisingly good. Fun weapons, fun characters, a long and interesting campaign, and a pretty fun multiplayer mode with AI bots. It looked pretty nice as well and built up a good horror atmosphere as it progressed. 24. Medieval 2: Total War/Kingdoms expansions The sequel to Rome, this Total War is graphically amazing. You can see individual soldiers engage in individual duels, and see crossbowmen load their bolts, cannons shake the ground, and a whole host of graphical improvements. There are some interesting campaigns as well, e.g. against the Aztecs. I think I preferred the gameplay of Rome however, as well as the time period. 25. Hercules Action game PC, PS1? This isnt even that good of a game, but I included it because its one of the first games I played, and for a long, long time I was stuck on the third level, and when I finally beat it it was such a feeling of accomplishment even though I must have been about 7 or something. It is a pretty competently made 2d platformer though, even though I dont care for them.