Age of Empires 2: Build your cities and civilisations, raise armies, conquer continents; it remains the ultimate in real-time strategy.
Star Wars Jedi Knight II (Jedi Outcast): You play Kyle Katarn in the Star Wars world. You can mess around with the Force and hang out with Luke Skywalker.
Deus Ex: You play a half-man half-robot who doesn't know who he can trust in a world rapidly descending into chaos. A distinctly X-Files feel about it.
Half-Life: An experiment goes wrong and it is up to the bespectacled Gordon Freeman to save the world.
Counter-Strike: The most popular squad-based game, allowing teams to face off against each other in the guise of terrorists and counter-terrorists.
World of Warcraft (WoW): Some 8 million people pay a monthly fee to play it online. Set in the mythical world of Azeroth.
Thief (the dark project): The game that made sneaking-around-enemies more fashionable than killing them. Perhaps the first that made headphones a necessity.
Doom: The original first-person shooter that made the view-from-behind-a-gun fashionable. Its non-stop violence gave gaming a rather gory reputation.
Grand Theft Auto 3: Known for its overdose of violence and sex, it was perhaps the first popular game that allowed you to roam in a car doing just about anything.
The Curse of Monkey Island: One of the few games that pack in more humour than puzzles.
American McGee's Alice: An underrated game that takes a dark look at Alice in Wonderland.
Honourable Mentions: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, Quake 3, Sid Meier's Civilization, Indigo Prophecy, Baldur's Gate, and Black & White.
Mind Your Gaming Language
RPG or role-playing games in which you get the chance of forming the character you are playing. It can even let you convert a hero into a villain!
FPS or first-person shooter, refers to your perspective of a game. You see the game from the character's eyes, generally from behind a gun.
RTS or real-time strategy, is a game in which you have to make decisions about the allocation of resources among different units. The 'real time' element refers to the fact that you can do so without pausing, as opposed to 'turn-based' gaming.
MMORPG or massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is an RPG that is played by many people on the Internet. Players can run into millions!
Sim or short for simulation refers to games based on sports and flying, as they 'simulate' the conditions of that sport or aircraft.
