Half-Life (1998)

Developer: Valve Software

Publisher: Sierra

According to pc.gamespy.com

In the annals of videogame history, few weapons are more iconic than Gordon Freeman's crowbar. The silent-but-deadly hero of Valve's Half-Life wielded the common household tool with the grace and skill of... oh, who are we kidding? Everyone knows that the crowbar was just another melee weapon, but it became something bigger in the hands of Freeman, who's one of gaming's greatest heroes despite the fact that he's never uttered a single word.

This may have been due to the fact that Valve told the story of Freeman and the incident at Black Mesa not through boring pre-rendered cut-scenes (as was common at the time), but rather through first-person sequences that actually made the player feel like they were inhabiting Gordon's shoes. It may seem like a pretty small thing nowadays, but this was cutting-edge stuff back in the late '90s. It didn't hurt that the story itself was well-written, even during the moments that were filled with technobabble (a resonance cascade? Really?).

Half-Life no doubt belongs on this list, but we have one question for the folks at Valve: Will we ever see the conclusion of Gordon Freeman's story?