The atmospheric map, the wall jump and the baby Metroid; the SNES masterpiece.
Guide a hundred green-haired creatures to the exit by giving them jobs; the DMA puzzle hit before GTA.
Thirteen civilisations from the Dark Age to the Imperial Age; still played competitively.
The mansion, the door animations and the dogs through the window; survival horror is named.
Bullet time, a graphic-novel story and a New York winter; Remedy's noir shooter.
Nintendo's mascots fight on a GameCube; still played in tournaments twenty years on.
Lara Croft in Peru, the T. rex in the valley and a whole new kind of hero.
Heroes, four races and the custom map that became DotA; Blizzard's RTS peak.
A physicist teleported to an alien planet; Eric Chahi's wordless cinematic game.
Solid Snake on Shadow Moses, Psycho Mantis reads your memory card; Kojima's cinematic stealth.
Instagib, Facing Worlds and the announcer; the arena shooter of 1999.
Donald Duck, Goofy and a boy with a giant key through Disney worlds; the crossover that worked.
Garrett in the shadows of the City; stealth as a whole game.
Leon and Claire in Raccoon City police station; the 2019 remake is also essential.
CJ across a whole state; three cities, a countryside and a jetpack.
Build a house, fill eight need bars and steer a family through work and neighbours; the best-selling PC game.
Three days until the moon falls, replayed until you have saved everyone in Termina.
Miami in 1986, Tommy Vercetti, and the best licensed radio ever put in a game.
Raiden instead of Snake and a plot about information control that predicted the internet.
The swinging-sixties expansion; driving on the left, in the only GTA set outside America.
Samus Aran on Zebes, and the reveal at the end; the first half of Metroidvania.
The real driving simulator with licence tests; 140 cars on the PlayStation.
The free follow-up pack, the same London eight years earlier.
Twenty-one million built: the people's car that outlived the regime that ordered it.
Journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in the poem that founded the Italian language
The platformer that defined Nintendo (1985).
Coelho's fable of a shepherd chasing his dream (1988).
Austen's witty romance of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy (1813).
Bradbury's dystopia where books are burned (1953).
Time-travel adventure in a souped-up DeLorean (1985).
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