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Thoughout the making of this list, I drew a number of opinions from a number of idiots, most of them boiling down to this being the most subjective media category I've ever done. I mean, some movies can be generally regarded as good, music even moreso, but games... games are a very specific taste. To those people, I say: shut up you retarded fucker - this is my site and my list, and if you don't like it, feel free to bitch.

All of the games on this list are to be taken as absolute truths as of today, and it will be decreed that anyone who has never played all of the games on this list at least once will be shot by the Taste Enhancing Super Triangular Elected Service, or TESTES. There are a few basic rules to the list, though. One - no more than one game per series, and two - nothing that Mr. T was even remotely involved with. On to the list!

#10: FREEDOM FORCE
Sure, maybe I'm just biased because this game is my current addiction. But when I look back on it years from now, I am absolutely positive that I will regard it as one of the finest gaming experiences to ever land my way. This game - except for a few minor niggles that will no doubt be ironed out with coming patches - is perfect. The control feels right, the universe is cool, and whipping a horde of giant demon-ants is just so massive in raw satisfaction and fun that I don't think I'll ever touch another strategy/RPG hybrid again. Until Warcraft III comes out, I think we'll all be playing that. The customization options are endless and wicked (you can download Wolverine from a fansite, if you want, and stick him in your team of heroes), and the storyline and look is impeccable. Buy it now - you won't regret it. If you want to find out more, check out my stoked review of the game, recently posted.

#9: DOOM 2
This is where I invoked my one game/series rule. Doom was really the first game to have atmosphere - if you turn the music all the way down, the harsh breathing of imps in the distance still manages to give me the willies. The cast of bad guys was perhaps the most memorable of any game, ever - the looming, floating brain hurling blue death, the seemingly infinitely huge Cyberdemon, all of them are very firmly etched into my memory. And the last fight - while somewhat underwhelming considered to the sheer terror of the Cyberdemon - was immensely satisfying. Being able to snipe imps on a far-up ledge with a rocket launcher for the first time was an almost divine moment.

So why, you ask, choose Doom 2, which was more or less more of the same?

One word: fucking double-barreled shotgun.

Finding that for the first time almost gave me an orgasm, and throughout the entire game I used nothing else unless I ran out of ammo. That's mostly why I was never able to kill that goddamned goat-wall thing at the end without cheating and shooting the impaled John Romero head, because I kept trying to hit the brain with shotgun shells and it really wasn't working to perfection. Amazing stuff all round.

#8: GRIM FANDANGO
I just know that if anybody actually cared, this choice would draw a lot of flak. But the thing is, everyone bashing it has probably never played it - this game sold a total of three copies this side of the Atlantic, and I gave away one of mine as a gift. There just wasn't any market for it at the time other than me, and they stopped making adventure games after this.

To fully understand my massive and recurring addiction to adventure games, you have to go way back... back to the ages known only as the early nineties (insert ominous echo effect). The first PC game I ever played was LucasArts' Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, coincidentally an adventure game (I still have the original floppies for it). I moved forward from that all the way to The Curse of Monkey Island, moving forward at a feverish, addicted pace. But the genre hit its peak with the excellent Grim Fandango (Escape from Monkey Island blew, admit it).

Beautiful, stylish, and with an innovative look-use interface (that Escape copied years later, using the same engine), Grim Fandango changed the way I look at games. Play through it and you'll see why - the graphics and voice acting are stunning even today, and the plot weaves a tight and interesting plot with no holes. The FMV is godly, and the cast of characters memorable. There is nothing at all wrong with this game at all. Nothing - even all the puzzles make sense if thought through enough. If you see this in a bargain bin for three dollars and wonder what the hell it is, please pick it up... you'll have done a good deed. Fuck, it's better than helping Rectumesian kids.

#7: QUAKE 3 : ARENA
Yes, yes, yes, YES! Q3A and its Team Arena expansion pack took everything that was right about Quake 2 - the weapons, the fast-paced gameplay, the deadly multiplay, and the tight as a penguin engine - and none of the bad. No shitty storyline to move you along, no crappy cutscenes - just pure unadulterated bloodlust. Now, if I want to blow shit up, I don't want any distractions - like a motive - to fuel my explodage. I just want to blow fucking shit up. And that's what Q3A gives me, except it gives me the opportunity to blow other people up because I'm really damned good at it. I've killed Xaero on Hardcore (I'm not one of the three who can beat him on Godlike), and I am death with a railgun.

Some other people swear by Unreal Tournament, claiming it's deeper. Don't believe them - it's good for about the first ten minutes, but you exhaust the levels brutally fast. Quake isn't - and never was - about the levels. It's the people you play with who shape your gaming experience. And there's no better feeling in the world than being the guy who finally caps that rail-camper in the head with a huge fucking grenade, and then getting applauded by people who aren't even on your team. There's also no better feeling than laying waste to a cocky bastard who claims his skillz are up to par. It's almost a sport, it's so intense, and it's still fun today.

Bring on the Godlike bots - I'm ready to lock and load.

#6: ARCANUM
Another unjustly avoided game, though not on the scale that Grim Fandango was avoided - Arcanum is possibly the finest PC-native RPG ever crafted. Its story is incredible, the universe is one of the most innovative in the genre (magical/mechanical at war), and it's just so much fun to play. I can't rant enough about this game - there are so many ways to go about playing it, it's more or less ten games in one. The first time I played through it, I was a benevolent fighter-mage who did good and had a repertoire of healing spells and a big red sword to do the work when healing couldn't. Second time through, I was an evil necromancer with no weapons but a lot of undead thingies. Third time, a neutral thief... a dwarven rifleman... etc. etc. This game changes to be what you want it to be, and you can play through it like Diablo or like Baldur's Gate. If you like RPGs, this, my friend, is your Holy Grail.

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