Red Faction

A real masterpiece for its time.

This game really set the bar for what I expect in a game, even now. Gripping story-line, good voice acting, some puzzles, immersive environments and even some humour thrown in.

Surprisingly the gameplay and graphics still hold up today. Which even for an FPS isn't always the case. It actually feels a little more challenging than a lot of modern FPS, without being frustrating. You have to be steady and aim your shots in a similar way to Counter Strike (on PC with no auto aim). However, there aren't kick back patterns to memorise.

Literally ground breaking destructible environments in an FPS was mind boggling to me as a child. My friends and I would play entire death matches on the max time settings just to dig tunnels, then try to link them up underground. Which seems ridiculous given that these days you can just turn on any number of sandbox games that allow you to tunnel and build but hey, at the time we thought it was awesome.

If you like sci-fi, FPSs and don't mind some old graphics I cannot recommend this game highly enough.