Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 is enormous yet inventive throughout, immediately playable yet massively innovative, refreshingly adventurous and yet tightly designed. The game's lengthy campaign bounces between a staggering number of memorable set pieces, each feeling like a fresh take on the finely honed gameplay that marks a quite astonishing departure from previous entries in the series. Looking back on the game today, its influence over game design as a whole is evident, essentially perfecting the third-person shooter genre in a way that would cast a shadow over the entire next generation of games, from things like Gears of War to the games own sequels which were sadly unable to live up to their older brother. The story is ridiculous and cheesy, but in a fun B-movie sort of way, but it's the gameplay itself that will drive you through what still today feels like a fresh and fun game. There's a mass of content included in most of the (many different) modern day versions of the game, all of which is a bit weaker than the main game, but still engaging and interesting uses of the just fantastic exploration, puzzle solving and above all gunplay of Resident Evil 4. My pick for the best version of the game is the Wii edition, thanks to the still great looking graphics, the wealth of extra content that wasn't included in the original Gamecube version, and the Wii remote control option, which is excellently implemented. The original controls are still available, and work just fine in any other (non-mobile) version of the game, though. A landmark game that's remained surprisingly solid after more than a decade of imitators.