BioShock

(2007) BioShock  had greater narrative and thematic ambition than any previous big-time first-person shooter. But the real magic came—as it always does in great art—in how it was told. The FPS is well-suited to immersive exploration, and every corner of BioShock had some detail that expanded the story. Even the enemy AI, which gave all NPCs background tasks, convinced the player that Rapture was a world going about its business before being interrupted by your murderous intrusion. And no game has ever been so smart about cutscenes, the bane of most narrative FPS titles. Bioshock elegantly led you through its levels with subtle environmental cues, and when it took away control, it did so for a very good reason.    4. Counter Strike: Global Offensive (2012) Counter Strike: Global Offensive remains a fantastic update to a timeless classic that continues to live on thanks to its vast online communities. A well-rounded tactical shooter that builds on the simple Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists gameplay mechanics of Counter Strike 1.6 and Counter Strike: Source, CS: GO updates classic maps such as Italy and Dust while keeping adding new modes in Arms Race and Demolition. Simpler than Battlefield but more nuanced than the Call of Duty franchise, it's a shooter for those who like to run, gun and think - if only a little bit.   5. Max Payne (2001) On a winter's night some months after the death of his wife and child, renegade DEA agent and ex-cop Max Payne takes to the streets of New York on a bloody Punisher-esque quest to avenge his family, cleaning up the corrupt city and uncovering the conspiracy that cost him everything. Combining graphic-novel noir storytelling with addictive Matrix-inspired "bullet time" gunplay, Max Payne still stuns for its rush of varied visual poetry. At the push of a button, Max moves and aims in slow motion, giving him the edge against his trigger-happy enemies, and these endlessly replayable sequences evoke the fantasy-fulfillment of playing Neo in The Matrix's infamous lobby scene, or as one of John Woo's renegade heroes. 6.Batman: Arkham City(2011) Before him lay two bodies. One is his nemesis, a deranged serial killer behind fanatical displays of destruction, the other his lover, a once-innocent girl caught up in the plots to overthrow Gotham. Only one matters to him, and Bruce Wayne carries his body out of the tomb for everyone to see. Arguably the only downfall in Batman: Arkham Asylum was its finale, a tonally and narratively incoherent victory against the Joker that went against the bleakness of everything prior, but not so with follow-up Arkham city, which boasts one of the most aggressively nihilistic endings in the history of the medium. As the game's setting expands from the smaller sanitarium to the larger city, so does the sense of hopelessness for the characters, rendering every victory pyrrhic in nature.