Best video games of the 2000s

Resident Evil 4▲ Rising

The village siege, chainsaw ganado screaming out of the fog, redefined third-person action and basically invented the modern over-the-shoulder shooter template everyone from Gears of War to Dead Space cribbed from. It took a franchise about fumbling with keys in dark mansions and turned it into pure adrenaline without losing its horror bite.

Year: 2005Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

BioShock▲ Rising

Would You Kindly? That's the argument right there — a twist that retroactively indicted the entire medium's relationship with player agency, wrapped in the drowned Art Deco splendor of Rapture. Big Daddies lumbering through kelp-choked hallways made philosophy majors out of shooter fans.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

Half-Life 2▲ Rising

The Gravity Gun turned every crowbar-and-headcrab encounter into a physics playground, and the opening escape through a dystopian City 17 remains the gold standard for environmental storytelling without a single cutscene. Valve rewired what 'immersive' meant for a decade of shooters that followed.

Year: 2004Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

Halo: Combat Evolved▲ Rising

Landing on the Silent Cartographer and realizing this was the FPS that finally made consoles a legitimate shooter platform — dual analog aiming, vehicle combat, and the Warthog run cemented Bungie's alien ring-world as the launch title that sold an entire console generation. Master Chief became gaming's most recognizable silhouette almost overnight.

Year: 2001Critic score: 9.5/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2▲ Rising

Dropping into the School level to Goldfinger's 'Superman' while chaining a Natas spin into a rail grind is muscle memory burned into a generation's hands. The create-a-park and combo system built the template for arcade sports games, and it's still the one skating purists argue never got topped.

Year: 2000Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

Halo 3

Finishing the fight meant a cross-map Ghost splatter in a packed matchmaking lobby, and the game's Forge and theater modes turned millions of living rooms into machinima studios. It was the cultural apex of Xbox Live as a social space, the last time an FPS launch felt like a genuine national event.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas▼ Falling

CJ riding a BMX through Grove Street while 'Compton's Most Wanted' pumps through the radio captured an entire era's hip-hop and gang-culture mythology in open-world form. Its sheer scale — three cities, gyms, romance, gang wars, jetpacks — made every open-world game after it feel comparatively small.

Year: 2004Critic score: 9.3/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

Metal Gear Solid 3

Crawling through The Sorrow's river of ghosts, one for every soldier you've killed, is the kind of haunted, operatic set piece that only Kojima would attempt in a stealth game. The Virtuous Mission's jungle survival mechanics gave the series its most human, tragic hero in Naked Snake before he ever became Big Boss.

Year: 2004Critic score: 9.3/10

added by IJRin 2 rankings

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Tommy Vercetti gunning down rivals to 'Billie Jean' blasting from a stolen convertible is the exact moment open-world games discovered vibe as a design pillar. Its neon '80s Miami pastiche, complete with a Scarface-quoting anti-hero building an empire, is still the most stylish sandbox ever built.

Year: 2002Critic score: 9/10

added by IJR

Silent Hill 2▼ Falling

James Sunderland's slow unraveling in the fog-choked town, culminating in the truth about Mary, turned a horror game into genuine tragedy — Pyramid Head isn't a monster, he's a manifestation of guilt. It proved survival horror could carry the emotional weight of literature, influencing every psychological horror game that dared follow.

Year: 2001Critic score: 9.2/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare▼ Falling

The nuke going off mid-mission, leaving Sergeant Jackson crawling through ash to die staring at a mushroom cloud, proved a war shooter could gut-punch you emotionally. It also birthed the modern killstreak-and-perks multiplayer loop that every shooter since has been chasing, for better or worse.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 3 rankings

Final Fantasy X▼ Falling

Tidus and Yuna's goodbye on the beach, wordless and devastating, closed out a story about faith, sacrifice, and breaking cycles that made JRPG fans weep openly in 2001. The Sphere Grid and fully voiced cutscenes modernized the series just as it needed to, making Spira the last great analog-era fantasy world before online play took over.

Year: 2001Critic score: 9.1/10

added by IJRin 2 rankings