Gaming
Games
The 10 Best Sci-Fi Games in the Universe
The definitive genre of gaming has always been Sci-Fi, here's the games we think belong in stardom
Commander Shepard. Five years in the making
© [unknown]
It's been five long years in the making. And the reason why Mass Effect is uniquely exciting and significant is that this making has been ours as well, each player of the previous episodes shaping their own distinctive path as Commander Shepard, with the adventure now reaching its climax as the final part of the trilogy hits this week.
Outer space and science-fiction have had a powerful hold over game makers and players for as long as there have been video games. Ages before even Space Invaders attacked, one of the world's first games was a two-player shoot-'em-up called Spacewar! - created at MIT in 1962.
Partly it's a tech thing. Certainly, in the early days of gaming, the dark background of computer displays was a ready-made canvas of the universe, waiting for blocky aliens to be spread menacingly across it.
And partly it's a geek thing, with a clear overlap between an interest in exciting new tech and playing stuff on it. And beards. Always beards.
Narrowing this down to ten is the toughest list challenge we've encountered. But we'd be willing to be chucked out of an airlock in defence of any of these.
Asteroids (arcade)
One of the original arcade classics, Ed Logg's 1979 shooter holds up today much better than rivals like Space Invaders. And its core idea lives on in the latest games, too, like PlayStation Vita launch title Super Stardust.
Defender (arcade)
Williams' coin-op blaster remains one of the toughest challenges in gaming, wowing with its spectacular retro audio-visual display, and crushing all but the greatest players.
Dead Space 2
(PS3, Xbox 360)
With Dead Space, EA finally overturned Resident Evil's dominance in the horror genre. Visually stunning and properly play-with-the-lights-on scary, the sequel remains an essential purchase.
Elite (BBC Micro)
Looking back at this defining BBC Micro space trader, its scope and scale seem all the more remarkable for the time. These days, its co-creator David Braben can be found making lovely stuff like Kinectimals, and the remarkable Raspberry Pi PC.
Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
The original and still the best. It defined console shooters, defined the entire Xbox project and marked the start of one of the best-loved sci-fi series. Watch out for the return of Master Chief later this year in Halo 4.
Star Wars (arcade)
Of the many, many Star Wars games – a few great, some good, most unspeakably awful – the original arcade experience remains our number one Jedi Master. Nothing else since has quite captured the rush of piloting an X-Wing. "Great shot kid, that was one in a million!"
Another World (Commodore Amiga)
Eric Chahi's rock-hard Amiga adventure set new standards in animation and presented a surprisingly touching story of a human and alien escaping an alien world. If you missed it first time around, grab it on iPhone.
Portal 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Some will say the original was unimprovable, but the follow-up, with its peerless wittering from Stephen Merchant as Wheatley, brain-destroying puzzles and breathtaking exploration, was 2011's console masterpiece.
Half-Life 2 (PC)
Little more needs to be said about Valve's hugely influential first-person shooter other than, WHERE THE **** IS HALF-LIFE 3?
Mass Effect 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
If the original Mass Effect set the scene, it did so with occasionally clunky gameplay. No such complaints with the sensational sequel, an all-consuming sci-fi epic. Can it be topped by the final part?
