toptenlist

The game is played from either a first-person or third-person view and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

Development began soon after Grand Theft Auto IV's release and was shared between many of Rockstar's studios worldwide. The development team drew influence from many of their previous projects such as Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, and designed the game around three lead protagonists to innovate on the core structure of its predecessors. Much of the development work constituted the open world's creation, and several team members conducted field research around California to capture footage for the design team. The game's soundtrack features an original score composed by a team of producers who collaborated over several years.

Extensively marketed and widely anticipated, the game broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning US $800 million in its first day and US $1 billion in its first three days. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise directed at its multiple protagonist design, open world, presentation and gameplay. It caused controversies related to its depiction of women and a mission featuring torture during a hostage interrogation. Considered one of seventh generation console gaming's most significant titles, it won year-end accolades including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. It has shipped over 60 million copies and is one of the best-selling video games of all time.

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001.The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007.^[ The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008. The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was released on December 7, 2010. The fourth expansion set, Mists of Pandaria, was released on September 25, 2012. The fifth expansion set, Warlords of Draenor, was released on November 13, 2014. The sixth expansion set, Legion, was announced at Gamescom 2015, on August 6, 2015.

With 5.5 million subscribers as of the beginning of November 2015, World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. Having grossed over 10 billion dollars as of July 2012, it is also the highest grossing video game of all time. In January 2014, it was announced that more than 100 million accounts had been created over the game's lifetime.

Skyrim's main story revolves around the player character and their effort to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon who is prophesied to destroy the world. The game is set two hundred years after the events of Oblivion and takes place in the fictional province of Skyrim. Over the course of the game, the player completes quests and develops the character by improving skills. Skyrimcontinues the open world tradition of its predecessors by allowing the player to travel anywhere in the game world at any time, and to ignore or postpone the main storyline indefinitely.

The game was developed using the Creation Engine, rebuilt specifically for the game. The team opted for a unique and more diverse game world than Oblivion's Cyrodiil, which game director and executive producer Todd Howard considered less interesting by comparison. Skyrim was released to critical acclaim, with reviewers particularly mentioning the character development and setting, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. The game shipped over seven million copies to retailers within the first week of its release, and sold over 20 million copies across all three platforms.

Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft enable players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. Multiple gameplay modes are available, including survival mode where the player must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, a creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build with and the ability to fly, an adventure mode where players can play custom maps created by other players, and a spectator mode where players can fly around and clip through blocks, but cannot place or destroy any. The PC version of the game is renowned for its third-party mods, which add various new items, characters, worlds, and quests to the game.

The alpha version was publicly released for PC on May 17, 2009, and after gradual updates, the full version was released on November 18, 2011. A version for Android was released a month earlier on October 7, and an iOS version was released on November 17, 2011. The game was released on the Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade game on May 9, 2012; on the PlayStation 3on December 17, 2013; on the PlayStation 4 on September 4, 2014; on the Xbox One the next day; on the PlayStation Vita on October 14, 2014; and on the Wii U on December 17, 2015. On December 10, 2014, a Windows Phone version was released.All versions of Minecraft receive periodic updates, with the console editions being co-developed by 4J Studios.

Minecraft received five awards during the 2011 Game Developers Conference. Of the Game Developers Choice Awards, it won the Innovation Award, Best Downloadable Game Award, and Best Debut Game Award; from the Independent Games Festival, it won the Audience Award and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. In 2012, Minecraft was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the category Best Downloadable Game. As of June 2015, over 70 million copies had been sold, including 20 million between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, 30 million mobile game downloads, and 20 million on PC, making it the best-selling PC game to date and the third best-selling video game of all time. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property for US$2.5 billion; the acquisition was completed on November 6, 2014.

Played in a third-person perspective, players control protagonist Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a witcher, who sets out on a long journey through the Northern Kingdoms. In the game, players battle against the world's many dangers using swords and magic, while interacting with non-player characters and completing side quests and main missions to progress through the story. The game was met with critical acclaim and was a financial success, selling over 6 million copies in six weeks. The game won multiple Game of the Year awards from various gaming publications, critics, and game award shows, including the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards, becoming one of the most awarded games of all time.

Unlike many other games at the time, Half-Life features no cutscenes; the player has uninterrupted control of Freeman, and the story is told through scripted sequences seen through his eyes. Valve L.L.C. co-founder Gabe Newell said the team had wanted to create an immersive world rather than a "shooting gallery". The game's engine, GoldSrc, is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine licensed from id Software.

Half-Life received acclaim for its graphics, realistic gameplay, and seamless narrative. It won over fifty PC "Game of the Year" awards and is often considered one of the greatest games of all time. It influenced first-person shooters for years after its release; according to IGN, the history of the genre "breaks down pretty cleanly into pre-Half-Life and post-Half-Life eras."

Half-Life had sold eight million copies by 16 November 2004, and 9.3 million copies by December 2008. It was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2001, and OS X and Linux in 2013. It was followed in 2004 by a sequel, Half-Life 2.

In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, exploration, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. The game is based on an entirely new game engine with hexagonal tiles instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. Many elements from Civilization IV and its expansion packs have been removed or changed, such as religion and espionage (although these were reintroduced in its subsequent expansions). The combat system has been overhauled, removing stacking of military units and enabling cities to defend themselves by firing directly on nearby enemies. In addition, the maps contain computer-controlled city-states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy and conquest. A civilization's borders also expand one tile at a time, favoring more productive tiles, and roads now have a maintenance cost, making them much less common. The game features community, modding, and multiplayer elements. It is available for download on Steam.

Its first expansion pack, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, was released on June 19, 2012 in North America and June 22 internationally. It includes features such as religion, espionage, enhanced naval combat and combat AI, as well as nine new civilizations.

A second expansion pack, Civilization V: Brave New World, was announced on March 15, 2013. It includes features such as international trade routes, a world congress, tourism, great works, as well as nine new civilizations, eight additional wonders, and three ideologies. It was released on July 9, 2013, in North America and on July 12, 2013, in the rest of the world.

Since then another update has been released, changing policies in the popular policy tree Tradition. This has been the most recent update to the game.

Some years after the events of Half-Life, protagonist Gordon Freeman is woken by the enigmatic G-Man to find the world has been taken over by the alien Combine. Joined by allies including resistance fighter Alyx Vance, Gordon searches for a way to free humanity using a variety of weapons, including the object-manipulating gravity gun.

Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 received critical acclaim. It was praised for its advanced physics, animation, sound, AI, graphics, and narrative. The game won 39 "Game of the Year" awards and the title of "Game Of The Decade" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. Over 6.5 million copies of Half-Life 2 were sold at retail by December 3, 2008, (not including Steam sales); as of February 9, 2011, Half-Life 2 had sold over 12 million copies. Half-Life 2 is considered one of the greatest video games of all time.

The game revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced species with vast mental powers. Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terrans, while the expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void will focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The game is set four years after the events of 1998's StarCraft: Brood War, and follows the exploits of Jim Raynor as he leads an insurgent group against the autocratic Terran Dominion. The game includes both new and returning characters and locations from the original game.

The game was met with very positive reviews from critics, receiving an aggregated score of 93% from Metacritic. Similar to its predecessor, StarCraft II was praised for its engaging gameplay, as well as its introduction of new features and improved storytelling. The game was criticized for lacking features that existed in the original StarCraft game including LAN play and the ability to switch between multiplayer regions. At the time of its release, StarCraft II became the fastest-selling real-time strategy game of all time, with over three million copies sold worldwide in the first month.

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 mod Team Fortress for Quake and its 1999 remake. It was released as part of the video game compilationThe Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows and the Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 version followed on December 11, 2007.On April 8, 2008, it was released as a standalone title for Windows. The game was updated to support OS X on June 10, 2010, and Linux on February 14, 2013. It is distributed online through Valve's download retailer Steam; retail distribution was handled by Electronic Arts.

In Team Fortress 2, players join one of two teams comprising nine character classes, battling in a variety of game modes including capture the flag and king of the hill. The development is led by John Cook and Robin Walker, creators of the original Team Fortress. Announced in 1998, the game once had more realistic, militaristic visuals and gameplay, but this changed over the protracted nine-year development. After Valve released no information for six years, Team Fortress 2 regularly featured in Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies. The finished Team Fortress 2 has cartoon-like visuals influenced by the art of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell and is powered by Valve's Source engine.

Team Fortress 2 received critical acclaim for its art direction, gameplay, humor, and use of character in a multiplayer-only game. Valve continues to release new content, including maps, items and game modes. On June 23, 2011, it became free to play, supported by microtransactions for unique in-game equipment. A 'drop system' was also added and refined in this update, allowing free-to-play users to still receive game equipment by use of a random number generator.

Clash of Clans is a 2012 freemium mobile MMO strategy video game developed and published by Supercell.

The game was released for iOS platforms on August 2, 2012. For Android, it soft-launched in Canada and Finland on September 30, 2013.On October 7, 2013, it was released internationally on Google Play.

Clash of Clans is an online multiplayer game in which players build a community, train troops, and attack other players to earn goldand elixir, and Dark Elixir, which can be used to build defenses that protect the player from other players' attacks, and to train and upgrade troops.The game also features a pseudo-single player campaign in which the player must attack a series of fortified goblin villages.

Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time is a free-to-play game, unlike its predecessor, supporting in-app purchasing of coins in order to utilize certain power up abilities: Plant Food, a new power-up, allows plants to power up for varying amounts of time. Each plant has its own ability when given Plant Food. Players are able to complete the whole game without purchasing these abilities, some of which can be earned throughout the game instead of being purchased. Players can optionally start with a tutorial on the basics of the game which takes place in the player's house. After the tutorial, or immediately if the player chose to skip it, the player time-travels first toAncient Egypt and can use either purchase access to worlds or win in-game World Keys to unlock a series of additional period settings ("worlds"); this required a certain number of stars in earlier updates. The Chinese version has two additional worlds. As players go through levels, they unlock new plants each with advantages and unique boosts.

Dead Trigger 2 utilizes the Unity game engine. It was released as a free-to-play game; microtransactions are included in the final product, but developers are testing the game without in-app purchases to make sure the core gameplay works without them.

The five star rating system for each race, the use of primary and secondary objectives introduced in Asphalt 6: Adrenaline and also used in Asphalt 7 have all been retained in Asphalt 8. Three stars are awarded for finishing in first place, two for second, and one for third. Achieving secondary objectives, such as performing a given number of stunts or knocking down opponents, awards the player with two additional stars. Obtaining stars in an event is cumulative - players who finished first in an event without completing the secondary objectives may replay the race and obtain a five-star rating even if the primary objectives aren't met. The core gameplay is slightly different, however. As the subtitle implies, the focus of Airborne is on jumping, with tracks featuring a lot more ramps than in previous games. In addition to performing standard jumps, the player can also perform flat spins (by drifting onto a ramp) and barrel rolls (by hitting curved ramps).All jumps earn nitro boost; the longer the airtime, the more boost earned. Crashing into obstacles such as barriers or lamposts or hitting civilian cars also earns nitros. Another new feature, which substitutes the "Adrenaline mode" in Asphalt 6 and 7, is the ability to perform a "Perfect Nitro". When the player hits boost, a small red zone appears in the boost bar. If the player hits boost again when the boost meter is in the red zone, the car will accelerate even more, with the boost lasting until the player runs out of boost, brakes, crashes or hits a ramp.

In the initial version of the game, the career mode consisted of 180 events split into eight "seasons", which become progressively more difficult. In later versions, additional challenges were added to the seasons. When the game begins, only Season One is available. Later seasons must be unlocked either by earning a certain amount of stars or by purchasing a "Season Unlock" in the in-app store. The Great Wall update added 30 new events centered on the Great Wall.The Dubai update introduced a new season where only fully upgraded cars are eligible to participate, besides adding three new events centered on Dubai.The San Diego Harbor update introduced a new season featuring events where the player can participate in a twenty-four car race (only on iOS 8), alongside several new events centered on both Dubai and the San Diego Harbor.

Online multiplayer mode can be played both locally via Wi-Fi, and globally via the internet. There is also a "World Series" online multiplayer mode, although this mode is unavailable on iPod touch 4th generation and iPhone 4. Playing on multiplayer is the only way to increase a player's in-game level, to which more credits are awarded as the player levels up.

Asphalt 8 is the first game in the Asphalt series to use Game Center for achievements rather than Gameloft's own Gameloft Live.The April 2015 update added support for theApple Watch and made it compatible only on the iPhone 5 or later models using iOS 8.2 or later through the use of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The October 2015 update added support for the Apple TV.