Nuclex

This is my personal list of must-play games in the post-2000 era. I find that often, my opinions differ greatly from the reviews in gaming magazines. For example, I liked DooM 3 because of its story, which I find immersive and fascinating, whereas most people regard the game as a tech demo for id's engine. And I totally don't get Call of Duty 4/5, the story (?) was uninteresting and has you incoherently jumping from place to place with scripted annoyance everywhere that prevents you from playing in your own style :)

If you're equally weird, maybe you can find one or the other insider's tip within this list to check out :D

• Before Battlezone (also notable: Battlezone 2, Drakan: Order of the Flame, Descent: Freespace: The Great War and Descent: Freespace 2)
• 2000 Sacrifice (also notable: Shogun: Total War)
• 2001 Gothic
• 2002 Gothic II
• 2003 Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (also notable: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Unreal II: The Awakening, Beyond Good and Evil)
• 2004 Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (also notable: DooM 3)
• 2005 Fahrenheit (also notable: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, FlatOut, Quake 4)
• 2006 Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (also notable: Gothic III)
• 2007 The Witcher (also notable: Supreme Commander, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, Overlord)
• 2008 Dead Space (also notable: Race Driver: GRID, Space Siege)
• 2009 Risen (also notable: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Wolfenstein, Overlord 2)

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a first person strategy title that plays like no other. There is no overhead map, instead, you're commanding everything from the perspective of your avatar. Most of the time, you would push forward together with your main army. The thing was, while you could leave some soldiers to guard critical locations, but when they're attacked, you couldn't tell them what to do, you had to run, with your army in tow, back to thwart the enemy attack. So the challenge of the game was to start by doing hit-and-run attacks on enemy posts, avoiding the main enemy army and in the end conquering the map without allowing the enemy to get around you.

Gothic I & II

The two first titles from the Gothic series were the most immersive role playing games I've ever played. And I still regularly take them out of their box to replay them. From the beginning, you're dropped into one big, continuous world without zones. The story is interesting and unfolds around you. And the game has the intensity of a sword-fighting first person shooter. The world was especially great because, just like in reality, each location was distinctly different, so whereas in other games with large worlds, you feel lost, in Gothic, you want to explore and remember your path.

Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was a novel concept. It's hard to describe, because, if I tell you that you're running and climbing around in a desert castle in sort of a 3D jump and run, that won't do it justice. It's got a brilliant story, a good battle system, fantastic stunts and a likeable character. Each riddle of the game astonishes you a bit more in its design, the unusual steps you have to take to cross it. When you made a mistake - and fell to your certain death - you could rewind time and resume the action where you wanted. New rewind-uses could be earned from killed enemies, which was done using a very nice fighting system.