One of the most popular movements in gaming recently is free to play. Particularly inspired by the surge in popularity of mobile games, free to play games have shone on PC for a couple of years, and now are making their way onto consoles as well. It allows a low point of entry (or a zero point of entry) and allows people to play and enjoy the game for nothing. Where these games earn their money is by then allowing people to pay for in game currency to allow them to unlock weapons and perks to allow them to shine against other people.

Some games do an extremely poor job of that; allowing people to simply buy their way to success. This term has spawned the “pay to win” moniker, something extremely unpopular with the growing player bases of free to play games as they look to simply enjoy themselves and prove their abilities with skill, rather than money. By walking that fine line Heroes and Generals has, so far, proved to be extremely popular.

The most beautiful game in existance released this year. That game was The Order: 1886 from Sony Santa Monica and Ready At Dawn Studios under the Sony name. The game released as a Playstation 4 exclusive in March and has become the benchmark for game graphics in this generation already, and one that will be extremely difficult to top. The game takes place in an alternate reality Victorian London where monsters have started to appear.

The game wasn’t enormously well received; with many people wishing the game’s writing and gameplay lived up to the incredible attention to detail that the artists and designers managed to squeeze into the game. The game has seen updates since, such as the addition of a photo mode (allowing players to customise the game to create beautiful pictures), and a few price drops should ensure the game has at least a decent chance of finding an audience.

ArmA is a popular videogame series born from the ashes of a previous series and development studio. While many people will know the super realistic military simulator series on its own merits, not to mention three pretty good games, they will certainly know it as the series that gave birth to DayZ; which is, aside from minecraft, one of the biggest cultural phenomenons in gaming and, yes, it features zombies.

Operation Flashpoint is, however, the place where all of this nonsense began. Yes it didn’t look pretty, but back when Flashpoint was a series it didn’t matter so much about how your game looked. It was tense, it was tactical and it was extremely difficult. This wasn’t a game designed for people with short attention spans or no patience. This was exclusively for PC gamers and a good thing too. While the name still exists, with different people manning the helm, the series is a far cry from its former glory.

One of the most controversial and unique video games of the past decade is Spec Ops: The Line. The game arrived out of nowhere; Yager were an unproved developer without an accomplished title in their back catalogue. But when the video game publisher 2k Games approached them to make a more mature and serious game they accepted the challenge, and succeeded.

Spec Ops: The Line is a game about a group of American soldiers going into a war torn Dubai to rescue a lost squad. The game’s story and structure is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s seminal ‘Heart of Darkness’ and the subsequent classic film ‘Apocalypse Now.’ The game presents the players with several extremely challenging and upsetting scenarios to make decisions in. The game challenges players to think about their actions in games, rather than just blindly pulling the trigger because the game tells you to. The game has gone on to become a cult classic.

As the indie movement progressed games started to become more and more complex, alongside an increase in production values. Mark of the Ninja, by Klei Entertainment, was so impressive in its early stages that Microsoft signed the game up for an exclusivity contract of six months before it could release on any other platform or console.

The game is a beautiful 2D stealth experience with some amazing and complex mechanics. The game released to huge critical praise and, even though it was exclusive to Microsoft’s console it sold extremely well during that limited contract – before moving over to PC, where additional content arrived alongside it. The game made its way up the sales charts at release and since then has seen numerous sales boost Mark of the Ninja’s popularity with players, with many clamouring for a second game. The game’s contract, though, means that the rights remain firmly with Microsoft.