Kind of unfair competition really, HL1 tops the charts for me. It changed everything, and to experience it “back then” when it happened is just a feeling that has never been replicated in my opinion. I’ve put more hours in other games, and maybe even had more fun with others, but HL1 rocked my world.
Perfect level design, perfect ambiguous storytelling through actual play, no “hand holding” but everything made sense, scale and scope, great gunplay, approachable at either run’n’gun or tactical, just plain fun. All the core mechanics got carried into HL2 but I’m of the very tiny minority that found the expanded characters and story to take away from it. Easily still top 5 material and I’ve probably played it through 20times vs 10times for HL1. But HL1 is the king of the mountain far and away for me.
I’ll give a shoutout to Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and it’s expansions. Mindless killcount style game but it was quite the show.
Multiplayer I’d give it to Soldier of Fortune 2. Honorable mention to TFC and early TF2.
Modern is a bit hard for me to pick anything that truly stands out. But the movie-quality production of The New Order impressed me thoroughly. Would’ve been very forgettable otherwise but that cinematic quality and atmosphere was impressive. And MP modern; most definitely Insurgency. Methodical tension at its best.