1. Half-Life

A little help from a friend

Where would the first-person shooter genre (and the entirety of gaming, for that matter) be without Half-Life?

Half-Life gave us enemies who ducked for cover and cooperated with each other to put a bullet in your brain. It gave us a seamless world populated by survivors with stories of their own (most of which ended with them in monsters’ stomachs). For the first time in the genre, the virtual seemed real, no longer a slapdash conglomeration of pixels and brainless bad guys who ran straight into your crosshair as if they enjoyed the taste of gun barrel. Half-Life made us realize that games don’t have to be just action-packed – they can also be effective mediums for storytelling, and experiences as believable as they are unforgettable.

The bitch slap from hell

Let’s not forget Half-Life gave rise to the Counter-Strike mod, which was instrumental in the development of eSports.

Doom may have popularized the first-person shooter, but Half-Life made it meaningful. And for that, we believe Half-Life is one of the most awesome PC games ever made.

Aww, those vortigaunts are adorable!

Eat this, sucka!

What about you, readers? What games made you fall in love with PC gaming? Tell us in the comments section below!

If you want to read another article about influential PC games, check out 11 Best PC Games That Are Over 10 Years Old But Still Awesome.

For the stories that made us love PC games, head on to 10 PC Games with the Best Storylines. 

And then there are those RPG games with rich worlds we can’t help but fall in love with, which we discuss in 10 Best RPG Games We Would Love to Be In. 

Of course, we can’t talk about falling in love without mentioning gaming’s sexiest badass heroines, whom we talk at length about in 10 Sexy Video Game Babes with Guns  and its sequel, 10 MORE Video Game Babes with Guns.