We distill the essence of videogaming sci-fi into an opinionated list. A list that's right...

25. Gears Of War
Developer: Epic Games
Year: 2006
As brash and brainless as the Gears Of War series is, there’s no denying either the level of adoration it instils in its fans or the margin by which its germinal outing set a new bar of graphical expectation. Epics rendering of Sera’s ruined beauty is truly a sight to behold.

24. Doom 3
Developer: id
Year: 2004
The original Doom marked the second generation of the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter genre (FPS), being a spiritual sequel to id’s Wolfenstein 3D. What Doom 3 bought to the party was its ability to combine darkness, shadow and unremitting sci-fi terror.

Doom 3: It was dark in Doom 3. Dark and shiny.

23. Dead Space
Developer: Visceral Games
Year: 2008
Where Doom 3 made a point of hiding its denizens in shadow, Dead Space sees them leaping at your face with dismemberment your only means of salvation. Slicing weapons make up your first line of defence in a science-fiction horror that, while somewhat clichéd, hits all of the right notes.

22. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Developer: Electronic Arts
Year: 2007
This third outing is the culmination of a sub-series which defined the realtime strategy, but it was in itself heavily influenced by – and initially using the same engine as – Dune II, its sci-fi RTS forebear. Much mimicked but rarely equalled, the C&C series continues unabated with next year’s anticipated C&C4.

21. Fallout 3
Developer: Bethesda
Year: 2009
Although set a couple of centuries in the future, the Fallout series is heavily influenced by 1950’s American culture and in turn, by sci-fi works that embody that decade’s special relationship with cold war paranoiac fiction. The game features a vast post-apocalyptic playground where anything is possible.

Tron 2.0: All the fun of the film, minus Jeff Bridges

20. Aliens Vs Predator
Developer: Rebellion
Year: 1999
Wherever there exists a list of the most terrifying videogame experiences ever created, so too does Rebellion’s 1999 PC outing. An FPS at heart the game took the pre-existing ‘fun’ AVP premise and transformed it into a tryptic of sci-fi survival horror nightmares.

19. Tron 2.0
Developer: Monolith Productions
Year: 2003
Appearing over two decades after the motion picture, unlike its predecessor, a simply themed arcade game released in 1982, techie character Jet is digitised, this time into a sprawling FPS whose intricate design easily exceeds the quality of its source material. A very rare feat.

18. The Dig
Developer: Lucasarts
Year: 1995
Conceived by Steven Spielberg for his Amazing Stories series, the concept was transmuted to game form on account of its budgetary requirements. A point and click adventure, the game follows a Xenoarcheologist who must discover the mysteries buried beneath an earth-bound asteroid before its inevitable collision.

17.Dune II
Developer: Cryo Interactive
Year: 1992
As opposed to treading the path of taking a beloved pillar of 20th century sci-fi and whittling away at its spirit to find a hollow shooter pumped into its vacuously misunderstood core, Cryo invented a brand new genre – the RTS – while paying respectful homage to Frank Herbert’s hugely influential universe.

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