The winner of this top 10 is Unreal Tournament
Masterpiece. Clasic. Game of the year. All of these describe this game accurately.
Preceded by the not-so-popular Unreal series, Unreal Tournament is a game that revolutionized the world of deathmatch. Although it was released almost a decade ago (1999) I feel that this game still tops all new FPS's like Halo, Half Life etc.
Although it's not much for graphics, and lacks vehicles and amazing gameplay modes like 2k4's Onslaught, UT's greatest strength lies in it's simple but furious gameplay.
This has all the basics like an array of weapons to use, the usual gameplay modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and also UT 'specials' like domination, which involves controlling specific locations to earn points; assault, which involves infiltrating the enemy base and completing certain objectives; and a campaign only mode called lightning deathmatch....never quite understood what it's supposed to be though.
Assault
As for playing the game, forget the campaign, got for the true essence of UT - practice matches against bots...I know that sounds pretty easy but the higher levels aren't for amatuers; and of course multiplayer gameplay. What makes this game worth playing, even today, is the popularityof the game. There are more servers here than in 2k3 or 2k4, and a decent amount are populated. Of course, ping can sometimes lay restrictions, but once you find a playable server you can keep playing for hours and not realize the time. To add to the game's value, there are tons of mods and maps lying around the net and each of them brings a different flavor to the game.
The bottmline: There are 100+ reason to play this game and 0 reasons not to.
------------------------------------
I wonder if it's just me, but GS seems so terriby inactive these days. Unions which were once flooded with posts are now dead, and there are people leaving or simply being inactive left and right. The only reason I've been coming since the past two weeks or so is to finish the top 10 I started, and you'll notice that towards the last few games, I couldn't be regular with the updates. I find it a bother to come to GS cause there's absolutely nothing to do but comment on friends' blogs and although it helps to keep in touch, it's not as fun as unions are.
Are there any unions which are active and will stay active for some time? If not, then I might follow suite and leave for a long time.