10. Neverwinter Nights
BioWare | Atari | 2002
An enormous single- and multi-player RPG that sucks you - and the small band of companions you acquire - into an epic and absorbing story
What made it so great?
The game's main campaign is a rich and epic story, but simply playing it through in single-player is only part of the fun. Neverwinter really comes into its own when you start to see how versatile it is: the whole campaign can be played cooperatively online with friends and the excellent editor that ships with the game has given rise to a huge number of user-made quests.
Grabbing the latest adventures from BioWare's own community site - or one of the many official campaigns they've put out since release - and bashing through them with a few friends provides hundreds of hours of entertainment long after the main quest is slain. Some multiplayer servers allow 72 players in a single game and even leave the game running to create a persistent world of sorts, MMORPG style. That's how flexible this game is and how much there is to see and do.
Get ready to play
You can now pick up the Diamond edition of the game, with both the full official expansions and three of BioWare's official extra campaigns, rated at 5-8 hours of game each, for a paltry $19. That's a huge dose of RPG goodness that'll keep you playing for years to come, at a ridiculously low price, without even touching the sequel.
Been there, done that?
Baldur's Gate II, from the same developer, is a more single-player focused RPG also based on the Dungeons & Dragons rules and has one of the richest and most engrossing stories in RPG history.
