Holding your actual breath as a sniping duo scuttle through the tall, grassy fields and empty, echoing playgrounds of Pripyat in the all-timer of a mission, 'All Ghillied Up'. Watching in scarcely believable horror as the character you've played half the game as gets vaporised by a pesky little mushroom cloud. Kicking down doors with the iconic Captain Price in an electrifying, rain-lashed tanker infiltration. Dragging the series kicking and screaming from the bloody and muddied trenches of WWII, Modern Warfare re-energized an FPS juggernaut with a breakneck, perfectly paced campaign that's been copied by countless other military shooters since, yet never been remotely matched. The best Call of Duty campaign ever made… and it's not close. What stings even more than the plant-based murder, though? The sad fact that we'll probably never see such a brash, bright or commendably crude FPS like this again.

Shunt every second enemy you meet into a cactus, because there's literally always a life-affirmingly sharp cactus lying around. Launch some men into orbit with an alt-fire rocket, then pick them out of the sky like they were clay pigeons. Boot a dude in the balls then kick his head off. Imagine if a new Tony Hawk's game served up tricks but replaced every Ollie and kickflip with increasingly gruesome ways of mangling mutants and you're pretty much there. The genius of Bulletstorm lies with its Skillshots. Beneath, you'll find one of the densest, most detailed, widest branching FPS systems ever devised. On Bulletstorm's surface, you'll find a brash, knowing, don't-give-a-fuck attitude, sitting on a layer of the most gloriously creative cursing you've ever heard in a video game. Never has a game so intelligent tried so hard to look like an idiot, or been so screamingly funny with it. Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch When it comes to sandbox shooters, few do madcap spectacle better than Far Cry 6.

And all it took was half a dozen entries. Better yet? With the introduction of freedom fighter Dani – who you can actually see, listen to and emote alongside in third-person cutscenes – Far Cry has finally given us a protagonist who's actually worth rooting for. New additions like the Supremo Backpacks open up creative new avenues for both sneaky and explosive chaos, further enlivening Far Cry's already intoxicating power fantasy. Yet look past the dinky dachshund sidekicks named after a Spanish sausage and the typically assured, if samey stealth, and you'll find an FPS that feels like a much needed turning point for Far Cry. Does it still lean heavily on a lot of well-worn Ubisoft tropes? Obviously.

It may not be the most important game in the series – that nod goes to the iconic third entry – but Far Cry 6 is still a superior shooter.

Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

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