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Over the next two weeks we'll bringing you our pick of the games of the generation - and today we're starting off with Portal, Valve's exceptionally smart puzzler that was the surprise highlight of The Orange Box when it launched in October 2007.Few would dispute that, when it comes to video games, this has been the decade of the shooter. Endless racks of guns have passed through our fingers, some based on pristine real world counterparts (Call of Duty, Battlefield), others rickety and unreliable (Far Cry 2), yet more futuristic or fantastical (Halo, Mass Effect). So much effort and iteration has gone into the virtual gun (the way that it bobs in the hand, its irritable kickback when fired, its vocal performance), that this year Infinity Ward - architect of the contemporary shooter in Modern Warfare - resorted to dented sights as notable feature in its next Call of Duty game. It's understandable: once you've delivered perfection where else to go but imperfection?
The gun suits the 3D video game like none other of our species' inventions. There is no tool better suited to giving players the ability to affect objects both near and far in a 3D world, extending the player's reach into the television screen. With a bullet we can take out an enemy standing directly in front of us or just as easily shoot a wall-mounted switch a hundred metres into the distance. Change the breed of gun and you alter a game's entire pace and rhythm, from the slow buckshot suckerpunch of the shotgun to the pitter-patter niggling of a machine gun. What other invention offers the player such scope, flexibility and utility? For this reason the gun has been promoted to a position of ultimate importance in blockbuster video game land. Indeed, viewed with fresh eyes it can look like our medium builds its worlds around the gun, which nods proudly front and centre screen.
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