The 50 best video games of the 21st century

Karaoke complexes might be relatively common now, but back in 2004 singing into a PlayStation was the closest most of us could get. SingStar's discs of party classics formed the caterwauling soundtrack to millions of student gatherings, hen parties and five-pint Fridays all over Europe for more than a decade. Like Just Dance, it harnesses the infectious joy of pop music in a way that anyone can play. A gleeful absurdist masterpiece in which you start by rolling up pencils and apple peel and end up absorbing buildings, trees and, eventually, most of the planet in your big sticky ball, because why not? Journey is a short and moving shared experience whose music, evocative colour palette and simple play come together as they only can in games, for a powerful emotional effect. It's often picked as an ur-example of games as art – including by curators at the V&A, where it was front and centre at a recent exhibition. Resident Evil meets Alien seems like such an obvious game pitch that it is incredible it wasn't realised until 2008. In Dead Space, the player becomes lowly engineer Isaac Clarke, who finds himself investigating the "planet-cracking" ship Ishimura after radio contact with the vessel is lost.