15 Best Video Game Cities

City 17 – Half Life 2

Valve’s Half Life 2 needed to make an impact on release and nothing could have achieved that better than City 17. Gordon Freeman enters for the first time, making his return in years. Hulking Striders patrol the city among subjugated civilians as opposing Combine soldiers, numerous security cameras and large dystopic screens with Breencast set the tone perfectly. It wasn’t just the attention to detail or the seamless tutorial of the first 20 minutes that stuck with us but how Valve so expertly presented it all, choosing to show rather than tell.