the99th

Just a few years ago, you would not have been surprised to see a game like this getting cover treatment from the major PC game magazines. It's a nicely polished oblique-overhead third-person shooter set in a mining colony on Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons) that is under attack by alien critters. The story line is nicely done too, with good voice acting and a real sense of tension and a colony under siege; naturally, weapons get more powerful over time, and NPCs work with you in later levels.