Introducing Games of the Generation

We're nearly there. Since Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 at the end of 2005, it's been a long and often fascinating journey through what's loosely defined as the seventh generation of consoles.

There's been high drama - the meltdown of both the Xbox 360's innards and Sony's PlayStation Network spring immediately to mind, but it's Mr. Caffeine's own breakdown in front of a bemused E3 crowd that still wins out for me - as well as, most importantly, nearly eight years' worth of outstanding games. With the next generation about to start in earnest in a handful of weeks (sorry Nintendo!), it seemed like an opportune time to look back at the highlights of those past eight years, and to pick out the games that have defined them.

We're not massive fans of list features at Eurogamer, but this one's been conducted with science and a spreadsheet - at least that's how I've justified it to myself. We asked 40 Eurogamer contributors, past and present, to nominate five games of the generation (that's been loosely defined as Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, DS and Wii, with anything released on PC within that timeframe also eligible), and then tallied up the votes to get some kind of consensus.

Over the next two weeks, we'll be bringing you some of the reasons we picked the games we did, and telling you how each of them, in their own way, defined their generation. You'll find them all collated over here. Thanks to a neat quirk in the voting results, the tail end of the list was tied - we'll be bringing you each of them in no particular order this week, with a rundown of the final three starting next Wednesday. If everyone plays nice, I might even share the full top 50 with you in a couple of weeks, once we've revealed our final pick.

It's not a definitive rundown of course, and no doubt you'll take issue with some inclusions as much as you puzzle over some omissions - but hopefully you'll appreciate our own take on some of the most enjoyable games of the era.