5th
The Lost Crown: Great modern adventure games do exist!
I love games where you get to shoot nazis as much as the next person but I will never love a genre of video game as much as I love adventure games. I’ll play a 3rd person ninja game, sure, but I’d much rather be playing a game where some obtuse and completely irrational puzzle has you dipping a slice of pizza into tar so you can glue it to a pipe to stop a leak or using cat hair to make a fake moustache (I made up the slize of pizza puzzle and it still sounds more rational than a cat hair moustache). But being a fan of adventure games lately has been tough because unless you have a DS, the quality has been a bit…lacking. There’s still decent stuff out there, and quite a bit of it despite rumours of adventure game’s death, but I’d say 80% of modern commercial adventure games are not worth playing at all. 
I’ve recently played a game that has re-energized my love of the genre though, The Lost Crown, which is a surprisingly epic adventure that harkens back to mid-90’s Sierra days. The box art may make it look like another generic 1st person trek through a haunted house or *gulp* another I Spy game where you have to find a cat and a hammer hidden in a room full of junk, but this is actually a 3rd person horror/mystery that plays more like Gabriel Knight meets Shivers. And, most impressively, it was all made primarily by one man, Jonathan Boakes, who also made the somewhat impressive Dark Fall games and is probably the closest the genre currently has to a modern day Jane Jensen (although some would argue that Jane Jense is the current Jane Jensen as she is working on her game Gray Matter which may or may not still exist). Since it was made by only one guy, the game has it’s share of flaws, especially some iffy and repetitive voice acting (Jonathan Boakes himself voices the main character so that about sums it up) but it’s still surprisingly professional and rivals the production values of most other adventure games made by full-fledged teams.
If you’re into adventure games, you should definitely check this out, it has a few quirks but it’s also got a really engrossing story and some very good scares that make up for any annoyances. Easily the best adventure game for the PC in years.
Also, since I’m here and talking about adventure games: fuck Myst.
