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For a brief moment, the Mac had a stylish, state-of-the-art game that PC owners really wanted. The author, David Alan Smith, has a blog post about the creation of the game and a video of gameplay. In 2009 Torchlight took the world of game development by surprise, emerging as an action RPG that truly hearkened back to the almighty Diablo franchise, which hadn't seen a brand new release since.

1. 2000's The History Of Video Games Timeline
2. 2000's The History Of Video Games Book

2000's The History Of Video Games Timeline

The legend of Pong, the one-dot and two-paddle sensation that mimicked table-top tennis, was the granddaddy that led to the establishment of Atari and the video-game craze.

More than 8,000 Pong stand-up arcade cabinets were sent out into world in the two years following the games release in 1972. These addicting consoles brought kids in groves to the stores and restaurants that had the game. With pockets full of scavenged quarters, these youngsters played at the rate of $35-$40 per day, per machine.

From those innocent early days, the world has grown to 2.2 billion gamers, and 50 years of gaming has brought video game companies revenues close to $109 billion.

Pong put Atari on the map, and led to the creation of the mass-marketed game console. By 1977, 27.6 million Atari sets were in homes across the world, and gave Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs something to do while they figured out their computer company Apple. The two techno-geniuses built the Atari game Breakout in their spare time, and Woz says that the game influenced the design of the Apple II.

During the 1980s, Pac Man and Mario Brothers stole the hearts of every adolescent, who went on to buy the first Nintendo Gameboy in 1989, and the Super Nintendo in 1991.

Today, 43 percent of games are played on a mobile device, 31 percent of gamers use an at-home console, and 23 percent use a PC. More importantly, 71 percent of parents now believe that video games positively influence their children's lives, which is quite different from the 1990s when parents consistently banned their children from games like Mortal Kombat and Doom as the debate regarding game violence and its affects on children reached its peak.

Did you know that video games can improve your health?

We see some sci-fi and fantasy games set in expansive and well-realised fictional worlds. The creativity behind these universes can be astounding, but it often takes more tact to fit a game’s story around events that really happened in the past. Properly interlinking a story into real world events takes an incredible amount of research and creativity (and in some cases an amusing amount of force fitting), so it’s worth tipping our hats to the ten games that have done it the best. Though historical accuracy is welcome, creative uses of a historical event or setting are also grounds for praise.

10. Assassin’s Creed 2

The Renaissance period isn't exactly ripe with gaming opportunity, but Assassin's Creed 2 really made it work

Historical accuracy was never the name of the game in the Assassin’s Creed series. What the games have been doing since AC2 however, is provide a veritable greatest hits of historic individuals and settings. Renaissance Italy was beautifully imagined in the game, and the introduction of characters like Niccolo Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci and, in the DLC chapters, Girolama Savonarola made for an interesting take on the Renaissance movement. It might not be especially tactful, but it’s a fantastically creative story all the same.

9. Civilization

2000's The History Of Video Games Book

The mix of time periods has always made the Civilization series a real classic

Though the Civ games have never attempted to retell accurate historical events, they do a good job of introducing some of the worlds greatest leaders from across the ages. Ranging from Ghandi to Napolean, the Civilization games recreate these leaders and their policies and attitudes in the fictional scenarios posed by the game. The introduction of set challenge scenarios in Civ 4 also helps introduce a variety of partially accurate historical conflicts into the mix.

8. Rome: Total War

Though Rome: Total War does a good job of recreating a variety of real battles and scenarios, it’s the small things that it does best. The variety of units, the atmosphere and the diplomacy all feel very Roman (or at least what I think ancient Rome should feel like). My ancient Roman history isn’t strong enough to tell how accurate the game is, but it sure as hell sets a strong tone and mood.