Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks

Everyone remembers Mortal Kombat as a fighting game. I remember it as this — the spin-off where you and a second player took Liu Kang and Kung Lao through Outworld together, launching enemies into spike pits and acid pools because the level itself was a weapon.

Shaolin Monks understood something most licensed games never did: co-op is a conversation. Who takes the adds, who saves the health pickup, who gets the fatality. The hat throw never stopped being funny. If you ask why a museum wing exists for games at all, this case is a good chunk of the answer.