If the Overworld is the bread, battle the meat and character customisation the salad, then dungeons are the cruel but necessary cocktail stick, lancing the action-adventure sandwich together. That was a ridiculous lead-in, wasn't it? Sorry, the thought of dungeons in a game does strange things to my frontal lobe. It makes me want to cower beneath my desk, a coat over my head, lashing at passing ankles with a pair of scissors. There's no settled definition for a videogame dungeon, and the ten examples given below probably won't help with that. Most of the games mentioned are fantasy efforts, but I'd say choice of setting is irrelevant - these places aren't defined by their paraphernalia, but by that prickly sense of impending doom which makes you anxious for daylight, even when you're more than a match for the hazards involved. Oh, and hidden treasure. Every dungeon needs a hidden treasure, even if it's just a massive, ungainly carving knife.

Feel free to list your own choices, as always - in hindsight, there's a disappointing shortage of Fallout. And watch out for hefty plot spoilers.

Paths of the Dead
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Contrary to popular belief, EA did manage to knock out the odd decent movie tie-in before CEO John Riccitiello's appointment triggered the new IP craze of the mid-noughties. One of those games was Return of the King, which kicked off with a hair-raising trip through the bowels of the White Mountains. Once you've discovered the hall of the Oathbreaker King, you'll have to battle your way back out again before the whole place collapses. A good pick for a frenzied sofa co-op session.



Crypt of Eternity
Hunted: The Demon's Forge

InXile's grimy, wobbly fantasy actioner is one of those games I look back on in mild anguish, and not just because I accidentally told T3 it's one of the games you should play before you die. In many ways Demon's Forge is quite ambitious, an attempt to get the Resi/Gears school of combat up and running within a branching mission framework looted from Diablo. There are some fun dungeons, especially the one where you navigate a buried cathedral-esque structure by shooting ancient bells to move a floating stone platform. You'll find the Crypt of Eternity via a trick bookcase in the Well of Sorrow, in the game's second chapter.



Markath Ruins
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

Matt really enjoyed poking around beneath Skyrim's largest surface-level Dwemer structure. Here's the gist. "A lot of the dungeons in Skyrim tend to have a similar feel, but the scale of this dungeon really stands out. Transitioning from tight corridors to sprawling chunks of an abandoned Dwemer city, the ruins beneath Markath feel like they might just stretch on forever."



The Catacombs
Dark Souls

When he wasn't begging magic frogs for mercy, Matt spent his time in Dark Souls berating the withering unfairness of the Catacombs area. "Possibly the nastiest trick ever seen in gaming, the Catacombs are just down the road from the drop-off point after you finish the prologue. Most people stepping out into the world will naturally head towards the graveyard first, and get carved up by skeletons. Brute-force your way through the bones and you'll be rewarded with a deep, dark chasm filled with dead that won't die. Returning to the Catacombs later in the game, armed to the teeth, is a genuinely glorious moment. Stay dead, bastards."



The Collector Base
Mass Effect 2

Perhaps no endgame of recent inception has had us biting our nails like Mass Effect 2's finale, in which the crew of the intrepid Normandy finally reach the Collector base of operations, journey to the core and confront its horrifying secret. In hindsight, it's just another series of battle chambers culminating in a faintly ludicrous boss fight, but the magic ingredient is that every major Mass Effect 2 plot call comes into play. Did you team up with Legion, or post him off to Cerberus? Was rescuing the abducted crewmates top of your list of priorities? Who did you order into the vent, and who did you instruct to accompany Dr Whatsherface back to the ship? It's proper edge-of-seat stuff.



Toluca Prison
Silent Hill 2

Have you visited the Silent Hill Historical Society? It's a pokey little place, hung with faded paintings and photographs of the town's glorious past. But as with so many Silent Hill locations, the building's humble exterior is merely the dorsal fin on a whacking great shark of nastiness. One doorway leads to an apparently endless staircase. As you descend, there's a distant, escalating drone. At long last, another doorway. Oh, you're in Toluca Prison, formerly a Prisoner of War camp, home to the Labyrinth, which is home to a nice young man known as Pyramid Head. Might be a good idea to run. Oh, don't you worry about "where to". The key phrase is "away from".



Cirromon Caves
Dust: An Elysian Tail

Dust is a gorgeous game, but the Cirromon Caves are a cut above (or rather, below) - huge lurid chunks of quartz everywhere, glistening fungi, subterranean villages full of huggable potato people. It's a treacherous road to walk, however. The mushrooms don't take kindly to undue movement, and express this by way of showers of acid. Later, you'll be told to go look for a stick and some sheep.



Valhalla
Tomb Raider: Underworld

Lara Croft can't go five minutes without falling into some dungeon or other. Underworld's highlight, for me is the trip down from Jan Mayen Island to the purported Norse underworld. It's not just that there are lakes of blue fire, giant swinging hammer puzzles and scuttling undead to contend with. It's that Lara manages to bring her trusty motorbike. Seems you can take it with you.



Darkness Incarnate
Fable 3

The Hero of Albion's stay on the desert continent of Aurora doesn't begin well. After shipwrecking with Sir Walter, you head into an ominous-looking cave and discover a well sealed by some kind of force field. The idea that said force field might be fulfilling a rather important unspeakable-evil-hindering purpose doesn't occur to Walter, who lowers the barrier with the aid of a mystic tome. Down in the depths, the darkness has eyes. Not to mention fangs a foot long, a voice which is to the human soul what a cheesegrater is to lettuce, and a capacity to detect and draw out your innermost fears. Poor old Walter's soon up to his bearded chin in claustrophobic flashbacks, cue a great turn from voice actor Bernard Hill.



The Midden
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

When it comes to buried enigmas, the College of Winterhold's basement takes the biscuit. In one room, a dais which coughs up elemental demons when you feed it certain items. In another, an ominous black gauntlet, the vestige of a summoning experiment gone awry. In yet another, a chippy invisible bugger known as the Augur of Dunlain.



Source