Best beginning in a game?

vurt

vurt

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I don't mean the CGI intro. What is your personal favorite(s)?

For me it's probably Ultima 7 Part II. This game did a great job of a really exciting start. You arrive on a ship, you have the best gear imaginable but there's a teleport storm and you lose your equipment, and your friends. Great way of explaining why you have to start without equipment and a great way to directly introduce the first quests - find your friends, your spellbook etc.

Honorable mentions;

Planescape Torment. Top notch, makes you really interested in the world and its characters from the very start.

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands. Being forced to fight in the arena, then breaking out of the slave pens into the sewers. I really love anything that has to do with arenas and prisonbreaks, having both and in the start is about as perfect as it gets.

The Last of Us. Very intense start that draws you in.

Uncharted 4. Really cool to get some background story (characters as kids) + great setting and actually quite a fun way to learn the controls etc (this can usually suck in games).
 
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Lets see here are some of my picks.

Fallout 3 - You are born. You grow up. Then bang your cozy life ends. All of a sudden your father is gone, Jonas is dead, and people you know are trying to kill you.

Fallout 4 - Opening movie sets the stage, then your in front of a mirror with your wife sharing the bathroom. All of a sudden the nuclear sirens go off. Your life is ruined.

BioShock - You crash with no explanation in the middle of the Ocean with a lighthouse beckoning in the distance. You decide to swim towards it and so begins your journey.

Skyrim - You start off under arrest.

You go through the standard character building after a nice cart ride to the nearest authorities. There you choose who you will be just before you’re execute.

Seems like a waste of time and game over? Wrong. A huge dragon swoops in and wreaks havoc on your captors and anyone else within fire-breathing distance.
 
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Bioshock was indeed a great and exciting start.
I think Bethesda did better with Morrowind and Oblivion than in FO3/4 and Skyrim, i find their opening a bit slow and uninteresting (FO3 is decent), the FO4 start was especially slow i think.
 
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Morrowind's opening. Short, simple, open to freeform exploration.

Gothic. You start getting punched in the face and left to survive in a dangerous prison colony. Slow start and progression which is my favorite style.
 
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Damn, you already mentioned my favorites. ^^

Dark Sun
Fallout 3
Fallout 4
Bioshock - For that time actually because of the graphics. I remember that I watched the intro and was then floating in the water and didn't realize the intro was over.
 
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vurt said:
Planescape Torment. Top notch, makes you really interested in the world and its characters from the very start.
Click to expand...

Torment had an absolutely dreadful beginning! The first hour was spent wandering around a mortuary wondering what the hell was going on :p

My most treasured game "beginnings" are due mostly to the nostalgia imparted by the CGI intros. Arcanum, Fallout 1. The mood was set up so perfectly.
 
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I think Sacred 2 and Dragon Age origins are cool because you have multiple beginnings. Sacred 2 quickly spirals down in quality, but the first 2-3 hours are a great experience. Loved the multiple beginnings in Dragon Age: Origins, Its worth starting the game anew 3-4 times just to see how they differ.
 
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I will second Bioshock as having the most compelling premise and entry-into-the-game of all time.

Other favorites include:

Last of Us
Bioshock Infinite
BioForge
System Shock
Fallout 3

Three titles with "Bio" :)
 
For me, Baldur's Gate II.

That opening scene with Irenicus was just woah. And while many seem to dislike Irenicus' dungeon, I actually think its very atmospheric and interesting :)
 
purpleblob said:
For me, Baldur's Gate II.

That opening scene with Irenicus was just woah. And while many seem to dislike Irenicus' dungeon, I actually think its very atmospheric and interesting :)
Click to expand...
Most credit should go to the designer of Jon Irenicus and his in-game voice actor David Warner. He was one the best written villains I've seen in any RPG game to date.
 
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Oooh this is a good question. I enjoy most of the ones mentioned here. Especially PST, DAO and Gothic stick out for me.

I would also like to mention MM7 and Mass Effect. The latter is a bit heavy on the world building in the start, but it's needed to set the scene, and I really like the emphasis ME1 has on its setting.
 
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Mass Effect 2 (I hadn't played ME1) - you are resurrected on a space station that is being attacked and you don't know what is going on and who to trust
Dragon Age Origins - for me the beginning ends after the great defeat, and it is all there before to be explored etc.
 
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Betrayal at Krondor, hands down winner for me. I was a huge fan of the books, and first being pulled into that world, how involved and exciting it was to participate was just a new thing for me. I think that was the summer of nineteen ninety-three, but when I think about it, it feels like it just happened yesterday.

Second for me would be Might and Magic six. It was so different from the other, earlier versions in the series that I was worried at first that I'd not like it, and then I noticed three hours had whipped by. Hooked I was -)
 
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Drakensang 2 - because it's so much grounded / rooted - apart from the clichés of how a game should begin. I mean, there's no magic at all in the very beginning !
 
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Well, maybe we should specify "beginning".
If we limit ourselves to intro or just opening screen, I got several other ones. ^^
The very first seconds on firing up Jagged Alliance 1 are fun as I just love this exploding house and the screaming people. That may sound...odd...but to me it's awesome ^^

Regarding Intros...I think I could make a list of 20 games on the fly with either great intros or just very memorable "effects" in intros...like the sound of the horse crossing the bridge in the Lands of Lore castle. But yeah...I guess the intention of this thread was to caption more than just the intro.

Alrik Fassbauer said:
Drakensang 2 - because it's so much grounded / rooted - apart from the clichés of how a game should begin. I mean, there's no magic at all in the very beginning !
Click to expand...

Ah, yeah, that one was great. I loved this group of 3 people or so talking to each other, and as soon as you approach they suddenly stop and switch to talking about the weather. That was awesome!
 
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I really enjoyed Gothic 3 at the beginning. Patched up with community patches. Fight off an orc invasion of a village and then you have a huge world to do whatever you want.
 
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