What an incredible year 2011 was, from Sackboy to Skyrim, Arkham City to Saint’s Row, two new consoles are in the works, one handheld, and the other for the regular television set. It was a massive year for video games, and gamers alike. Everyone had something to play. Since we are kicking off a new year, let’s take some time off and look back at the..
Top 5 Best Starts to a Game
5) Fallout 3
What Happens: First off, deep in the bowels of Vault 101, in the year 2077, you’re born, you give yourself a name, determine what you’re going to look like in the future, then your mother dies…This is a lot for a baby to handle within the first moments of it’s life. Flash forward a year and you’re walking. Now you determine what kind of special abilities you have, which is still quite a responsibility for a baby. Fortunately you grow up and on your 10th birthday you’re thrown a surprise party and another six years goes by and you are given an aptitude test to determine what you’re job is going to be in Vault 101. Three years later, your father has disappeared and escaped the vault, and now The Overseer is after you so you must escape the vault and look for your father.
What ensues after this is a grand adventure looking for your father through the wasteland that was once Washington D.C. You encounter a town with a bomb in the middle of it, a radio station DJ, and even the president of the United States…Although it’s a machine so I don’t know if that counts.
4) Batman: Arkham City
What Happens: Bruce Wayne holds a press conference outside of the walls of a section of Gotham City, now holding the worst criminals in Arkham City and Blackburn Prision. Wayne is denouncing Arkham City, then he’s arrested by Arkham City officials. He wakes up to find out that Hugo Strange has taken him in and threatens to reveal his hidden identity as Batman. As Bruce Wayne is taken through the the initial registration he is taken by The Penguin, and Wayne escapes, gets to a rooftop, calls Alfred to deliver the Batman suit.
With the Batman suit, you are given the full experience of being Batman…Minus the access to the 1% money. Taking down thugs, their villainous leaders, unlocking Riddler trophies, finding hidden collectables and uncovering the mystery that is “Protocol 10″ is just the standard day inside the walls of Arkham City.
3)Contra III: The Alien Wars
What Happens: You (and your partner if you’re playing 2 player) start off going from left to right in this platformer, fighting off wave after wave of aliens who have launched a full scale attack on planet Earth. The very section you are in gets bombed, after the fires die down, you keep fighting off more aliens until a giant alien turtle thing gets in your way…And that is just the first level.
Contra III: The Alien Wars makes no bones about what this game is, an action platformer with extra emphasis on the action. Guns, check, aliens, check, bad S.O.B. kicking alien skulls in with the spreader gun…Double check (double if you have the second player). Yes it’s a full scale alien war, and you and your partner are the front line for Planet Earth…Oh hell yeah!
2)Half Life
What Happens: Nothing…You’re Gordon Freeman, unassuming scientists on his way to his job at Black Mesa Research Facility. The day starts off normally, as you take the train down to your sector, talk to a few coworkers, and eventually suit up and enter the test chamber to start an experiment with some new material.
Once there, the experiment goes horribly awry as you and your colleagues may have inadvertently opened a new dimension that allowed aliens to run rampant all over Black Mesa. With everything in chaos, a special forces unit is in to presumably rescue everyone, however they’re eliminating everything that moves…Including you.
1) God of War
What happens: Kratos dies…Sort of. Standing atop the highest mountain in all of Greece. After 10 years of suffering, after 10 years of endless nightmares, it would finally come to an end…Death would be his escape from madness. Coming to the conclusion that the Gods of Olympus have abandoned him, Kratos would end his life.
But it had not always been like this, as we flash back to play out the three weeks before this event on a ship sailing the Aegean Sea. There hoards of undead soldiers are “sent back to the depths of Hades” by Kratos’ blades. Poseidon asks you to kill off the Hydra and Kratos does…with vicious, violent, bloody results. What ensues after this unveils the reason behind Kratos’ suffering, and a grand adventure to retrieve Pandora’s Box to kill the God of War, Aries.