Best Opening Sequences in Gaming

[Ambient_Malice]

Conker's Bad Fur Day. Also one of the best endings.

Resident Evil 6 - Chris Campaign. Flawless acting and atmosphere.

Assassin's Creed 3. The world building from fractals as you enter the theatre was perfection.

Metal Gear Solid V. I think the music elevates it to something awe-inspiring.

There are so many game with fantastic intros that it's difficult to narrow them down.

 

[infohippie]

Mostly holds up after all these years, dated graphics notwithstanding:

Spoiler: Deus Ex

Same thing can be said for this one. Dated graphics (that were AMAZING for its day) but still one of the best game intros ever.

[youtube]ECfKL4oS-6w[/youtube]

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I still think the first Witcher game intro was pretty awesome. It tied in with the books really well anyway. Bit long, but so well choreographed and animated, for its time.


Also, +1 for the Resident Evil: Outbreak, and Devil May Cry 3. Those are real standouts in my gaming memory.

This one is a little silly as it's just a title screen, but the first 25 sec. of the Street Fighter 2 arcade game always got me amped for some reason. Maybe it's just nostalgia talking here, thrill of being a young fella in the arcades wanting to slay any and all challengers with new tricks.

 

[FillerDmon]

I'm not sure how good one can say the cutscene is (1 minute of nice visuals, 1 minute of tits, then 1 minute of violence shared from the npc to the enemies, the enemies to the npc, then you to the npcs before you can finally start killing them in gameplay), but I have some respect for Ninja Gaiden 2 still. A little distraction (that if memory severs can be skipped) before immediately dropping you into fighting several evil demon ninjas and either have you splatter them all over the walls or have them remind you that trying to play Master Ninja while drunk is a terrible idea. No hand-holding, no 30 minutes of tutorials learning how to swing your sword, no 2 hours of people gasping and setting up background and backstory; just get in there and kill some mother fuckers. And I think that deserves respect.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

The opening that immediately comes to mind whenever this question crops up for me is still the opening mission of Medal of Honor: Frontline. Playing through the storming of the Normandy beaches was and is still one of the most exhilarating intros for a game I've ever played.

From a more sedate and narrative-focused perspective, Bioshock, Bioshock: Infinite, Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are all pretty obvious standouts thanks to the quiet but effective way they introduce the player into the world and use the environment as a narrative tool.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

You guys did it again! Even though this was similar to the last community gallery, there were so many good answers in here we did it again!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/galleryoftheday/15137-8-of-the-Best-Video-Game-Intros

Thanks!

you messed up, you linked Thief instead of the RA2

 

[ffronw]

[quote="stormtrooper9091" post="9.912309.23236983"

you messed up, you linked Thief instead of the RA2[/quote]

Damn, you're right. Fixed now. That's what I get for having too damn many YouTube windows open.

 

[The White Hunter]

BioShock has a pretty brilliant opening sequences, what with the plane crashing in the atlantic and you finding your way relatively organically to the undersea dystopia that is Rapture, it guides you naturally to where you need to go and pulls you into a strange fallen world where you'll spend the next few hours of your time throwing FUCK MOTHERING BEES

 

[HybridChangeling]

Since all the cinematic intros were taken, I will cover some other ones, like gameplay heavy sequences.

Crash Bandicoot. The music, the animation, the art style all told me one thing: I was about to have a fun time. Spinning crates and enemies away like the Tasmanian Devil, risking TNT boxes for mask powerups, and even the bosses. The first level taught us all I needed to know to proceed, and hooked me right in to the full game. Never needed a instruction manual. Also Crash running into the maim menu never got old.

Fallout 3 intrigued me, because it did something I had never seen a game do before. It let you (for the most part) life the live of your player character. You got to learn about your mother and father, you got to go to your birthday party, you even got to skip tests or take them. It's almost like the game is allowing you to set up your own character in the lore, instead of just shoving a stat screen in front of us. You felt like your character was growing up in the vault, you felt that you were established in the lore. It also gave us reasons to like our dad and want to save him, rather then "This is your dad, hes awesome I promise, now go risk your life and save him"

 

[sageoftruth]

With the proper context, I would give Final Fantasy 7 a vote. It all starts out with a simple flower girl walking down the street and then it pans out showing you all of Midgard, and if you hadn't played anything newer than Final Fantasy 7 at the time you'd be going "Holy crap! That looks amazing!" Basically the same effect Star Wars had when it first came out.

 

[Guffe]

I'm going to go with Warcraft III Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne.
They are just beautifully crafted cinematics from over a decade ago!

 

[PacDwell]

The Witcher 2's opening scene (mentioned earlier in the thread) is by far and away, without a shadow of a doubt, a million times better than most of the amateurish pap seen in other games.

I've yet to see an intro come anywhere near it in terms of quality.

 

[BaronVH]

The best opening in a game to me is Dead Space 2. Scared the snot out of me, was intense as hell, and told you everything you needed to know. There are certainly many games that are much better, but I have always thought it had the best intro.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Sadness. Nobody's yet linked the intro cinematic to Descent: Freespace. Well, I shall rectify that!

 

[Artina89]

For me it would have to be these:

Final Fantasy IX


Vagrant story


These two just always strike a real chord with me for some reason. It makes me feel quite nostalgic, especially the Final Fantasy IX opening sequence.

 

[laggyteabag]

Gotta love Halo 3 ODSTs opening.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

God of War games. Ascension by far has the best opening level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYJ4A53UziQ

 

[Sefa Lagaaia]

Devil May Cry 3 and 4 - balls out action sequence in the former, less so in the latter but still a memorable sequence and introduction to Dante and Nero
Smash bros Brawl - although a tad overlong was still pretty sweet as the setup for the game to come, and that music was tan-fastic
Just Cause 2 and 3 - Not cut-scenes but just letting you fuck around in their sandbox and blow shit up, timeless.
Dark Souls 1 - The prison teaches you from the start that the game is going to stop at nothing to murder you outright, and if you aren't down for that, there's the door
Borderlands 1 - Yep

 

[mardocOz]

The opening that immediately comes to mind whenever this question crops up for me is still the opening mission of Medal of Honor: Frontline. Playing through the storming of the Normandy beaches was and is still one of the most exhilarating intros for a game I've ever played.

I was wondering if anyone would mention this. One of the best example of front-stacking a game, this level was was immersive, exhilerating and atmospheric, promising so much for the rest of the game to come. Which, of course, it utterly failed to deliver on. Still for an opening sequence, its definitely up there.

I'm gonna say Bayonetta. The scene where you're kicking the crap out of angels in the cemetary whilst "Fly Me To The Moon" is playing in the background. For me it oozed style and charm and perfectly encapsulated the character of Bayonetta and the tone of the game to come. I was a fan.

And I don't know if it's just nostalgia talking at this point, but the opening to Final Fantasy VI, where they're running across the snow in the Magitek armour whilst Terra's theme is playing. Beautiful.

 

[DementedSheep]

I'll throw my vote in for Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock which have already been mentioned. Bioshock infinite aswell, it's intro pulls off the same effect as bioshock, I guess they are just really good at doing city reveals. With ME2 I hate that they worked being resurrected into the plot but even still that opening was awesome.

Fallout 3 has one of my favourite intros even if it get a little annoying on replaying the game. I've never played another RPG that introduces you to world quite like that.