Gaming
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The greatest video game opening levels of all time
These mindblowing titles definitely didn’t hold back in the tutorial stage.
Uncharted 2’s opener is one of gaming’s greatest
© Naughty Dog
Whatever the medium, if you want to entertain, you have to capture your audience from the very beginning. Whether an opening sentence, opening bars or opening scene, the introduction counts. In some ways that's true of video games more than any rival means of storytelling.
We could sit and discuss the pros and cons of video games versus movies until Raul Julia rises from his grave to tell us about how he learned to inhabit the role of M Bison on the silver screen, but there's one challenge that screenwriters will never have to face: introducing you to the mechanics of a game while advancing the story.
It's not like you need a Hollywood actor to break the fourth wall and explain how a series of still images played at high speed simulate the sense of motion. Video games, however, provide no such luxury for their creators. Not only do you need to introduce the controls, you must do so while advancing the story, and highlighting the potential for fun as you get to grips with them.
That's no mean feat, but some games have managed it nonetheless, turning their tutorial stages into advanced lessons in tightrope walking for the entire medium. Let's take a look at them.
Super Mario 64: The castle
Shigeru Miyamoto distilled the exposition down perfectly at the start of Super Mario 64. So much so in fact that it could fit in a tweet; 'Dear Mario, please come to the castle. I've baked a cake for you.' That's really all you need to know to understand why Mario is bursting out of a warp pipe near a lush looking castle. Really, what's happening is that you, as the player, are bursting into an entirely new dimension – at least, you were in 1996.
Nintendo's brief text tutorials explain the mechanics, and then you're left to triple jump and backflip around the gardens as you figure out this brave new world. Yes, there's not a great deal you can do in said grounds (until you buttslam a few blocks in the basement, anyway) but that's almost the point. One of the most remarkable game introductions of all time.
Goldeneye 007: Dam
The finest stage of Rare's finest hour, the opening Dam level in the classic N64 shooter recreates the thrilling opening to the movie perfectly. A classy 'classified' folder sets the stage for you, before you're quickly shown how to pick up your weapon and unload it into the faces of unwitting henchmen. And the payoff, a bungee jump over an abyss, was a spectacle to behold back in the 1990s – although rewatching this playthrough of the level, it does leave us wondering why some of the surviving guards don't just untie the rope on Bond's way down.
Final Fantasy VII: Sector 1 reactor
You could argue that Final Fantasy VII cheats on the intro a little by switching out gameplay for one of the most epic, sweeping full motion video clips in any video game ever, but it's only a few minutes long. After vaulting off a train, you're promptly dropped inside a Mako reactor AVALANCHE is set on exploding, forcing you to battle your way through machine gunning soldiers and massive mechs.
FFVII was a line in the sand for the series in many ways; this was Final Fantasy on a new platform (PlayStation), in a new dimension (3D, sort of), on a new scale and more mature than ever, with no mages and knights. Though the game was still mostly turn-based, this frenetic introductory level makes clear that the game won't be slowing down at any point, forcing you to leg it out before the countdown on the bomb's timer hits zero.
Metal Gear Solid
Despite that slick cinematic start, FFVII's turn-based thwacking people over the head with a buster sword makes clear that it is still very much a game. But another PlayStation One title kicked down that barrier between mediums like a bipedal robot on a rampage in its opening level. With its nuclear submarines, elite commandos, reams of voice dialogue and opening credits fading in and out as you travel down in a lift, you'd never played a video game so like a movie before. And then the box? Inspired.
Half-Life: The train
No crowbar. No Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Just Gordan Freeman on a train going to work. Only Valve could make someone's commute so compelling.
Sonic Adventure 2: City Escape
Unquestionably Sonic's finest hour since his Mega Drive days, the opening level of Sonic Adventure 2 is everything that Sonic should be in 3D; vertiginous, blindingly fast, with just enough platform jumping to act as a middle eight to the tune of Sonic racing downhill, and a belter of a soundtrack composed by Richard Jacques.
The level is deceptive, however. In between all the snowboarding on tarmac and the giant homicidal trucks, Sega still find the time to insert the rudiments of the game's controls. You're forced to figure out how to jump between rails and clear large gaps by homing in on enemies, and shown the benefits of boost pads and ramps. This entire level is Video Games 101, really, an adrenaline pumping tutorial the length of a pop song; it's just a shame Sonic Adventure 2 never reaches these same giddy heights again, thanks to Knuckles and Eve the Bat's tedious games of Marco Polo.
Resident Evil 4: Part 1 Chapter 1
Most memorable for its complete change of pace, the first Resi to hit the GameCube generation starts out with oddly upbeat maracas – something is amiss here. Suddenly you're plunged into a Spanish village of not quite zombies that lurch towards you at a clip, not helped in any way by your character's turning circle akin to an 18-wheeler lorry. Out the window it is then! The action never really lets up from this moment onwards.
BioShock: Welcome to Rapture
BioShock is not your average grunt-versus-the-horde shooter. That's made clear in the very opening moments, with brief scenes showing your plane crashing into the ocean at the height of the Cold War.
An introduction from the sinister Andrew Ryan follows, and with the help of a mysterious stranger over the intercom, within moments you're stoving in the skulls of splicers with a wrench, before being introduced to the game's Big Bad, a Big Daddy. Mystery, suspense, action; BioShock has it all in its opening minutes. Check it about in the clip above from the newly released remaster.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: The train
While Uncharted 3's bust up in a cockney British pub makes for a pretty entertaining start, its predecessor knows how to make a truly explosive intro. In an excellent Tarantino-esque fast forward, adventurer Nathan Drake is forced to learn the controls to the game by climbing up a collapsed railway bridge high up in the mountains of Tibet.
While the flash forward is often overused in television dramas these days, it's still seldom deployed in video games, but is surprisingly effective as a way of foreshadowing all the high octane action to come, just as soon as you've figured out which button is shoot and which is talk. Don't want to confuse them.
The Last Of Us: Prologue
After three chipper Uncharted games, where no named characters ever really get hurt, Naughty Dog were keen to tackle more mature themes in their next PS3 game – a challenge made harder by a fairly standard zombie apocalypse setting. They certainly managed it, however, making clear the family dynamics while teaching you the controls as you search for your father Joel.
At the risk of spoiling the game for the unfortunate few still not to have played it, The Last Of Us violates one of the central taboos of narrative 'Oh no they didn't just go there' within its opening stage, and is all the more powerful for it.
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