LogFAQs > #944572497

Welcome to my ranking of 120 user-nominated video game intros. Before I begin, what qualifies as an intro? For purposes of this topic, Im limiting it to a brief sequence (no more than a few minutes long), without meaningful player controls. The intro could be either a cinematic that plays while idle on the start screen or something you watch when the game begins (or both).

But maybe the better question is what do I consider a good video game intro? Unlike my prior ranking of TV show intros, I decided to rank these without any scoring factors. But I realized as I wrote these up, some of those same factors came into play. Above all else, a good video game intro, to me, is one that tells a story, which is meaningful even without having played the game. It also helps if its got nice visuals, good music, and a distinctive appearance, but those factors are way less important to me than the story. And a lot of the intros on this list looked nice, but were basically just a series of clips that told me nothing about the premise of the game or its characters.

Ill also mention that some of my favorite games had intros that ranked surprisingly low, whereas several intros that came in near the top I had never seen before. What sets the intros near the top apart from others is how much they intrigued me and made me want to play the game.

The last thing Ill say is, for lack of a scoring system, Ive organized these rankings into tiers to convey some idea what the rankings mean. The tiers will be named with my attempt at humorous video game references, and I do stress the word attempt.