10 Awesome Apocalyptic Video Games

3. Half-Life 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKA7JkV51Jw The original Half-Life was a fantastic self-contained sci-fi adventure that had you playing nerdy action hero Gordon Freeman as he ran about the Black Mesa Research Facility, and then the alien world of Xen in an attempt to put a stop to this experiment gone wrong. The second game further examines the ramifications of those events; the outside world is a scary place with headcrabs and all other manner of monsters, while the safer, more controlled world is headed by a tyrannical leader who has essentially installed a police state in which any dissension is met with a firm beating, or even death. City 17 is very reminiscent of countless classic science fiction movies, perhaps most notably Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, helping make Freeman's quest an all the more important, scary and exciting one. Perhaps the game's best invention is the Strider, a giant tripod-like creature - torn right out of War of the Worlds - that patrols City 17 in search of any pesky resistance fighters. Taking one of them down is...not easy.