10. Entering The Waste - Fallout 3
Bethesda SoftworksKicking off our moments that made us who we are today is the true opening of Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3. After a fantastic beginning being swaddled in the loving arms of your father, Liam Neeson, learning to walk (literally), and progressing through childhood at a breakneck speed - complete with pseudo girlfriend, school yard bullies (Tunnel Snakes Rule!) and taking your exams - you finally become an adult. An 18 year old character, built precisely to your specifications - as in many role playing games - with family, friends and a quite life living in an underground vault that nobody has entered or left in over two hundred years. Idyllic. That is, until your father leaves in the middle of the night. Without a word to you he escapes, shattering the quite metallic vale in which your entire life is ensconced - causing havoc and riots! Animal attacks! A sudden realisation that your idyllic home is a fascist state from which you must escape! This effort of contained world building is so utterly compelling and engaging that once the spell is broken, we have seen seasoned gamers sit jaws agape and stare at the television - hands completely still. Allow us to explain. Your world is shattered. The game is not as you expected, the world around you crumbled to ash. Your enemies beg for your help, and your girlfriend is suddenly an heiress of a dictator intent upon your death. She pushes you to leave, to follow your suddenly outcast father into the place they all fear to tread... outside. So you do... You fight to escape, forced to murder those who stand in your path and want you dead. You finally reach a thirty foot solid steel cog that serves as a door to the outside. Ponderously, the cog is drawn backwards to reveal a cave. A short way down the cave is a dilapidated wooden door. Unassuming. You open the door. You are blinded. Sunlight streams into your eyes which have never looked upon the sky before. Your vision adjusts and you realise exactly the depth of your predicament. The land before you undulates to the horizon, blackened and pockmarked with craters. You must navigate this hellscape, and more, thrive here. This is The Waste.