10 Video Games That Gut Punch You In Act One

3. Lost In Space - Mass Effect 2

The Last of Us
Bioware

No better way to start off a game where literally anyone can die than by launching the main character out into the cold unforgiving void of space!

You all know how Mass Effect 2 starts by now. After thwarting the Reapers in the first game, Shepard is sent out to hunt Geth because their ranting about the impending Lovecraftian squid machine god apocalypse was seen as, shall we say, politically inconvenient.

Shepard definitely knows all about things that are inconvenient though. Such as The Collectors - the enigmatic cronies of the aforementioned Lovecraftian squid machine gods - popping out of hyperspace and blasting the Normandy to hell and sending them hurtling out into another planet's orbit. That's DEFINITELY inconvenient.

It was also a good way to set up the theme of this game that will follow it all the way to its finale: no one, not even super space marine Shepard, is safe this time.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?