Maybe its just morbid curiosity - or the fact that modern life is blatantly rubbish - but theres something about the apocalypse that has always captured my imagination. Just look at the pre-launch hype Fallout 4 has generated. Gaming stores are going to look like supermarkets during a nuclear attack warning when it lands next week. Bethesdas open-world sequel looks destined to be something special, but we gaming veterans have lived though many an apocalypse in our time, from nuclear Armageddon to zombie plagues, hefty meteorites and more. With the doomsday clock ticking closer to midnight, here are seven past gaming apocalypses that the Fallout series has to live up to. The rapture might not be such a bad thing if some of these are anything to go by.
7. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
Set in a world where a second explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone has turned the Ukrainian town into a pocket of radioactive hell, Shadow of Chernobyl is a post-apocalyptic PC offering that was inspired by a true event. It took some liberties where the geographical layout of Pripyat and vodkas ability to heal radiation sickness is concerned, but STALKERs real-life roots made it all the more chilling. This was a role-playing shooter with deep survival-horror elements that pitted players against all kinds of mutated horrors, from blood-sucking nasties to humanoids with massive heads and psionic powers. There was also lethal radiation to contend with, but it was nothing a few swigs of Smirnoff couldnt take care of.
