What games have the best opening segment?

To name a couple..

Ocarina of Time - the way we get introduced to Link and the camera moves to find him.

Metal Gear Solid - hearing Solid Snake's briefing with the Colonel before he enters Shadow Moses

Edit: I bring videos!

Mass Effect 1! Never tire of watching the title crawl, Shepard striding to the cockpit, the Normandy jumping into the mass relay, and most of all, the music from Jack Wall. Bloody epic, and really gets you fired up for an awesome space adventure.

Also, BioShock. What more can be said? Tell me your hair doesn't stand on end a bit when you hear this:

"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone!' I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... RAPTURE."

And one more pick would have to be Borderlands. Skag gets hit by a bus, and Cage the Elephant plays "Ain't No Rest For the Wicked." Nuff said.

Bioshock is probably my favourite videogame opening ever. Descending into Rapture and your capsule being attacked by that creepy female splicer was exhilirating and horrifying.

Breath of the Wild, getting out of the cave and seeing Hyrule stretched out in front of you, with the beautiful music. Truly epic start for one of the best and most adventerous games ever.

Final Fantasy IX. The airship flying into Alexendria, the title, the play, the escape and crash into Evil Forest, the camp fire scene before being thrown into the world map for the first time. This game is in my all-time top 3, and the amazing opening hours contributed to it being there.

Dead Space 2 was great... your savior goes all Large Marge on you in the opening minute...

Some more recent examples - The Last of Us and The Last Guardian come to mind.

@enzyme36: Yeah that one is great.

I liked Metal Gear Solid 2's... Probably one of the only ones I remember though as it has the iconic bridge jump.

At the top of my head, The Last of Us was really cool. The escaping from Earth section in ME3 was also pretty cool and there is something about the first minutes of FFVI as well...it feels so nostalgic and then the music, is such an epic intro. Like I said, just at the top of my head. I'm sure there are more examples.

The Last of Us

BioShock

Prey (2017)

Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight

Panzer Dragoon Saga

Shenmue

There's a few that come to mind, but hard to go past Bioshock.

Mass Effect 2 - The intro raises the stakes tenfold from the first game. With the Normandy and so much of her crew been destroyed, and Shepard even been killed.

Final Fantasy VII - Best intro of any FF game. Throws you right into the middle of a mission to blow up a reactor. You're not sure who you are, if you're a good guy or bad, or who the people around you are. But you learn quickly as the mission goes, rather than getting a 10-20 minute prologue before you can even start playing.

I still hold Resident Evil Code Veronica as having one of the best openers ever.

Uncharted 2 also had a really good opener.

Still gotta give it to Homeworld 2

Pick up that can.

Tekken 3,tag 1,4,5 had great openings.

Starcraft 1 both original campaign and Brood Wars had great openings.Starcraft 2's 1st campaign opening was also great.

MGSV, the opening was awesome

The Last of Us is the only one that comes to mind right now. I still remember my roommate at the time (who doesn't really play games) was pretty worked up by that first bit of the game.

Metal Gear Solid 2

Metal Gear Solid 4.

Final Fantasy VIII.

Final Fantasy X.

Goldeneye007.

Max Payne 3's is one of my favorites, for the nonlinear storytelling, good voice acting and style.

Thinking of recently played games, really love the Halo 5 opening

Wing Commander 4

God of War 3

TLOU opening is pretty epic and emotional.

Certainly not the last of us that's for sure. Most predictable, boring, unimaginative start to a game I've ever played. It angers me just thinking about it.

As far as good, then I guess Bayonetta 2, Ridge Racer, SotC, BOtW and MGS4. Also Half Life 1&2.. I enjoyed GOW 3 when it fist came out too..

Max Payne 1 was good back in the day..

Since it hasn't been listed yet and it is rather recent: Tales of Berseria. The first ~1 hour or some is among the best I've ever seen in a JRPG. The way they build up the characters and relations just to crush them and put Velvet in a state of absolute anger is extremely well done.

Bayonetta. The game opens with you fighting swarms of angels, standing on a piece of clock tower plummeting to the ground, while some ominous voice that you have no chance of paying attention to, gives this bizarre exposition about holy war you are in the middle of. Brilliantly sets the tone for the 12 or so hours of wonderful chaos you are about to experience.

Yeah. The quick reversal really stuck out to me. I haven't finished it but I'm not expecting her to drop the attitude. Maybe go a little lighter but she seems dead set on her goal haha.

Halflife (1998) ofc. Prior to this an FPS was typical firing rockets in brown corridors with segmented chapters with next to no narrative To open an FPS with a prolonged period of pacifist world building was practically unheard of. Further more, instead of making the protagonist some empowered alpha male, it opens as a routine cog in the wheel workplace, acting as a point of escalation. To this day this opening is repeated over and over in some form.

The word "cinematic gaming" has became a dirty worth thanks to hacks like Naughty Dog, but it wasn't always that way.

GTA: Vice City

Marathon in 1994 was a first-person shooter with plenty of text narrative.

You're mistaking inventing with revolutionizing.

My bad. ;)

- FFVII

- Uncharted 2

- FFX

- Metal Gear Solid 2

- God of War 3

- FFXII

The very first time I played The Last of Us, I nearly broke down simply because of the beginning. As a father of two daughters, that one hit me hard.

Portal 2

15 years on still top notch facial animation. Done with slides as well, no mocap.

Also love the inverted silhouette changing from Haflifes orange hew to the combine sterile blues foreshadowing the end game, which itself takes the tram ride Black Mesa's prologue and places it as a semi-epilogue to introduce the combines inner workings.

Mass Effect 2. Witcher 2 opening is also pretty solid. Full of suspense.

easily this

MGS1 still impresses me with it's cinematic opening.

Halo games usually have great openings too.

This. The amount of hype and excitement that bridge scene generated at E3 2000 was unparalleled in video game history. MGS2 takes the cake.

@jun_aka_pekto: Nice. Did you know Max Payne was inspired by Full Throttle character?

I always think of Thunderforce 4 but it's mostly the music that does it.

MUSHA also has an awesome intro and F-Zero for funniest misstranslation ever.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay - how you seem to do fine at first but then you wake up and they are taking you to the prison hellhole.

And Three Evil Masters. (well technically this is not a videogame, but it has one hell of an opening scene!)

Oh yea, Hitman: Contacts has a pretty exciting opening level, that takes place directly after the end of the first game.

Pulling a Leon never gets old.

Some great ones named already, I'll add Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon to the list.

Also, it's pretty old, but I use to think the opening cinematic to the first WH4K: Dawn of War was pretty cool.