The Swarm: Top 5 Post-Apocalyptic Games

With the launch of the apocalyptic-themed rollercoaster The Swarm in Thorpe Park, UK –the world’s second ever Wing Rider and Europe’s tallest – I thought it appropriate to list my five favourite post-apocalyptic video games in no particular order for y’all. There may be a couple of surprise entries that you weren’t expecting.

Gears of War, 2006
Apart from Halo, this gave gamers a reason to own an Xbox 360. The cover heavy third-person shooter was raw, brutal and made chainsaw’s cool again. Set on the planet Sera, you controlled a character called Marcus Fenix, whose job was to lead a team in an effort to rid the savaged planet of its Locust dwellers. In addition to its fantastic visuals it also incorporated some interesting mechanics, such as ‘Active Reload’ that allowed for faster weapon reload, or if you messed up the sequence, cause your gun to jam.

Kingdom Hearts, 2002
Not generally remembered as a post-apocalyptic game but it certainly qualifies. Nobody in their wildest dreams ever expected a Disney-Square mash-up and when it came it turned out to be a massive success. The game borrowed many elements from the Final Fantasy world, infused it with some interesting customization options and then threw in many fun and light-hearted characters from the Disney Universe for good measure, who helped and hindered your progress in the search for a key that would protect the world from impending darkness.

Deus-Ex, 2000
The critically acclaimed action role-playing game from Ion Storm Inc., which was arguably the only game they made worth playing before going under. Deus-Ex was a jack of all trades so to speak, dipping into many genres and respective sub-genres, whilst telling a compelling twist-upon-twist story in its attempt to appeal to a wider audience – one it succeeded in. While it wasn’t the ‘perfect’ game, it was mighty hard to pick faults with, and for a select few still stands as the greatest game of its generation.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, 2001
At a time when Crash Bandicoot got the boot the PlayStation community needed a strong platformer platform exclusive and that came from the dynamic duo of Jak and Daxter – one part human – one part otter-weasel. The game followed a very familiar formula to most other platformer games of the time and did nothing new of sorts, but what stood it apart from many of its rivals was that it re-tread those paths to such a high standard, and done so with crisp and clear graphics, and little to no loading times.

Half-Life 2, 2004
How do you follow up one of the greatest first-person shooter games of all-time that helped to change the course of how we play games today? The Valve Corporation did so by raising the bar once again, with some truly sensational gameplay, intriguing puzzles, intelligent enemy tactics, stunning graphical enhancements and a revolutionary physics engine that allowed for the manipulation of various objects depending on their shape, weight and buoyancy. I didn’t want to stick my neck out and pick a favourite, but sod it – this is it.

Please share some of your favourites in our forum or the comments section below.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed
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