Oct 15, 2007

On some level, roughly 98 percent of all videogames are about the end of the world. There's always some supervillain/monster/alien race who's threatening to conquer the Earth or blow up the galaxy, and it's up to you to stop him/her/it/them. For all the games that use end-of-the-world scenarios to drive their plots, though, how many actually don't let you avert the apocalypse? The end of the world is always a potent threat, but it's even more potent when you have to sit there and watch it unfold. Here are the most interesting scenarios:

7. Bullet Witch

The end: After a series of disasters that kill millions of people, mankind is finally pushed to the brink of extinction in 2013, as demonic "Legions of Horror" sweep across the globe, exterminating all life and inspiring laughable lines like "Witches don't need… prayers!"

But it's awesome, because: Bullet Witch kind of sucks as a game, but it's difficult to find fault with an end-of-times scenario that involves a hot chick in a leather skirt killing boatloads of demons. Especially when it means you'll need to run around atop a flying jetliner, shooting at a giant dragon that sprays eyeballs everywhere.

What's more, this particular Armageddon seems almost completely survivable. The demonic hordes mostly consist of chatty, gun-toting zombies in Vietnam-era fatigues, who can be killed just fine with normal weapons. They're lousy shots, too, and even the really big, nasty ones are dumb enough to have obvious weak spots - like, say, brains and hearts on the outside. How they even managed to survive to the point where a super-powered witch had to intervene is frankly beyond our capacity to reason - we can only guess it had something to do with all those previous disasters softening humanity up first.

Is it really the end? Nah. The apocalypse is in full swing and humanity has been all but destroyed, but once Alicia's finished mopping up that nasty hellspawn infestation, it's guaranteed to bounce back in no time.