Fallout: New Vegas is out tomorrow, so before we enter the nuclear wastelands once again, here’s our guide to the best apocalyptic adventures in gaming...

From biblical Armageddon to Roland Emmerich's Mayan-themed disaster flick 2012, the apocalypse has proved curiously alluring to generations of doom-obsessed worriers.

There is something fascinating, even liberating, about the death of civilisation – the idea of wandering vast emptied cities with just Will Smith for company; or blasting zombies to death while living in a shopping arcade. Sure, Cormac McCarthy spoiled things a little with his relentlessly grim The Road, which made the apocalypse look, quite literally, as inviting as being locked in a cellar and farmed for meat. But then we're all looking forward to Frank Darabont's TV adaptation of The Walking Dead. A zombie apocalypse re-imagined by the creator of Shawshank Redemption? Will they see off the undead with a Mozart aria and a mawkish voice-over? Let's hope.

Anyway, tomorrow sees the launch of Fall Out: New Vegas, the latest title in Bethesda's brilliant action adventure series, set in the aftermath of a worldwide nuclear war (see our review). To celebrate, here are the ten best video game visions of the apocalypse – and if I've missed your favourites, add them to the comments section and I'll conjure up a readers' list.



Wasteland

(Interplay, 1988)

Created by original Fallout developer, Interplay, and widely considered a precursor of the Fallout series, Wasteland is a gripping RPG set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Your job is to command a small party of survivalists as they trek into the ravaged desert landscape battling mutants. The character customisation and upgrade systems are immense and the atmosphere is surprisingly tense and haunting considering the basic top-down visuals. An incredibly prescient and imaginative title.

Midwinter

(Maelstrom Games, 1989)

Set on a vast island in the midst of a nuclear winter, Midwinter is a genre-bending first-person RPG, in which the player must recruit 32 civilians to fight off the invasion of a sinister military force. The stark fractal visuals provide a convincingly barren tundra landscape, and the unique game-time system, which gives you two hours to recruit the next character, adds an exhilarating sense of urgency. Programmed by Lords of Midnight creator Mike Singleton, it was a key title of the 16bit era and a landmark in open-world design.

Beneath a Steel Sky

(Revolution, 1994)

Jammed with references to classic distopian fiction as well as philosophy, music and cyberpunk lore, this is a typically cerebral and amusing take on the nuclear apocalypse from the creator of the Broken Sword series (with visual design by Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons). Via a standard point-and-click interface, you must guide an orphaned boy from the scorched Australian outback to a nightmarish Orwellian city dominated by an omnipotent computer network. Think Mad Max mashed with 1984. But funny.

Deus Ex

(Ion Storm, 2000)

Warren Spector is effectively the sage of apocalyptic cyperpunk game design, overseeing early progenitor, Bad Blood, before creating classic first-person action adventure System Shock and then this absolute epic of millennial tension. It's the 2050s and a devastating pandemic has decimated the human race, with the only cure, Ambrosia, in the hands of a military junta. In the role of nano-augmented super cop JC Denton, the player must travel the world unpicking a multi-layered narrative populated by memorable characters and filled with references to real-world conspiracies and events. A marvel.

Half-Life 2

(Valve, 2004)

Okay so Valve's agenda-setting sci-fi shooter is strictly a work of distopian rather than apocalyptic fiction, but its vision of a human race enslaved by the multi-dimensional Combine is as dark and devastating as any nightmare of nuclear destruction. From its labyrinthine narrative, to the extravagant set-pieces, believable characters, imaginative weapons and haunting locations it's a game that defined – and still defines – the FPS genre. Plus, it's even got zombies, courtesy of the terrifying mining town, Ravenholm.



Phantom Dust

(Microsoft Game Studios Japan, 2005)

This genuine oddity of a game was devised by Yukio Futatsugi, the creator of Sega's classic Panzer Dragoon series, and was originally intended exclusively for the Japanese market before gaining a western release via Majesco. It's a third-person strategy adventure set on an obliterated Earth covered by a deadly dust that has forced most inhabitants into vast subterranean caverns. As in card games like Magic: The Gathering, you must collect skills by carrying out quests, and then do battle with various enemies. The unique combination of game systems, together with well-realised destructible locations, make Phantom Dust something of a, ahem, underground classic.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl

(GSC Game World, 2007)

Hugely praised for its atmospheric rendering of a stark, post-nuclear landscape, S.T.A.L.K.E.R is a sandbox survival horror shooter so relentlessly grim, it would have made a scary-as-hell public information film during the war-obsessed early eighties. You're a mercenary stalking the shattered Ukrainian wastelands in the aftermath of a second devastating Chernobyl explosion, battling savage radioactive monsters and taking on suicidal missions for raggedy strangers. But how you play and where you go is almost entirely up to you, perfectly tapping into that sense of post-civilised liberation.

Left 4 Dead

(Valve, 2008)

Following the outbreak of a nasty zombifying virus, a handful of survivors must shoot, stab and bludgeon their way through a Pennsylvania rammed with suppurating undead maniacs. And… well, that's it for story, really. But that's the point – through its four-person co-op gameplay the title cleverly captures the essence of all the best zombie apocalypse movies: the need to found a new sense of family in a landscape where history is largely meaningless. It's also rip-roaring fun, the innovative AI director always ensuring there are just enough lumbering corpses around to challenge your party.

Fallout 3

(Bethesda 2008)

Taking place in a ruined America two hundred years after the nuclear war that all but destroyed humanity, Fallout 3 is perhaps the most startlingly well-realised depiction of post-apocalyptic life that video games have yet produced. Offering a vast, open-world action adventure with a compelling character levelling system, cleverly tuned 'V.A.T.S' combat dynamic and beautiful art design, it's a self-contained universe that swallows up days of your life – especially if you go on to try out the five varied DLC add-ons.

Borderlands

(Gearbox, 2009)

A criminally over-looked open-world RPG shooter from the makers of Brothers In Arms, packed with hundreds of weapons, masses of upgradeable skills and a truly repulsive menagerie of irradiated gangs and monsters to blast into nothingness. While the Diablo-style loot-grabbing bored some after a while, the co-op mode makes this easily the most amusing, passionate and lurid portrayal of feral outback insanity since Mad Max 2. (And there's been plenty of decent DLC support too.)