What are the best Main Menu screens you've seen in video games?

[Malamert]

Some games have pretty radical main menus. Some are quite spectacular with all sorts of things going on in the background, others might be a tad calmer and more atmospheric and so on. You get the idea, the kind of main menus that you want to enjoy for a few minutes before you start playing.

For me it's the Heroes of Might & Magic V menu:


Hammers of Fate is pretty tubular as well:

 

[Duralux for Durabux]

 

[JDR13]

Was the first game I thought of when I saw this thread.

Possibly the best title track ever...

 

[curds]

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Some of the title screens for Mount & Blade mods are excellent. But some of these modders would hire professional or semi-professional illustrators for the title screens then, having blown their wads and depleted their entire $300 budget, create custom content themselves for the actual mod itself that looked like it was drawn by junior high school art class students. But, hey, doesn't mean the mods themselves were bad, even if the modders were as crazy as a shithouse rat, like the mad italian guy ( I think) who made that well-regarded spaghetti western M&B Warband mod that yells in all his file descriptions and readmes: "IF YOU LIKE MY MODS, IN PAYMENT, I WANT YOU TO GO AND VOTE FOR THEM AT THIS LINK! C'MON GUYS, IT'S FREE AFTER ALL AND I WORKED SOOOO HARD! ALL VOTES BELOW A RATING OF 5 OUT OF 10 WILL BE CONSIDERED TROLLING AND WILL BE DELETED!" Ain't nobody got time for that

 

[J1M]

Soulreaver was pretty good for its time.

 

[v1rus]

Best? Prolly not. Memory evoking as all hell? Fuck yes.

 

[The Decline]

 

[Machocruz]

I still like the NES style of having the title and Press Start on a black background.

 

[HansDampf]

This sound.


And recently, I liked the main menu of Desperados III with Cooper's animated coat.

 

[catfood]

It seems that people are under the impression that this is about menu theme songs....

Anyway my favorite menu screens are those that have do something unique. Yes, music plays a role, but the menu itself must be more than just a button select screen.

My favorite would be from Shogun Total War



It perfectly sets the mood for what the game is all about. On the background you can see shadows of troops moving, the menu looks like a folding and unfolding letter, the ambient music and sounds in the background pull you right into the time period, and when you start a new game the menu fades to black in the animation of a sword cutting the air. It's just perfect.



Populous the Beginning is a bit less flashy, but I love the way the shining cursor and the letters cast their shadows.

HoMMo 2 looks very nice

Ou sont les main menus d'antant? Yet another video game element that has degenerated into banal, shit, boring over the decades.

 

[Red Hexapus]

 

[Zanzoken]

Great main theme and simple but neat effect on the title screen. Really gets you in the mood to chase down some conspiracies.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It's quite obviously Singularity.

START GAME
QUIT GAME

who needs anything else

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Only innovation counts for me as impressive.
MGS5TPP, because Snake's horn gets bigger the more civilians you kill and if you build a nuke, you'll get max length horn + constantly bloodied face. And more pics are added to the wall behind him as you progress in the game. But mostly because it conveyed intimacy with your main character, he was there with you in the main menu already.
VTMB because the background reacted to the mouse cursor.
HOMM3 because buttons were in form of 3d looking objects.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

(obviously I don't use cyrillic version)

 

[d1r]

It's definitely Command & Conquer Generals for me. Such a great game, and such a great OST.

 

[Belegarsson]

I love Dishonored's fancy button animations.



and Kentucky Route Zero's chapter menu stylized into a clock.

 

[Hag]

Desert combat. Couldn't find a full view of the menu, but is was as slick overlay on top of this :



I love how the video shows different instances of baseraping. Twas a different time.

 

[Bad Sector]

I always liked id's pre-Doom 3 menus: just a list of commands (new game, load game, etc) and that's about it. Utilitarian - yet with a visual style that fits each game - and to the point.

Doom 3's (and later id games') menus are also nice but they aren't any different from other contemporary games

Special mention for the Unreal Gold / UT99 menu system which is basically a shiny golden/blue version of the Win95 theme :-P (i have a soft spot for game UIs that look like overthemed desktop UIs).

 

[Reality]

 

[Infinitum]

Coudn't find a screen of the meu itself; the PS theme is pretty kicking though. Both of them just puts you in the mood for exploring brave new worlds.

 

[Luka-boy]

I can´t think of a better one.

 

[J_C]

Special mention for the Unreal Gold / UT99 menu system which is basically a shiny golden/blue version of the Win95 theme :-P (i have a soft spot for game UIs that look like overthemed desktop UIs).

But that music with the sound effects though...
Glorious.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]