DELICIOUS PINEAPPLE - FALLOUT 2

Here we have Fallout 2’s menu screen – a classic widely praised for its meticulous attention to detail and impeccable functionality. What makes this menu screen truly remarkable is that there are approximately 40,000 different ways to interact with it. For example, double-clicking on the ‘s’ in ‘credits’ will cause a MIDI of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (first movement) to play. Hover over the ‘p’ in ‘Options’ for more than ten seconds, and the entire game will be displayed in shades of puce.

Good luck living up to that legacy, Bethesda!

 IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE - PORTAL

This version of the Portal menu screen is the one you get after you finish the game, which makes it a bit of a spoiler I suppose. In terms of layout and design, it isn’t particularly remarkable, but it does have cake, which means that whenever you load it up, you will instantly be reminded of all the funny jokes you saw about cake on the internet. Like the one, for example, about how the cake is a lie. OH HO HO HO HEE HEE. THE CAKE IS A LIE. THAT NEVER GETS OLD.

 CLASSIC MENU SURPRISE - SUPER MARIO BROS.

For many of you, this may well be the first menu screen you ever saw. Look at it: so simple, so elegant. No buttons, no flashy title, no bloody copyright message – just a rolling demo stamped with two straightforward choices: 1 Player or 2. It's as though Miyamoto is saying to us, ‘See my beautiful game. Observe Mario as he gambols through my colourful fantasy world – is this not what all of us truly desire? To run and jump and shoot fireballs at turtles? Then play, friends! Play alone or with a companion! And be free, friends! Be FREE.’

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