There was one stunt I pulled off with consistency (and none too little pride) in my writing courses at the prestigious Northwest-based ivy league school, Southern Oregon University:  And that stunt was to always begin a story somewhere after the start.  Starting a story from the beginning is typically an unintentional drag and often serves no greater purpose for the writer than iron-wooling off some corrosively-thick rust.  Not that I didn't actually start at the beginning -- because I often did -- but I didn't let my readers know that.  I'd let them hit the treadmill running somewhere halfway into chapter two, just before, say, my dashing half-Filipino protagonist and his El Camino-stealing friend were about to have a Tijuana Border Patrol canine unit start sniffing the old Mexican standby's undercarriage before we ditch the plan and start running across the freeway in million-degree heat.  The reader didn't even have time to contemplate the bait.  The hook was already in their mouth.  Starting the story any sooner than that would've been a bit too much denouement from the get-go. I'd start writing a story from the beginning, but I'd throw away the first several pages of anything I wrote.

So I'm jogging through The Immortals of Terra: A Perry Rhodan Adventure, which conveniently tags itself with "adventure" right on the box, so there's no confusion as to the volume of pixel hunting you'll engage in, when I note the main guy's starting position:   Leader of the frickin' human race.  Which is a lofty seat procured by no small feat, I'm sure, though I haven't noted any backstory elements hinting at a vote held by the free and democratic peoples of the entire universe. It seems you may get the job if you're over 3,000 years old and effectively immortal. Which Perry Rhodan is.

While Regent Perry Rhodan begins the adventure stripped of all powers befitting the Commander-in-Chief of Everyone, it was still a welcome respite from too many games that begin their journeys at a not-so-heroic level 1, or -- more cliched yet -- at an amnesiac not-so-heroic level 1. 

The Witcher has to rediscover friends, Romans, and countrymen all over again, with his story beginning a handful of years after Andrzej Sapkowski's last novel of the witchers, although main man Geralt "Wolf" de Rivia is basically starting from that level 1 scratch. You already guessed that, yes, he has amnesia.

The Elder Scrolls III and IV, Morrowind and Oblivion, respectively, both start you off in a person-with-no-past fashion, making the story start off at an overly-expected chapter 1, with no introduction to the character, really, and too little preface from the authors to make any difference. That's pretty much an amnesia-induced intro, too.

So yeah, then along comes Perry Rhodan in Immortals of Terra, who's a 1970's collaborative Buck Rogers conjured by a multitude of multimedia authors ... and you start off as pretty much the most important guy in the galaxy.  As I'm travelling through the Milky Way to retro-future saloons and strolling through This-Is-Your-Life corridors lined with snippets from Perry Rhodan's past, I'm wondering why more game characters don't have much to think back on.  Not much of a history to speak of, anyway.  Sure, Conan went from thief to king in an inconsitently-written-though-sometimes-poetically-feverish bundle of stories written by Robert E. Howard (et al), but did any of the big man's travels or conquests play any cognizant role in the brawly button-masher Conan videogame?  (They didn't.  Trust me.)

In contrast:  BioShock?  The plane's already going down.  World in Conflict?  The Russians have already landed.  Pirates of the Burning Sea?  Your captain's about to bite the bullet. 

That's what I'm talking about.  All I'm asking is for developers to more often consider the idea of not beginning at the beginning.  It's a big risk, to be sure.  But one that will start with the hook in your audience's mouth, rather than them standing in line at the bait shop.