Yes, Silent Hill 1 was and is really great. Konami did a great job making a whole game about a tech limit of PSX, one of my favourite title. Sometimes I replay it, and always feels great. The city, so empty, all the documents, the school...great game. Sad, since survival horror is pratically non-existent those days.

Dawn of War 1

Neverwinter Nights has a great cinematic before you get to the menu. I remember watching it over and over as a kid.

I also liked Homm3 and of course Dawn of war.

But maybe you meant intro as in not opening cinematic and more like the first mission?

Edit: To slow when writing and DoW was mentioned before my post.

One is the Xenoblade Opneing, that one is great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNR-wsFAfiU
The next one is Tales of Destiny's, it gets me pumped for an adventure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3tCPUjpAbE
Tales of the Abyss has a pretty good one, along with Xillia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYHVEpAtM0U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjmoZzPrals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm-IYaf_hag

Edit: Can't believe I forgot this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HMczCElPaI

Yea, that is the gra thing of Sh2. All people are sick, in a way or another.
And when you reach the room in the hotel during the end, putting the vhs on...yes, Konami did great titles.

I loved '90, just because software house actually CARE about giving its customer a product worth every cent you spent on it. 75% off? No way, when I was a kid I bought all those titles at full price, maybe I took one game per year, but hell, I've played those a LOT, never being tired of them.

This is no directly related to this topic, but since I'm here...it was a Dicember, and I bought the first Kingom Hearts for my brother (and for me :P).

We played the game for six months, without guide or solution, taking a LOT of time just to create the Ultima Weapon (it was a grind fiesta, so we played one hour each to gain ingredients XD).

Then, we defeated Sephiroth, together. He did the first part of the encounter, then I did the second half, when he throws you magic that leaves you with 1 HP/MP. And we recorded this on a VHS, since we had no internet in 2002. I feel old today.

Game intros have always been something I enjoyed. While they have been around since the dawn of gaming and continue to this day, it was really in the mid-to-late 90's that they had their renaissance. Disc-based media was gaining dominance and that extra storage space wasn't yet being used up by the game data. So, why not produce a tantalizing introduction to grab people's attention and imagination?

Here are my Top 5 Video Game Intros:

Lunar: The Silver Star - Sega CD

Soul Edge - PlayStation

Evil Zone (Eretzvaju) - PlayStation

Guardian Heroes - Saturn

Mass Effect 2 - Xbox 360


Honorable mentions go to:

Aliens - Commodore 64

Another World - Various

Resident Evil: Code Veronica - DreamCast

Another World/Out of this World is a popular choice.

I'll go old school Amiga with my choice as well, but a little more obscure with Wrath Of The Demon.

I have to agree on this one :)

Indeed, the pre-rendered intro is one of the most amazing cutscenes ever made for a video game. I used to watch it over and over. Also the first mission starts out great with the imperial guard being overrun by the orks and then the Space Marines coming out of nowhere. And dat music. The whole thing gave me goosebumps.

For me Freespace 2 has a great intro.

Giants as well great introduction to the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq8EKttSu3I

First 3D jrpg ever released.

I read the title of the thread and INSTANTLY thought of this game. Don't know why, it wasn't as great as the games that followed, but this game really stuck with me. Especially that theme song.

I have never been an admirer of cinematics in videogames: games are meant to be played, not simply watched, and the less cutscenes there are the more I like it. If I could, I would stay in the action from start to finish, like in Half-Life or Dishonored, for example. That said, I don't mind a (very) minimal use of them just to provide some context and mood to the player, like in Deus Ex, Thief, Fallout and so on. For the same motive, though, I don't consider them "great" on their own - they can be even awesome, but only because they complement the immediately following gameplay; they are great additions, but they would be totally worthless if they stood alone.

Want a recent example? Shadow Warrior (2013). In just two minutes, you get the perfect portrait of the main character, then you're off for adventure! ;)
Basically, you just saw all the cinematics this game has to offer. BTW... if you haven't got it already, buy it NOW!