Nuclear power runs a lot of the world’s power. It also caused immense destruction in Japan, at the end of World War II. Now, over 60 years later Japan is once again battling a nuclear disaster. The recent tsunami left a number of nuclear reactors in Japan on the verge of partial or total meltdown.

Nuclear power meets about 15 per cent of the world’s energy demand. The energy is so potent that it caused immense destruction in Japan at the end of the Second World War when the United States detonated an atomic bomb each over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, more than 65 years later, the land of the rising sun is battling another nuclear disaster, this time at a power plant in Fukushima that was damaged by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a ferocious tsunami unleashed by it.

People on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are worried about the threat of radiation from the reactors that are on the verge of meltdown. Though the scenario is dreadful, there have been some noteworthy games set in the backdrop of nuclear disasters.

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl

As the title states, this game is based on the Chernobyl disaster. The explosion in Ukraine occurred in 1986 and is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. The International Nuclear Event Scale ranks it at 7 -- the highest possible score.

The game uses Chernobyl as a backdrop and then builds a story based on a science fiction novel called Roadside Picnic. In the game, there is a second meltdown, which mutates surrounding life forms and even bends the laws of physics. This was the first game in the series and was a first-person shooter version with a non-linear story line. The others were Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and Stalker 2.

Fallout series

The backdrop of this series of role-playing games is a post-apocalyptic world, which is the result of The Great War, a fictitious nuclear war. The game is born out of an alternate reality that follows true events of Second World War. In it a number of armed factions emerge, each with their own agenda and access to a particular kind of technology.

The first game is set in the year 2161, the sequel 80 years after that and the third one is set 30 years after Fallout 2. Fallout 3 was released in the fall of 2008. The series also resulted in a number of spin-offs.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

This is the fourth one in the Star Ocean series and is set in the year SD 0010 on the in-game calendar, which is approximately 2087 AD. The setting of the game follows a Third World War, where nations hurled nuclear weapons at each other and nearly destroyed the planet. Most of the surviving mankind then moves into underground cities, which have come together under the banner of an organisation known as the Greater United Nations. Mankind then goes on a quest to find another planet to inhabit, thanks to a huge leap in scientific progress that leads to warp drive for long distance space travel. This console role-playing game was released in February 2009.

Gamma World

This was probably the first game with a post-apocalyptic setting and was released in 1978. This role-playing game is set in the 25th century, after the (hold your breath) second nuclear war. The characters in the game include some humans, mutated humanoids, androids and sentient plants and animals.

(The writer is an avid gamer based in Chennai)