Stand out moments in gaming

L31mr0d

I was just thinking about this earlier about moments that really stand out in my memory of gaming.

When you think back over your life of gaming what are the moments that really stand out to you and why.

Off the top of my head:

The controller being controlled in MGS1, Stepping out into city 17 in Half Life 2, Aeris dying in FF7, The Milkman conspiracy level in Psychonauts...

I'm sure I'll think of more later

So what are yours?

Tyrant^

Sneaking around in first Thief game stealin everyones s**t

Playing Diablo 2 on dialup for the entire summer... £350+ phone bill !

Deus Ex, just an amazing game.

Mr E

Finding Polito on Deck 4 in System Shock 2. Great twist....

kasm

T-Rex in Tomb raider
Opening Beach assault in MOH:Frontline

Kiith

Halo: Driving the Warthog through the Pillar of Autumn was an awesome feeling. Loved the way the warthog controlled. I dont care what people say about the game now, that was fantastic.

Freespace 2: The final narrative from Admiral Petrarch. Hearing him tell my squadron (70th Blue Lions!!) that i had stayed behind to save countless lives. Felt so proud that day

Half Life 2: City 17. More please. Never has there been a game that made me think "Wow" as much as City 17 did. It just felt so bleak and realistic. The people there were beaten, and they knew it.

Homeworld: Seeing your homplanet on fire, with Adagio for Strings playing in the background was really effective. I really wanted to kill those attacking ships after that. Actually, scratch that. Just seeing the first proper fight in glorious 3d was a massive high point. Space Opera at its very best.

Medal of Honour: Allied Assault: Again, as someone else said, the beach landing was an amazing part of the game. It really felt like death could come from anywhere, and the amazing sound and effects really added to it.

World of Warcraft: Seeing some of the places that i had known from the strategy games, for the first time. Stormwind Keep, the Dark Portal, Ogrimmar etc...brilliant.

More to come.

Mr E wrote: »

Finding Polito on Deck 4 in System Shock 2. Great twist....

+1. Probably the biggest twist i have ever come across in a game. Revan....pft!

Ishmael

The lines of blood level Max Payne.

First time fighting the Ogre in Resi 4

First time playing F.E.A.R.(especially if you were alone, in the dark)

Genghiz Cohen

Stepping through The Dark Portal for the first time.
Playing Mig-29 for the first time.
Jazz Jackrabbit.

Dacelonid

Visiting the Haunted Mansion in Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines.
That was a creepy ass level and even now I won't attempt to play that quest in the dark. There was just somethign about it that sent shivers down my spine.
Any dev trying to make a horror game should look at that level and see how it is possible to scare people, without resorting to blood, gore and dark corridors.

Vegeta

The first time you leave Kokiri village and enter Hyrule Field in the OoT. I was simply lost for words.

Golden Eye multiplayer, so many evenings playing that with friends

Ri_Nollaig

Dacelonid wrote: »

Visiting the Haunted Mansion in Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines.
That was a creepy ass level and even now I won't attempt to play that quest in the dark. There was just somethign about it that sent shivers down my spine.
Any dev trying to make a horror game should look at that level and see how it is possible to scare people, without resorting to blood, gore and dark corridors.

remember that well, and i loved that game dispite its bugs

-oblivion: the moment you left the sewers and step out into the full world.
-gta:vc: getting into the first car at the very start and hearing billie jean
-deus ex: all of it
-kotor1: the twist
-operation flashpoint: the mission where your squad are all killed and you have to run through the forest like hell to escape the russians who are hunting you down

L31mr0d

Some more I was thinking about:

• Playing DOOM on the GBA:SP
• Holding Pegasus Bridge in Call of Duty (actually went on a trip around Normandy because of that game)
• Getting the "Cidonia or Bust" prompt in UFO: Enemy Unknown
• First LAN experience playing Descent
• Getting past the barrel in Sonic 3
• Playing through Sonic 2 as Knuckles
• Cammy's victory poses in Street Fighter 2

Of all of them though the most stand out moment for me has to be:

• Shadow of the Beast II

That intro (the long one) scared the bejasus out of me at the time. I was 8 and playing it with a friend in the dark on his commodore amiga. We had snuck downstairs at around 2am, loaded it up and sat there with jaws dropped at the graphics in the opening, the guy morphing into a demon and then flying down and abducting the screaming baby. The game itself still is one of the most eerie games I've ever played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srJw4IBai7g

keane2097

Vegeta wrote: »

The first time you leave Kokiri village and enter Hyrule Field in the OoT. I was simply lost for words.

This.

Same goes for leaving Midgar in FF7 and also I was so happy when I reached Cosmo Canyon having read about it in a strategy guide and salivating over how class it sounded!

The snow field at the beginning of MGS - so tense and brilliant.

Winning the World Cup with my beloved Denmark and two of my mates in co-op mode on Pro Evo 6. The glory was unbelievable!

Mark Hamill

L31mr0d wrote:

The Milkman conspiracy level in Psychonauts...

The Lungfishopolis level too was pretty genius.

Other stand out moments:

Silent Hill 2: The atmosphere, pyramid head and the storyline.

Retr0gamer

Megaman: OMG! 4 colours on a sprite!

Ocarina of Time: Stepping out into Hyrule Field and realising just how big the game was.

Mario 64: 3D movement that actually worked.

Gunstar Heroes: How the **** did they get this running on the megadrive?

F-zero: Wow! Real 3D graphics! (they weren't really).

Being blown away by Doom.

Super Metroid, not only one of the greatest games ever but it told an excellent story with no dialogue.

Ico: Minimalistic but with more depth than most other games.

Shadow of the Colossus, enough said.

Metroid Prime: Reminding me that I loved videogames after a cold period.

Panzer Dragoon Saga: Amazing piece of stroytelling and what an ending.

Suikoden 2: The only game that brought me close to tears.

Resident Evil: I didn't want a Saturn anymore

ghouldaddy07

hyrule field in OOT.

First time seing the city of vivec in morrowind left me fairly speechless.

Escaping the shinra hq fmv from ff7.

holding on for dear life on the first flying colosus in SHOTC.

Smoggy

The opening level of resident evil 1 on the psone when the dogs jumped out from behind the glass. I dropped my pad and nearly filled my pants with sh*t !

NunianVonFuch

Eternal Darkness - When you start to go mad. Particularly when your character starts falling through the floor and when it asks you to reconnect your joypad or pretends the console power is off. Or when your limbs are scattered across the screen only to reappear as normal a few seconds later.

humanji

As mentioned above, Homeworld when you see your planet burning was a pretty powerful image that I really wasn't expecting.

Also, the first time I saw Wolfenstein 3D, I was blown away. I couldn't believe how amazing it looked.

Also, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the first time you set foot outside of the sewers and see an absolutely huge world laid out in front of you, that also looked beautiful.

And even though the game itself was fairly meh, the part in Crysis where you're advancing to the centre of the island and you see the mountain in front of you crumbling away to reveal a huge alien craft. I thought it looks incredible and I actually stopped moving to just watch it fall apart.

L31mr0d

humanji wrote: »

And even though the game itself was fairly meh, the part in Crysis where you're advancing to the centre of the island and you see the mountain in front of you crumbling away to reveal a huge alien craft. I thought it looks incredible and I actually stopped moving to just watch it fall apart.

Yeah same here, I actually was just moving along and didn't even know that mountain was there then I see this big boulder falling in the distance and look up to see the whole mountain crumbling. I also stopped to watch it happen as it was completely unexpected

The ending of Grim Fandango blew me away.

First time you went into bullet-time with Max Payne.

Vyse

The first time I went online with Phantasy Star. Could believe you could get such a level of connectivity from a 33kbps modem and what a great community.

Also, picking up a baseball bat in Double Dragon and beating the cr@p out of the enemy. Never saw it done before. Could it have actually been the first game to let you do this?

super_furry

Thief 3 – The Shalebridge Cradle. The single best level in any game, pretty much ever.

Ocarina of Time – Stepping out onto Hyrule Field and just wandering about as day turns to night.

World of Warcraft – Making a Tauren Hunter as my first character and wandering around the starting area thinking 'is this it?' as I can across just one or two other players. Then finally getting a quest to go to Thunderbluff, a living, breathing city full of people.

KoTOR – The twist. Never saw it coming at all.

Jumping Flash – Nevermind Mario 64, this was the first platform game that convinced me a 3D platformer was possible.

Ross_Mahon

The Darkness- Fighting a load of SWAT with that evil cool music that plays whenever your fighting enemy's.

GTA San Andreas - The Terminator chase scene on the bike.

Metal Gear Solid- Fighting Liquid, Epic!

Gears Of War- When you are outnumbered by Locust waiting for extraction,

General RAAM killing Kim with the epic music and camera effects...

Mass Effect- The ending is memorable, Cool music at the credits too. M4 Part 2 (Faunts)

Halo 3- The Escape at the end is hectic, Pedal to the metal and leave your friends behind to be killed (4 player Co-op online) The movie scenes are really good at the end.

See? I know how to use spoiler tags!

0ubliette

Gears of war - first time chainsawing a locust
The darkness - watching TV with jenny romano
Halo 3 - the first scarab/mongoose fight
Bioshock - meeting andrew ryan
Monkey Island - Finding out who fester shinetop really was
Resident Evil 2 - the intro
REmake - crimson heads

MOH

Ishmael wrote: »

The lines of blood level Max Payne.

... with that weird baby crying/shrieking noise
+1

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

-operation flashpoint: the mission where your squad are all killed and you have to run through the forest like hell to escape the russians who are hunting you down

+1

Half-life, when you come out under open sky. Being on the side of that cliff dodging the helicopter.

Zillah

L31mr0d wrote: »

The controller being controlled in MGS1

That was a really clever gaming moment.

Zillah

Kiith wrote: »

Freespace 2: The final narrative from Admiral Petrarch. Hearing him tell my squadron (70th Blue Lions!!) that i had stayed behind to save countless lives. Felt so proud that day

This is a game I think not enough people have played. Who would've thought that a spaceship fighter-pilot game would have one of the most dramatically told narratives in gaming history.

(Don't read this if you haven't played it and would ever consider it, serious spoilers: )

Most dramatic moments: First appearance of the Sathanas, first appearance of the Collossus, desperate defense of the Aquitaine, the victory of the Collossus over the Sathanas, the arrival of the juggernaut fleet, the destruction of both the Collossus and the Psamtik (real sad face on that one), the gathering of the juggernaut fleet around the star and finally, the last desperate defense of the escape convoys followed by a supernova.

God damn I love that game.

Oh and of course

Those wondefully written log entries by Bosch

Killinator

Meal of Honour:Allied Assault- Beach Landing(the sound was immense)

Max Payne-Subway Station,The final helicopter scene(pure brilliance)

Conkers Bad Fur Day: Saving Private Ryan parody, Matrix parody (stonkingly good stuff)

Gran Turismo 3: Opening Video(that Castrol Supra was gourgeous)

Call of Duty 4: Nuke scene, Final Scene(genuinely hard to take,alarming)

Delta Force-Black Hawk Down: Multiplayer (my 1st proper online experience)

Black & White: Everything(being able to choose what to do)

sure theres more......

Zillah

Killinator wrote: »

Black & White: Everything(being able to choose what to do)

I'm sorry I just threw up into my mouth a little.

BuddhaJoe

Sitting through the intro to Half Life 1 for the first time.

humanji

Killinator wrote: »

Call of Duty 4: Nuke scene, Final Scene(genuinely hard to take,alarming)

Forgot all about that nuke scene. It was fantastic. It's rare that a game does something that unexpected and

playing the dying moments of your character

was a bizarre feeling.

DarkJager

humanji wrote: »

Forgot all about that nuke scene. It was fantastic. It's rare that a game does something that unexpected and

playing the dying moments of your character

was a bizarre feeling.

+ 1

I was enjoying the USMC missions and was praying that this really wasn't the end of them. It took a few minutes before it sank in that there was no way in hell anyone could walk away from that.The final scene of the game was brilliant as well. Pure action brilliance. Did anybody else pump the entire magazine into the baldy ****er first time??

Also , I have to say MGS3 is still in my top 3 endings of all time. That theme music creeping in as you battle in the snowfield...absolutley brilliant. And the 60 minutes of cutscenes after it really drew the story to a close very well (snake visiting the grave etc)

AnCapaillMor

Opening FFVII sequense, at the time it was streets ahead of everything else.

Resi 1 walking in on the zombie feeding.

Sands of time, first time turning back time.

PogMoThoin

humanji wrote: »

And even though the game itself was fairly meh, the part in Crysis where you're advancing to the centre of the island and you see the mountain in front of you crumbling away to reveal a huge alien craft. I thought it looks incredible and I actually stopped moving to just watch it fall apart.

For me the moment in Crysis where You called in the airstrike was amazing, made me feel gaming had been brought to a whole new level. The graphics, the sound, the explosion, the Eax effects, the physics. Especially with a 24' monitor and 600W 5.1 around my head , heres some pics:

Killinator

Zillah wrote: »

I'm sorry I just threw up into my mouth a little.

wow really iteresting input there.............:rolleyes:

also forgot,
Brothers in Arms-Hells Highway, When Eindhoven starts getting bombed in the distance

Zillah

Killinator wrote: »

wow really iteresting input there.............:rolleyes:

Perhaps my statement was not simplistic enough for you. Allow me to translate: "Black and White is an appalling game and any moments I can remember in it make me feel bad".

Clearer?

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

tman

Fallout 3 - stepping out of Vault 101 for the first time

Super Metroid - Landing on Zebes after that escape from the exploding space station... So much atmosphere for a 2d game

Metroid Prime - Touching down on Talon Overworld...

As you can most likely guess, I loke games that throw you off a little with their opening sections

quad_red

Yeah, as said before

Homeworld: watching the planet being attacked.
Call of Duty 4: The nuke scene. Also, the scene where you control the AC-130. And, of course, the ending.
Halo 2: When you realise that

you are controlling the Arbiter

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Riding up the the castle on top of the cable car in the snow. Very 'where eagles dare'!
Portal: A number of moments when you suddenly realise how to solve some of the fiendish puzzles.

TerrorFirmer

Streets of Rage Trilogy on the Megadrive - the whole thing, the design, graphics, music, gameplay, multiplayer - all top notch, hasn't been bettered since.

Battlefield 2 - You know those momemts in massive 64 man games where everyone actually plays as a team, and you've got convoys advancing towards the enemy, supported by a helicopter and a transport or two....no game has ever beaten that feeling of scale.

Unreal Tournament - causation of my banning from both the computer and general internet access for quite some time over huge phone bills. Facing Worlds, 6am till 10am, every Saturday and Sunday morning.

Soldier of Fortune 2 - simply because my uncle asked me to let his sons play a game on my PC, that was all I had installed - they were 8 or 9 at the time, and very, very small physically - my uncle walked in to check on them to find them barely peering over the top of the desk, one of them stabbing a corpse repeatedly in the face and slicing bits of it off, revealing brain stem, while the other shouted "DO IT, CUT HIS HEAD OFF"

And there's so many scenes in Call of Duty and Allied Assault worth mentioning....the beach invasion in AA/Frontline, the level where you're defending the bridge from the Bell tower in AA, attacking the rader station in AA, the beach landing in COD2, and so on...I think relative to the time, Allied Assault blew me away far more then COD did. I think I would probably cry with nostalgia if I played the original MOH: Allied Assault Demo, used to play that for hours on end on my old P3 500mhz and TNT2.

death1234567

My first Gouranga.

311

Dues EX ,thought it was a great game.

First time gta came out in 3d (PS2) ,couldn't believe they fit so much onto a CD ,for a console.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cKNY04IwWY

Gods on pc. Jaysus it's ancient now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqBWnHCoMQs

Formula one on the commodore64. (I can still hear the screechy tapes:D)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_fj8i79xow

Vegeta

quad_red wrote: »

Call of Duty 4: Also, the scene where you control the AC-130. And, of .

Death from above, thought that was class too. An example in the game of how to make scripting actually enjoyable

Cunny-Funt

Smoggy wrote: »

The opening level of resident evil 1 on the psone when the dogs jumped out from behind the glass. I dropped my pad and nearly filled my pants with sh*t !

Yeah was gonna post that alright. Its a big moment in gaming history that 'scene'. Like the Alien busting out of John Hurt in...Alien... lol

Gummy Panda

Yeah that was awesome!

Was like watching footage from US Air Force air strikes in iraq.

silvine

So many....

The first time you kill a gimp with a the double baralled shot gun in Doom2.

Figuring out how to control time in Braid.

Seeing your troops eaten by a sandworm in Dune.

Playing golf with the bucket off fish to get the crocodils to move so you can jump on top of them in Sam an Max, ala James Bond.

Most of TIE fighter.

Mastering the Shoryuken in Street Fighter 2.

Blowing up a capital ship for the first time in Wing Commander 2.

All of Half Life 2: Episode 2 especially that ending!

quad_red

Vegeta wrote: »

Death from above, thought that was class too. An example in the game of how to make scripting actually enjoyable

Yup. After a hard day, often throw Death From Above on to calm the nerves

Bioshock:

The 'would you kindly' revelation and being forced to bludgeon Ryan to death by his own command

Half Life 2: Using the gravity gun to fire saw blades at zombies.

Sonic Adventure on the dreamcast. The killer whale chase scene. I tell ye, that had us all staring at the screen in wonder. First time I saw such a fast, spectacle in a 3d game at such a vast scale.

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

Blazer

Hmm..so many,
Deus Ex...all of it..so many replayables in the game.
Street Fighter 2: Playing as Ryu/Ken and kicking ass. (dragon uppercut) or shoryuken.
Killer Instinct- My first ultra combo with Cinder and trying to add to it.
Res Evil 2- Opening scene with Leon and trying to make it to safety and making your ammo last.
Battlefield 2- Over 700 hours and still playing. Also my first online game.
COD4- Great story and the nuke what a twist.
Serious Sam- At the end of the first one where Sam is in church and apologizing for all the enemies he killed....still very funny.:D

Chumpski

I suppose one of my most memorable moments would be...

Championship Manager 2 05/06 - Bought this around 98 maybe for 13 pounds for our families first PC. I didn't know a whole lot about it at the time. I had played premier manager on the megadrive and i loved it. Well myself and my brother played a season of it. Both got fired from our jobs. It totally took over our summer.

The moment i realised how good it was really was when we started up the second game, him managing a different team, me managing the same, and we noticed that some players who were crap before were good now like James Beattie for Blackburn for example. When i realised the degree of randomness in everything to the player database to the match engine i was just amazed at the scope. I realized that every time you played it something different would happen. This was far and away above anything football management sim i had ever played before...

How about the ending of Streets of Rage, anyone? In two player it was the best because after fighting your way through 8 levels on the final boss you could decide to bring him down or take over as the crime boss. If both players picked different options it was a fight to the death between you!

Of course i have some more memorable moments in gaming, just have to think of them!

Jip

The opening sequence to Mech Warrior 2, first game I had that had a dramatic like this. Only tempered by the fact that my bloody machine couldn't handle the game and playing it was like controlling stick men in treacle.

GothPunk

Half Life: Those bleeding assassins, man they freaked me out. Nothing a few grenades couldn't handle I guess, but the noise of them running around!
Also, the G-Man being in places you can't access, watching you.

Half-Life 2: First time you see a Strider. Crossing the underside of the bridge - twice. The scripted part when you're on the hovercraft and the tower gets blown up and falls across your path.

Team Fortress 2: Getting or attempting multiple kills as a spy.

Shadow of the Colossus: That ending...wow.

Pokemon Gold/Silver: You finish the Pokemon League and... unlock the Kanto region. You're actually only half way through!

Crush and Portal: For those moments where you figure out a puzzle and finally execute it properly.

Deus Ex: When Paul reveals details about the NSF and Ambrosia. Parts where your choices have had a proper effect on the course of the game, like saving Gunther Hermann at the start.

Tomb Raider: Platforming, in 3D! :eek:

FFVII: Being in Cloud's subconcious.

MGS series: The over the top cutscenes - see Eva, Revolver Ocelot (lol).

Mass Effect: Going to the Citadel, interacting with all the different alien species and then leaving the Citadel as the map of the Galaxy starts to open up to you, very cool.

LittleBigPlanet: Playing the Beta and feeling like a kid again, the pure fun of the game and realising the almost endless creative possibilities of create mode.

Gummy Panda

Jip wrote: »

The opening sequence to Mech Warrior 2, first game I had that had a dramatic like this. Only tempered by the fact that my bloody machine couldn't handle the game and playing it was like controlling stick men in treacle.

pfft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm76b8tzzWI