The best "passage" in a game you've ever played?

0byme75341jo28

Passage, as in straight one hour to two hours of gameplay.

For me it has to be the ending of the original Mass Effect. Right from when you

land in Ilos

up to where you

defeat Saren.

Everything from the music to the dialogue to the pacing was done so perfectly.

What's your favourite?

Zero-Cool

The intro chapter in The Last of Us. Holy Jaysus...

Mr E

The whole game of To The Moon (only 2-3 hours)

Generic Dreadhead

Journey

Zero-Cool

Also the whole game of Gone Home (about 2 hours). Captivated from start to finish.

Deank

Zero-Cool wrote: »

The intro chapter in The Last of Us. Holy Jaysus...

The last chapter of TLoU :eek:

Penn

The boss fight against The End in Metal Gear Solid 3. If ever there was a section of game I'd love to play again for the first time, it'd be that.

Opening the door and exiting the vault at the start of Fallout 3, picked the game up on a whim knowing nothing about it, hadn't played previous ones at that point nor was I aware that it was open world so did the goat and was expecting well not the sight the awaited me. A truly jaw dropping moment.

DeSelby83

Bioshock, didn't know anything about it when I picked up the box and then that intro sequence from the plane to stepping out of the pod into rapture.

Osmosis Jones

The first 30 minutes or so of The Evil Within are fantastic, hoped the rest of the game would be similar to that.

I love the escape sequences in Ori and the Blind Forest, the music and visuals in those parts of the game are great.

There's a mission in Medal of Honor Rising Sun called Singapore Sling that I used to play over and over, I still remember that vividly.

K.O.Kiki

Killing my first Colossus.

I'm a monster.

heebusjeebus

The first few levels of GoldenEye. Played nothing like it before and it's stuck with me.
Killing the lads in the jacks was a simple highlight!

SeantheMan

I've played all the ones list above, all are great, it's hard to pick just one.
Not saying it's definitely my number 1....because I'd have to really think about it.....but the first hour of Metal Gear Solid,
Coming up that elevator...then using BINOCULARS !! to zoom ! . I'd never seen anything like it in a game.
The character, the music, the mood....it was amazing.

recyclops

For me it's the last couple of mins of silent hill when the whole brilliant executed narrative is unwinding to its conclusion.

Still have it in my top three games after all these years and it still will get a run out every couple of months. Wonderful game

Tipsy McSwagger

Will always be leaving Link's house in A Link to the Past with those beautiful 2D graphics, the rain, the music and heading for the castle and dropping down the hole into the dungeons.

Encrypted Pigeon

A couple of standout scenes for me come from Life Is Strange, spoilers ahead, when Kate in Ep2

jumps from the building, I genuinely thought it was meant to be, it was only after the credits I realized you could save her. That hurt

. The choice in Ep4 to whether

euthanize Chloe or not. A lot of conflict in that choice between what was morally/legally right and Chloes wishes

. And finally the scene again in Ep4 when Chloe and Max

discover Rachel's body in the dump/wreck yard

. The voice acting and music combined was something else.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Kal El

When I opened this I immediately thought of Uncharted.

Notorious

My first day working in the Black Mesa facility.

Skerries

Penn wrote: »

The boss fight against The End in Metal Gear Solid 3. If ever there was a section of game I'd love to play again for the first time, it'd be that.

I had to give up the game for a while as it was a tough level but eventually went back as I read that he dies of old age if you hadn't played the game for a certain amount of time

Chancer3001

Few metal gear solid moments.

First game - trying to mercy kill the ninja with a rocket launcher....when you click shoot, snake saying ....No I CANT DO IT....class

Metal gear 3....crawling down that corridor of radiation....music epic song playing....smashing the button to crawl inch by inch down the corridor.

Metal gear 4 when snake has the dream and you get to go back and play metal gear 1....amazing

Sonics2k

For me the standout has to be World of Warcraft.

Like many others my first character was a Human, and after about 2 hours or so of questing I saw mention of Stormwind by other players. So I decided to make the trek there.
Despite my crappy PC at the time, the moment I first approached the city and the music of Stormwind kicked in I was totally taken in.

Roar

The Ravenholm section of Half Life 2. Amazing.

Also, the finale of Journey. Incredibly moving.

Taylor365

This 10 years ago was pretty intense:

J. Marston

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Few metal gear solid moments.

First game - trying to mercy kill the ninja with a rocket launcher....when you click shoot, snake saying ....No I CANT DO IT....class

Metal gear 3....crawling down that corridor of radiation....music epic song playing....smashing the button to crawl inch by inch down the corridor.

Metal gear 4 when snake has the dream and you get to go back and play metal gear 1....amazing

The microwave corridor? That was in MGS4.

MGS3 had a few. The Boss fight is one of my favourite moments in gaming. The bike chase scene away from the Shagohod was great too.

Agree with the Life is Strange Kate moment and the opening to TLOU, although they're more memorable than favourite.

Really liked the end of Bioshock 2 too.

Chancer3001

My first dragon fight in Skyrim.

Climbing a mountain in skyrim and going mining about 30 seconds into the gane. For some reason it stuck with me because the scale of the game had kind of been revealed.

gizmo

Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows. Still one of my favcourite levels in gaming. Kieron Gillen wrote a great piece about it complete with an interview with its designer years ago that's definitely worth a read for anyone whose played it.

The final mission in Mass Effect 2. From overhearing conversations in work I knew some squad mates could die if I made the wrong decision so the entire thing was pretty tense from the start to its admitedly ridiculous conclusion.

The flash back sniper level in Modern Warfare, "All Ghillied Up". Fantastically tense and totally at odds with the rest of the campaign, and indeed series, which has excelled at offering the action at breakneck speed.

While the introduction to Rapture has stuck with me as a standout sequence in gaming, the lack of gameplay means it can't really be included but Bioshock still has Fort Frolic, an area which distilled what made the game great in my eyes.

Everything after the death of the final Colossus in Shadow of Colossus. A mix of cinematics and gameplay so I'm including it.

The Three Leaf Clover mission in GTA4. The closest a game has come to nailing the essence of the robbery scene from the film Heat before.

Resident Evil 4 - This was actually the first full Resident Evil game I had played but even from the beginning, as I approached The Village section and moved through it, I knew I was about to get stuck into something pretty special.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - The Scarecrow Hallucination which deals with the death of the Waynes. As someone who grew up with the comics and Animated Series, that was pretty special.

adocholiday

Dark Souls, when you beat the Iron Golem and get taken up to Anor Londo. When you get over the wall and Anor Londo is revealed in that cinematic piece absolutely blew me away. I love that game.

The other one that stands out to me is the opening sequence in Final Fantasy 10 when the city is attacked by Sin. For the PS2 the graphics were exceptional

VulcanRaving

Metal Gear Solid: When you first encounter the ninja, Psycho Mantis, any of the major Codec moments!
Metal Gear Solid 2: Teaming up with

Solid Snake

near the end.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Boss fight vs The End (once you figure out how to beat him!)
Metal Gear Solid 4: When you revisit

Shadow Moses, hijack Metal Gear Rex and go toe to toe with Liquid in a Metal Gear Ray.

Elder Scrolls: The Dark Brotherhood Faction Quests
Star Wars Battlefront II: The multiplayer level when you can go play as either all the heroes or all the villains.
Call of Duty 4: The ghillie suit mission.
Pokemon RBY: Wandering through Cerulean Cave and capturing Mewtwo
Pokemon GSC: Battling

Red

on the top of Mount Silver
Tekken 3: Tekken Beachball was so fun!
GTA Series: Spawning tanks and generally reaking havoc accompanied by an 80s soundtrack!

I'm quite a Metal Gear fan if you haven't noticed!

Pickpocket

Blue Gravity Gun.

Sieghardt

The ending of Trails in the Sky

Climbing and crossing the End of the World in Grandia

Kilboor

A New Life mission in Hitman Blood Money.

The Mafia II snow themed intro

Metal Gear Solid 2 Intro missions

callaway92

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa1fi1gxxUw

PerrinV2

Medal of Honour: Allied Assault

Landing on Omaha Beach,for time it came out I thought it was pretty epic.

Pickpocket

I've only just recently played through Half Life 2 for the fist time so that's foremost in my mind at the moment. There's so many fantastic sequences in that game. The Ravenholm section has already been suggested but I also particularly enjoyed commanding the Antlions along the sand dunes, clearing out enemy bunkers and breaking into Nova Prospekt. And then of course there's the Prospekt facility itself. Very challenging enemy placement, turrets, etc. along with some superb sound design and music from Kelly Bailey. Outstanding work from Valve.

Incidentally, I played through the entire Half Life series on my 2012 Macbook Pro. I never thought of my Mac as a viable gaming platform but all of the Valve stuff performs very well on it (even Portal 2). So if you're a console gamer and a Mac owner, then do yourself a favour and install Steam and play through the series (not to mention the many other Mac compatible games on Steam, especially older titles and low-spec indies). If you were like me, then one of the greatest gaming franchises ever is sitting right under your nose. And it's as cheap as chips.

ShadowHearth

Bioshock 1

I went in to it a bit blind. Just knew ots coming out, sow a bit off gameplay amd just went to gamestop amd bought it. Back then I was earning a lot and bought pretty much all mew games.

Then the whole rapture intro hit me, the graphics,atmosphere, retro America style got me right away.
All game was just insane for me. Loved it to bits. All the lore about characters spread around the environment, really cool scares and feel of dread. Story and the twist was really cool.
Still in my top 3 best games ever played.

johnny_ultimate

Smarmy but semi-serious answer: Passage!

One of the reasons I appreciate the recent-ish wave of 'short' games is because it allows designers a much greater degree of control over the pace, tone and feel of a game. Something like The Beginner's Guide is simply engrossing for its short duration. Another case in point is the recent Kentucky Route Zero: Act 4. Part of a bigger experience, but for an hour or two it's a captivating standalone mood piece, a series of magical realist and surprising set pieces. Given that it's a single journey down a river, it maintains that sense of it being a single 'passage' while still fitting in a variety of surreal yet beautiful situations, some of which are among the most potent in gaming history:

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

On the other end of the spectrum, there's the opening to Bayonetta 2. A thrillingly OTT assault of increasingly impossibly large-scale situations, it's that rare sequel that arrives and almost straight-away shows itself to be as confident as its esteemed predecessor. That the combat system is so immediately responsive - as accessible or deep as you want it to be - means the player actually feels part of the madness as well, rather than just a succession of barely interactive action sequences (basically the anti-Asura's Wrath). Please pay particular notice to the thumbnail below, because it is awesome.

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

Think you could make up a few lists made solely of particularly artful stretches of the Souls games. For an obvious example I'd go with the opening few hours of Bloodborne: how it introduces you to its miserable world; how it teases you with story hints and mysteries; how it effectively trials you by fire right up until Father Gascoigne.

Another passage that always sticks out is the hour or so surrounding the East Arena section in Ico. I think that's when an extraordinary game is working at its peak powers: where the mechanics, world and narrative are perfectly aligned.

Robert ninja

Zero-Cool wrote: »

The intro chapter in The Last of Us. Holy Jaysus...

OP said played.

Gonzo

1 - first time I played World of Warcraft back in 2006 as a night elf warrior. The starting zone was incredible and the whole experience up to level 70. Never played a game like this before.

2 - Super Mario World (SNES), first console game I ever played after owning an Amiga 600. Needless to say this blew my mind. The music, the gameplay, the graphics, the everything.

3 - Starfox (SNES). I remember seeing this in the old Virgin Megastore on day of release. I stood there in awe, never seen graphics like this before in any game. This game was well ahead of its time. Bought it and indeed it played like a dream, music was fantastic as well.

4 - Doom (PC) I will never forget seeing this running on a pc downstairs in the old HMV in Grafton Street. Of course I didn't own a pc at the time and all I could do was drool. I didn't get to play Doom till at least a year or two later.

5 - Half Life 2 (PC) An incredible experience, this game still holds up extremely well today.

6 - Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) roaming across Hyrule for the first time, never experienced anything like this before. A living breathing world

7 - Call Of Duty 4 (Xbox 360) - one of the most memorable games of the last generation, one of the best fps games on console. All cod's have been very poor in comparison ever since.

8 - Silent Hill 1 (PS1) - an unforgettable experience, the fog just made it more scary. The twisted demented sections and the incredible soundtrack. Would love a proper remaster of this game.

9 - Bloodborne (PS4) - spending several days just getting past the first section of the game dying over and over and over. The gameplay and atmosphere kept me going, if this was any other game the disc would have been long snapped in two. Finished the game eventually, one hell of a game.

10 - Uncharted 2 (PS3) - one of the best games ever made, incredible cinematics, scripted scenes and gameplay.

Chancer3001

There was a passage in one of the early resident evil games where a giant crocodile came smashing through the wall and you had to turn around and high tail it out of there.

Ut scared the absolute jaysus out of me and the 2 lads who were watching me play.

You know its a well scripted passage when 3 young lads are screaming as poud as they can at the tv!

gimli2112

It only lasted a few minutes but Aeris' death in FF7
"Wait, what?"

Opening scene from TLOU is a good shout too.

Manning3000

The opening section of Final Fantasy vii, I was 12 years old and had just gotten the PS1 for christmas, had no idea what the game was about, when Cloud jumps off the train and stands still cos you are now in control but don't realise it WOW,

kunst nugget

Actually just playing through Half-Life 2 for the first time with the Orange Box. I was a bit on the fence with until going through Ravenholm - it's a fantastic section of play. Playing Half Life 2 has reminded me how much of a blast Wolfenstein: the New Order was and I'm probably going to play that again when I wrap up on Half Life 2. I think the section where you go back to the London Nautica was my favourite in that. Singularity was another in that vein and your first trip to the past and your changing of history was a great way to kick in with the game.

Other than those, the ones that come to mind are your first encounter with the alien in Alien: Isolation, the burning building section of Max Payne 3 and the trainwreck at the beginning of Uncharted 2. I'm playing through Yakuza: Dead Souls and I'm having a blast with that. Mowing down those zombies is great craic altogether.

Another one that stands out for me is the first couple of hours of Far Cry 3. I hadn't been near a game or gaming properly in about a decade and the first game I got for my PS3 was this. I couldn't believe how good it look and how smooth the gameplay was.

Cina

I'm not sure either of these really count as passages, maybe moreso incredible moments, but..

The giraffe's in TLOU was the most "holy sh*t that's beautiful" gaming moment ever for me.

Closely followed by RDR - John riding into Mexico to the song "Far Away".

As for actual passages...

Psycho Mantis fight in MGS (seriously, you had to swap your bleedin' controller!)
Suicide Mission in Mass Effect 2
Half Life - Intro
Half Life 2 - Ravenholm
Countless chases in the Uncharted series
Bioshock - "Would you kindly?"
Kaer Morhan in The Witcher 3 - (I mean the drunken scene has to be the most hilarious in a game ever)
KOTOR - The twist

And many more..

Retr0gamer

Cina wrote: »

Closely followed by RDR - John riding into Mexico to the song "Far Away".

It was awful for me, terrible moment. Got knocked off my horse and attacked by wolves during it which kind of killed the mood

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It was awful for me, terrible moment. Got knocked off my horse and attacked by wolves during it which kind of killed the mood

HAHAHA That sounds brilliant :pac:

kunst nugget

Cina wrote: »

The giraffe's in TLOU was the most "holy sh*t that's beautiful" gaming moment ever for me.

Yeah, I've specifically gone back to play that a couple of times because it's so great.

Azza

The most important day of your life....but for him it was Tuesday!

Retr0gamer

Zero-Cool wrote: »

HAHAHA That sounds brilliant :pac:

Not really, I was enjoying it but once you get hit the music abruptly stopped! I kept hearing about this great moment and those little ****s of wolves ruined it for me!

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Not really, I was enjoying it but once you get hit the music abruptly stopped! I kept hearing about this great moment and those little ****s of wolves ruined it for me!

Aaahhh I was picturing the scene as José still singing his heart out while you got mauled by wolves. That is some sickner man.

OptimusTractor

Destiny the 1st couple of Oryx kills were nerve racking.

"Ogres are up. Knight 1 is down, Knight 2 is down, Knight 3 ....... 3 has gotten away I'm being spammed to death by an Acolytes Eye"

Hoping you aren't slammed while being teleported into the shade.

To the final kill: "Oryx has gone centre. Weapons Bubble for god's sake someone pop a Weapons Bubble".