Favorite Moments in Gaming - Page 3

I still play Heroes of Might and Magic 2 every now and then, its on my laptop!

I'll limit my list to Playstation stuff or it might get too long

GT1 - I owed a Prelude at the time and the game got it PERFECT, the "tap, tap, tap" of the engine at idle and even the location of the key to unlock the trunk. 160 cars? No freakin way! Before that the most any racing game had was like maybe 20 (Ridge Racer?). GT was the game I had always dreamed of: take a normal every day car, race it, use the money to buy parts, tweak and tune then repeat till the car was a unstoppable monster.

Tomb Raider II - I think it was level 3: I got mad because I couldn't figure out how to reach a certain area, so I just started shooting EVERYTHING in sight... this broke out a glass window and I was jump to a rooftop and access all this other stuff. The underwater level with the upside-down ship was incredible: full of detail and the need to have a flare to see it all. The game seemed to be endless, when I finally finished it MONTHS later (after a 2AM marathon session) I left like I had really done something special.

GTA III - when you first stepped out onto the street from your safe house and watched a hooker & pimp get into a fight as newspapers blew by during a rain storm it was like a tiny world opened up right in front of your eyes. At times in that game I would just stop and WATCH the AI interactions... it was truely "next gen". I remember crashing cars just to watch people run from the scene screaming, then a fire truck would pull up to put out the blaze all without any input from the controller. No game had ever done such a sophisticated simualtion of the real world before.

Ratchet and Clank - leveling up the weapons just to see the effect they had on enemies, this made each level worth playing over and over. The way the designers made you return to previous levels with new gadgets (sling shot, mag boots, etc) was pure genius. The colors, the dialogue, the weapons, the enemies, the cutscenes, everything made it feel like a playable cartoon.

Burnout Paradise - the first time I went online in the demo and it was FLAWLESS, with no slow downs and full chat, all seemlessly intergrated. It was like "so this what how an online game should work". The way the cars broke apart, spun and flipped, yet felt totally controlable. The game seemed to egg you on to try insane things: do three spins off a bridge? No problem, watch this! The very defintion of fun.

I would say my favorite moment would be when my mother took me to my uncles house, he had just gotten the Atari 2600. We played Spaced invaders for hours! That got me hooked. Up until then i was stuck going over a friends house and playing PONG! We got an atari shortly after and i got hooked on Pitfall. Man that game was a PITA! Other honorable mentions. Playing Karate Champ at the movie theater. I wound up getting that for my Commodore 64, it just wasnt the same with one joystick. Super Mario for the orignal NES. Playing Mario Kart on the SNES against friends for a dollar a game. Playing Mortal Kombat for the first time in the arcade. Getting the original playstion and playing Syphon Filter for HOURS and HOURS! Beating Doom 2. When the Quake Beta came out, i believe it was 7 levels, that was my first taste of playing online... I spent many sleepless nights playing that over my 28.8 modem with 300+ ping times! Quake 2 Rocket Arena is still probably my favorite game of all time! The railgun was the shiz!! I am sure i am leaving out a bunch of stuff though.

Great moments in gaming listed here but nothing compares to the unpredictable nature of an MMO:


- Logging on to see 200+ people camping our ToL in Shadowbane after servers had only been live for a week. Our mark had been made.

- Rebuilding in secrecy in Shadowbane and wiping out the alliance that destroyed our first city.

- Logging on in Ultima Online (Pre-UO:R) to find that someone had hacked my roomie and was handing out keys to my tower. My guild/friends fought off wave after wave of people trying to get in and loot my place while we tried to move everything to a secure location. This was 4 hours of the most intense gaming I have ever experienced and was the first time I had ever called in sick because of a game.

- The first time I made someone swear fealty to me in Asheron's Call to keep me from repeatedly killing him.

- The collection of hate tells I received pk'ing in Dark Age of Camelot.

I know someone already chimed in... but if you'll put dungeon master in Google, you'll find the Wikipedia article on it. It was truly a groundbreaking game IMO.

I'm a sucker for happy endings and was relieved to see Squall/Yorda alive and well at the end of their respective games.

Dungeon Master!! Oh Shi%$$!!! how could I forget that! The first 3D dungeon crawl game! With real buttons onthe wall, throwing objects at monsters!! The paper doll inventory system! Man, what a great game!

And Gunship! Yes - I used to love that game!

I had the 1040 ST, but I had it expanded to... Get this: FOUR MEGS of RAM!!!

I hate to tell you, but...

My memory is getting really bad. I read about this before, but forgot all about it. However, I just did a little research on the subject and there are a few contradictory quotes attributed to Ueda (but they are just taken off of other forums and I can't find the original sources):

"In Japan there's this saying, 'when it ends well everything's well'. My theory was to already in the beginning of the game make the player understand how important the ending would be. Then the player would strive to reach it, it would keep up motivation the game through. Because I believe that the only purpose that games have is to enrich the hard life we live. And that's why ICO got a happy ending."

and

"I want to have a happy ending, but it's not sure that [Yorda] is alive, or if she'll stay with Ico, or if she wasn't a dream. I wanted a happy ending that was still a little bit vague."

finally

"If there is a meaning, then it's Ico's dream. It's over, and it's really over at that point, but in the ship Ico is dreaming. He wishes he could see Yorda one more time. I guess that's the real meaning."

I'm gonna stick with my "happy ending" interpretation though.

MW2. When I leaped off a tall building and came down on some poor azz wielding my knife and slicing his throat. Amazing.........

I gotta go old school and random...

Cobra Triangle on NES, anyone? It was just the same world 3 times, in different colors, with higher difficulty each time. But man...if you beat the third world...whooooooooweeeeeeeee!

Killer Instinct in the arcade...pullin' off the mad Orchid Ultra Combo!

and just some NBA Jam with the Seattle Supersonics. I don't know if I ever felt more accomplished in my life





and RC Pro Am, T&C Surf and Turf, and NES Pro Wrestling

Fun thread. I've been reading everyone's answers but it's had to narrow down my personal favorites. Recently:

Uncharted 2 - Pretty much the whole game, take your pick. But there was one specific moment that really struck me. After you meet Elena for the first time in U2 and you're escaping from Lazarevic. Just the two of you again huddled up together behind a wall and then running for your lives. I had this warm feeling, affection I guess, for a game character I don't think I've ever felt before. Kind of geeky but true.

Infamous - When you emerge from the sewers with your final power. I was hungering for a little revenge and it was set up perfectly. Infinite power basically and a huge army of enemies converging on you. Total slaughter.


Some oldies:

Literally staying up all night playing nothing but Zaxxon with my cousin on his Atari. We were so easily entertained back then.

Not exactly gaming, but getting the voice module for the Odyssey² and being amused for hours at a time just typing in funny things for it to say.

Wasteland (C64) - The first town you find is a rundown summer camp full of kids. One of them is trapped in a cave so of course I try to be the good guy and go down to save her, killing a rabid dog in the process. Once back on the surface some crazed kid runs up crying about his dog and I end up having to kill him. Later I find a grave marker saying something like "my dog, gunned down by vigilante rangers". I knew I was in for a very different game than I'd ever played before.

............I can't figure out a single sentence of your post.

Shawn Kemp was the man in that game! I used to always play with them. Can't remember who he was paired up with - either Detlef Schrempf (sp?) or Benoit Benjamin.

I saw somewhere that they might be coming out with a new NBA Jam for Wii or something.

So much promise in Shadowbane.......alas...


Also, I still remember multi-player Duke Nukem' with the remote detonated pipe bombs. It was like being a sniper, but...you know...with a pipe bomb.

It does sound quite geeky but I know exactly that feeling! I haven't played U2 yet (still working on AC2), but I remember a game on the SuperNES called "Illusions of Gaia." It my first introduction to an RPG (if it's even considered that) and there's a part where you are stranded on this raft after a ship wreckage alone with this girl. She's unconscious due to injuries and some mythical power and you have to take care of her by fishing etc.

I'm not sure if the feeling was because of my young age but I really felt like I was floating on this 6' x 6' piece of wood taking care of the last person I may ever see.

In a way, the simple graphics (compared to today's technology) allowed the player to concentrate on and relate to the characters much more. In today's standards, if the graphical details don't allow you to see the pores on a characters face it's not any good!

I worked at an Atari/PC store. I used to upgrade 520's to 1 meg by piggyback soldering the memory chips... fun stuff. Could be why I still have so much 2600/5200/7800 stuff

Detlef and The Glove / GP / Gary Payton!

I also ran with the Charlotte Hornets too...Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, and Mugsy Bogues!

totally agree with U2:AT and the elena scenes.

as for raw emotion being thrust upon you, the scenes in "the darkness" with your gf, i.e. sitting on the couch with her and you can watch "to kill a mockingbird"(the entire film) was a very tender moment that led to an absolute emotional mind screw later on.

the interactions with your father in "fallout 3" when you're an infant, you're 10th birthday party and the shooting lesson and all the way up to your last moment with him in the purifier also come to mind.

Yes, I remember Payton being in there too, but couldn't remember if it was Detlef or Benoit with them. I think there might have been a couple different versions - wasn't one of them 2 on 2, and another 3 on 3? Wow, it's been a while since I played that game. He's on Fire!!! Boom shaka laka!

Loved LJ and the Hornets too.

Hell yeah, I would play the arcade version of that with a friend almost every weekend in 8th grade, Shawn Kemp & Detlef Schremph, Kendall Gill & Larry Johnson on the Hornets were awesome

KENDALL GILL!!!! Awesome name drop! I thought Mugsy, Zo, and LJ were on the squad, but as ballen pointed out, I'm sure there were several arcade iterations.

I still remember when the arcade me and my friend played at upgraded to the Tournament Edition... I remember reading MAGAZINES for fun codes to use like big heads, infinite turbo mode, producers of the game characters... good stuff

I had a 2600 and then an original NES. I didn't play games for quite a long time after the NES, and then I went over to a buddy's house and he had a PS1 hooked up and was playing the original Tomb Raider.

I still remember that it was just the opening scenes walking down into the cave and there were just a couple of wolves to shoot, but I remember thinking how crazy advanced this game was. There were probably about six of us gathered around the TV just in awe.

Wow, I'm old...er, uh, been playing video games a long time. LOL!

Most memorable gaming moment ever...friends screaming like little girls when the dogs came jumping thru the windows of the first hallway in RE. Awesome!!!

A few that come to mind for me:

Playing Utopia on the Intellivision, the oft-forgotten birth of the RTS genre.

Target Earth - Finally beating the first level (one of the hardest learning curves I've encountered)!

The demo for the original Grand Theft Auto on the PC. One of the coolest things I'd ever played at the time. I loved it so much that I bought an import of the full game, since it hadn't been released in the U.S. yet.

Tempest 2000 - So very awesome, especially when I finally beat level 64.

Alien vs. Predator (Jaguar) - Sneaking aboard the Predator ship, grabbing the smart gun, and seeing 4 Predators decloak around me at the same time!

Guardian Heroes - Encountering the first screen-filling sub-boss. Hell, the whole game, really. Probably the best brawler of all time, with its crazy branching levels, RPG elements, screen-filling enemies and explosions, and the incredibly awesome arena mode that let you play as any character in the game in a 6-person free-for-all with arbitrary teams.

Call Of Duty - The Stalingrad mission, where you got to be the "clip guy".

Manhunt - Eviscerating the Director and watching him try to stuff his guts back in. Play with fire, you're gonna get burned...

Katamari Damacy - The final level, once I realized the true scope of it.

Shadow Of The Colossus - The finale, starting with the bridge collapse. An amazing conclusion to an amazing game.

Metal Gear Solid 3 - The endgame, from the crazy vehicle chase to the final salute. As silly as MGS can be, those final scenes got to me.

- Jer

The minute I saw "Tempest 2000" I knew you were talking Jaguar. Jeff Minter was a genius. Llamatron 2000 got a ton of my time on the PC.

I feel bad for people who's only real experience with an MMO is WoW....or even worse........EQ. Ultima Online and Asheron's Call are a couple of the greatest games ever made.



Shadowbane was a decent game with loads of potential but not enough financing to support a game of its scale. It was so unstable and easily exploited. My guild mostly plays Darkfall now but I've been hesitant to pick it up because of the same concerns I had with SB.

SB.exe has crashed AAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

That and server crashes when there were more than 40 people (in a massive pvp game) in the same area doomed it.

Too bad.

Playing games such as Combat and Pacman on the Atari 2600 system. This was my first videogame system.

Playing Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Reaching Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punchout.

The overworld theme in The Legend of Zelda.

Watching myself transform for the first time in Altered Beast, for the Sega Genesis.

Playing through all of the Final Fantasy games. They were all amazing to me.

Playing through all the offline Phantasy Star games. They were all great, and I would love a return to offline story driven games for the PS series.

Playing Street Fighter II on a Super Nintendo. It seemed totally unreal to have that game at home.

Playing Zelda: A link to the Past, on the Super Nintendo.

Watching a fully animated cutscene with spoken language on a Turboduo with Y's book I and II, and later Y's III.

Purchasing a 3DO and watching an episode of the animated Batman on CD that came with the system. I was blown away that we could watch movies on disk.

Playing Road Rash and Need for Speed on the 3DO. They seemed 'photo realistic' racing games to me at the time.

Playing Shockwave on the 3DO

Seeing the $650 Neo Geo box at retail and wishing I had enough money to afford what was essentially an arcade machine for the home.

Playing Genesis games on a portable system, via the Nomad.

Playing Doom II on a Sega 32x. This was my first experience with an FPS game.

Playing Quake II on the PC online. It was the very first game that I ever played online.

The voice intro to the first Metal Gear Solid game on PSX.

Playing Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64.

Playing Zelda: The Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64.

Psycho Mantis 'taking control' of the Dual Shock controller in Metal Gear Solid.

Playing Dark Age of Camelot on the PC. This was my first Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.

Realizing that the main playable character in Metal Gear Solid 2 was Raiden. I kept waiting to switch back to 'Snake' for the entire game.

The battle with The End in Metal Gear Solid 3, which is still my favorite boss battle of all time.

Playing Knights of the Old Republic on the PC.

Playing Zelda on the Wii with the wiimote and nunchuck interface.

Playing the first 2 levels of Metal Gear Solid 4 on the Playstation 3.