What Are Your Most Memorable Gaming Moments?

We're all involved in the same hobby, but there are a lot of different reasons. We all like different things. Are there any moments in gaming that stand out in your memory?

My examples;

1. Resident Evil: The beginning of the game, where the dogs burst throw the windows of the long hall. That was just awesome.

2. Resident Evil 2: In the beginning of the game, where the zombie horde bursts through the glass and tears the gun-shop owner apart in front of your eyes.

3. Metal Gear Solid: The final stand of Grey Fox against Metal Gear Rex.

4. Contra III: The Alien Wars: The section of the first stage where the plane dips low and bombs the shit out of the city, setting your path ablaze.

5. Metroid Prime: The entire game and the realization that one of my favorite franchises had been translated into 3D.

6. Halo: The beginning of the "Cartographer" stage where you're hanging out of the Pelican, looking down on the graphically impressive beach as soldiers and Covenant are already fighting.

7. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube): Every boss battle. 'Nuff said.

8. Grand Theft Auto 3: The realization of how gigantic and free-form the game was.

9. Soul Calibur: The entire game, basically...this was the first Dreamcast game I played at home, and I was a believer. This game still looks great and it's seven years old.

10. Dreamcast Launch: This is kind of vague, but this was probably the single-greatest launch in the industry. Soul Calibur, NFL2K, Powerstone, House of the Dead 2, Sonic Adventure...this was the beginning of a new era.

It's obvious from the list that I've played consoles more than PCs and that I tend to play more games that are action-oriented.

Lists aren't up for dispute. This is pure opinion...don't feel compelled to slam someone for theirs in this thread, please.

**EDIT**

Added some of the more influential PC titles that I've played over the years;

World of Warcraft: Realizing just how big the damned game is. I only played for a few days on a friends' account, but I explored one continent from top to bottom. I had a couple of traveling partners as well.

Team Fortress Classic: First game I played online, and what a game it was...dial-up sucked, but it was worth the pain in order to have access to this.

Desert Combat: When I got really good at the game and developed some particularly devious strategy/evasion/invasion techniques. 6~7:1 KDR in private servers with good players (I know it's just numbers, but it felt important at the time).

Battlefield 1942: First game I'd ever played that felt truly chaotic. In a populated server, there were dozens of epic battles going on no matter where you were. Fighting in a tank? Take a second to look up and see your buddy engaged in an epic dogfight with two enemy fighters. This was truly a revolutionary game.

**EDIT2**

Adding more as I think about this more.

1. Resident Evil (Gamecube remake): Basically, the entire game. The graphics are unbelievable. The gameplay was enhanced, but the real treats were the new design, enemy AI, and graphical enhancements. Every kill was visceral. The enemies were so well-designed that you could see their jaws moving.

2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: The battle with The Boss in the flowing field of flowers. A cliche idea, but I have never seen it done like that before in real-time. I couldn't believe the PS2 was doing it. This was easily one of the most cinematically impressive moments that I've ever experienced in gaming (And it did a lot to set up the fantastic ending of the game).

In no particular order:

1: First time i saw a strider hl2.

2:Halo, when the door opens and the big tank guys come out, along with an army of smaller guys.. a definite oh-shi moment. took me forever to beat.

3: I have to agree, metroid prime was awesome, and hard.

4: F.e.a.r. Anytime you get seriously ambushed. heh. (elevators, outside armachem, etc)

Day before I got my Voodoo1:
Well, Unreal might go a little faster, but it's gonna have to really amaze me to justify the $99 I spent on that card.

Day after I got my Voodoo1:
grahhll... rahh.. ahhh..
(I couldn't really talk cuz my jaw was detached and on the ground)

I remember the DC launch, I was at the Walmart on 9/9/99. It was memorable definately. Unfortunately I remember a different moment in the Dreamcast's short history more thoroughly. One that I can't really discuss. -.-;

Original Half-Life.
Surface Tension level when you walk out of a tunnel and you're suddenly fighting for your life on the side of a cliff.

1. Getting the original NES with Robbie the Robot for Christmas and still to this day trying to figure out what that robot actually does.

Bane said:

Original Half-Life.
Surface Tension level when you walk out of a tunnel and you're suddenly fighting for your life on the side of a cliff.

Click to expand...

That had to be my favorite leve as well.

D00M when you first fight the Arachnotrons.
Duke Nukem 3D first going into space.
Beach landing at Omaha MOAA.
Aliens Vs. Predator 2 that whole game was marvelous and scary.
Far Cry the outdoor scenery, the story. Very well put together game.
F.E.A.R. the first time I had to fight the "Watchers" and everytime I'd see a ghost.

Bane said:

Original Half-Life.
Surface Tension level when you walk out of a tunnel and you're suddenly fighting for your life on the side of a cliff.

Click to expand...

agree totally...that was a great moment in the game. That whole game had me going. I played it well after release too (around january 2001 i think) and it still had me gripped.

No order:

1. Resident Evil 4 was just great all the way through as was RE0.

2. Far Cry, when your first get to the surface and look out across a little bay. First thing that got my attention was how blue the sky and water looked, then the helicopter flying across the scene. Then you notice the lush green vegetation in front of you. May not look realistic but regardless...it looked amazing, i wanted to grab my bathing shorts and go for a swim!

3. First time I played an online game over broadband (CS i think it was). Just amazing compared to dial up. Now I was an LPB and everyone was bitching at me! HAHA!

4. The opening area of Half Life 2: The Lost Coast. I dont know what people think of this, but visually to me it looks fantastic.

5. Playing American McGee's Alice and realising "hang on a minute, this game is actually pretty f'ed up..."

Starsiege Tribes, Shifter Mod. So my brother and I are kicking ass. We take over a small base and camp out

An enemy comes in with a plasma gun. we jump in front of him and realize that we're out of ammo. and the enem is point blank in front of me with a weapon. As I prepare to die he looks at me. Turns and looks at my brother. Turns again back to me, Switches to the repair gun. Turns around and tries to repair the Base takeover switch(Hit the switch and the base becomes yours IE you can use the equipment in there, this item CANNOT be damaged ever)

My brother and I were laughing so hard we didn't have the heart to kill the poor guy. I mean he could clearly see we had red Triangles over our heads.



Another time in tribes. I was part of a regular server where i'd just constantly dominate the other team. Well the Admins of this server would always stop playing and go into observer mode and just follow me around whenever I played. Which was fine by me. If they get off watching me own thats fine. Anyway I got in my standard Chameleon/Boomstick loadout(Shifter Mod) And went hunting. I got in the habit of sneaking up behind people and boomsticking them in the back. This one Heavy I followed for around 6 minutes. He turned around a few times but id always fly straight up and he'd completely miss me. So on he went. Finally when he got behind our base and prepared for a mortar attack I boomsticked him several times.

The admin that was watching me said "You're Evil" I giggled myself silly

1. Practicing for hours to perfect the World 4-3 (I think) end of stage turtle hop in Super Mario Brothers to get a ton of 1ups. Hey, I was 8 years old, and pretty damn proud of myself.

2. Realizing that if you got too many extra lives, the game ended with your next death...

3. Every second of Super Metroid. I ended up having to buy that one from Blockbuster, after telling them I lost the game, rather than deal with the late fees.

4. Marveling at just how deep the water was in the first underwater level of Super Mario 64.

5. Calling Sierra's 1-900 hint line--several times--when I got stuck on Space Quest 3 (on a trusty Tandy 1000 TL/2 that still runs to this day--8 Mhz 286, baby!!!). My mom and dad at first thought I was calling 1-900 sex lines. Yep, I had some 'splaining to do. I lost quite a bit of allowance paying for that phone bill.

6. Realizing just how old I'm getting, as I pop BF2 in for another go...

1. My first has to be playing street fighter 2 on the snes for the first time!
2. quake 2 for the first time in 3dfx glide!
3. Robocop on the commodore 64!
4. All of Ridge racer when it first came out on PS1.
5. peeing on a snowball and throwing it at turkeys on south park pc lol (fun for a while!)
6. Firing tetris up on the gameboy.
7. Playing Creatures on the c64
8. playing turrican on the c64
9. Unreal tournament 1 at 1600x1200 on my 3dfx 3500 on my 20"crt back in 2000 running smooth as fuck!
10. Being gobsmacked by the 3d graphics on the PSP in ridge racers

no fancy order

hitting 50 in lineage 1
hitting 50 in DAoC
the amazing graphics of HL2
Tribes - any match at all (man that game was my first serious online gaming game)
hooking up my home theater system and playing CS, hear the awp shake my house... that was pretty fun

1. When i beat goldeye on the N64 and got the two extra levels
2. When i first got to the flood in Halo1, OMG so many to kill to little ammo
3. Kicking the masterminds ass

1- when i popped in my n64 the legend of zelda ocarina of time... i felt special
2- first time i played bf1942 online .... and found out about desert combat
3- when i paid for MY first pc ( the one i own right now) and all the upgrades
4- all the friendship i made thru online gaming
5- when i played WoW for the first time and when i stopped playing it...
6- The nintendo DS release

many more... but those were the first one i tought about

1, Turning on my NES and popping in the Golden Cartridge Legend of Zelda.
2. Late nights taking turns playing Lakers vs. Celtics on my Commodore 64.
3. Lan gaming with Quake and firing the Lightning Gun underwater...and insant death.
4. Finding Unreal Tournament and realizing that my Mac could actually serve a purpose.

1. Quake Team Fortress on MPlayer with all of my buddies in highschool with 200 ping.
2. Original GTA... realizing what you were actually doing
3. Being stupedfied at the detail of WoW's art direction.

Unreal - amazing graphics
Starfleet Command Demo (im a big trek geek)
Counterstrike Beta 1 - ive never had so much fun with a game, the original maps desert, etc
WoW Beta - some people dont like the WoW graphics, but I really did
Half Life - very immersive, very groundbreaking
AVP - ive always had nightmares about aliens, scared the hell out of me
System Shock 2 - one of the most immersive and enjoyable games
FEAR - spooky little girl

I forgot to mention two things:

World of Warcraft: Realizing just how big the damned game is. I only played for a few days on a friends' account, but I explored one continent from top to bottom. I had a couple of traveling partners as well.

Team Fortress Classic: First game I played online, and what a game it was...dial-up sucked, but it was worth the pain in order to have access to this.

Desert Combat: When I got really good at the game and developed some particularly devious strategy/evasion/invasion techniques. 6~7:1 KDR in private servers with good players (I know it's just numbers, but it felt important at the time).

Battlefield 1942: First game I'd ever played that felt truly chaotic. In a populated server, there were dozens of epic battles going on no matter where you were. Fighting in a tank? Take a second to look up and see your buddy engaged in an epic dogfight with two enemy fighters. This was truly a revolutionary game.

1 - when I found out I could edit the minimap in BF42 and later in BF2. Can anyone say "Tah Tahs"?

2 - Carmeggeddon 3: TDR 2000....the destruction of the car models were really good. Cars w/ bent frames at 90deg

3 - Unreal 1...When I first had my PII 300 and Viper V550 TNT vid card....crawling through those air vents at the beginning while sitting in the basement with the lights off...those screams brought me out of my skin.

Civilization 1 : building up the palace to what you wanted it to be, I know it's not a huge part of the game, kind of useless too, but at the time the ability to do that and its graphics were amazing

Ultima Underworld 2 : amazing RPG for its time, that's when I realized that video games have a real future.

I'm an old-timer, lol

Lately, I enjoy being a prick at Battlefield Vietnam, there's really no other word for it. I'll get my C4 and camp up a bridge that a tank is bound to go by soon, mines in appropriate locations and bouncing betty's around enemy's mobile spawn point are just flat out hilarious nothing like death that comes from nowhere and I find that just for fun, it can be pretty cool to try and play a BFV map from start to finish without dying. The more people that call me a camping sniping n00b the happier I get

One more...

Warcraft 3 video animations , being an old timer I'm more for content than flashy crap, but the animations in W3 were absolutely amazing. They made me want to play each mission and finish ASAP so I could see some more of them.

The original B&W Gameboy (err....Green and gray )

every other portable game being games made from Tiger that was just a series of stills.
Gameboy actually moving and scrolling. Just made my mouth drool.

- FF7 Death of Arie
- Fallout 1 (First time going into a building room and having to whip out a bunch of baddies having a chain gun)
- Cosmic Fantasy (turboduo) That ending is SOOO long and always remember as being THE BEST ever. It was easily like 10 minutes worth of animation. And every other game you just get (You saved the day....credits)
- Ninja Gaiden (Intro)

My brother and I crying at that one "moment" in Planetfall. If you played computer games in the '70s you'll know what I'm talking about. Wait, who am I kidding? Judging from the responses I don't think anyone here has.

ZX6Master said:

We're all involved in the same hobby, but there are a lot of different reasons.

Click to expand...

Uh, maybe for you it's a hobby. For me, it's a way of life.

Torgo said:

My brother and I crying at that one "moment" in Planetfall. If you played computer games in the '70s you'll know what I'm talking about. Wait, who am I kidding? Judging from the responses I don't think anyone here has.

Click to expand...

Yeah dud your dirt...

Kreiger5 said:

In no particular order:

1: First time i saw a strider in hl2.

Click to expand...

Oh, man, that was an amazing moment for sure, easily my top. My speakers were cranked at about 12:10am on release day and my subwoofer went into overtime on those footsteps. I was blown away.

After that I would have to include the first time I played Wake Island in BF42: Just an amazing feeling of freedom; and the first time I was in a desty and another guy playing sniper figured out the calling arty function we just ripped the island apart.

Number 3 is the first time I hopped in a tank in the first iteration Desert Combat. The tank just felt right; very fast but with the right amount of weight. The balance of ground to air was also a breath of fresh air; where a ground unit had a chance against an air unit unlike the vanilla versions of BF42 and BF2.

Torgo said:

Uh, maybe for you it's a hobby. For me, it's a way of life.

Click to expand...

Well YOU are a special case, old man

playing Combat on my Atari2600 and a black and white 13" tv when I was a child ...

ahhh ..*sniff* ...a special time in my life then ...*sniff*


[H]

1 - when I first played Super Mario Bros. on original NES - this was THE moment my entire gaming career started. First console I had.

2 - all of Chrono Trigger - seriously, I really can't just pick one particular scene from this game...it's my favorite game ever.

3 - When Aeris dies in FF VII.

4 - ballroom scene of FF VIII. Sure, the game probably goes down in my books as the most boring FF ever, next to FF 2, but I liked the scene.

5 - Metal Slug in any form. My God, the insane hand drawn 2-D, I love it!

eh, that's it for me, I can't remember everything I was astounded by these days.

altec said:

Yeah dud your dirt...

Click to expand...

Only in the gaming industry does your early 30's count as being old. Now if you excuse me, I need to hike up my pants to my chest and use my walker to walk over to my joystick that only has a single red button on it.

ahh man, Team Fortress Classic was awesome... I'll always love that game, I hope Fortress Forever will do it right and bring TFC/FF back into the scene for a while.

Finally getting full elemental access in EverQuest. I did things after that of course... but that was the big moment in my EQ career.

I actually went and talked to the Seer, thanked all my friends, logged out, and cried.

Most Memorible Moment: Playing Doom shareware demo that scared the living shit out me when I was 13, I couldnt' sleep or walk down dark hallways for days.

1. The star destroying flying in on X-Wing opening cinematic. Changed my world forever

2. Blowing up my first star destroyer in X-Wing

3. Playing Jedi Knight 2 with my new Voodoo 2 8meg card. Simply amazing

4. Playing modem to modem with my friend in Sith Lords expansion having a huge light saber fight. Sooo beyond cool at the time.

5. Witnessing broadband for the first time playing RTCW on my first built machine

6.Seeing Metal Gear power up for the first time coming straight at me

7. Dog smashing through window in Resident Evil 1

8. Music in Star Fox SNES Space Armada *snifff...brings a tear to my eye*

9. Aeris dying in FF7 *I actually cried*

10. Kicking the living crap outa Ultamicia in FF8 after 68 hours of hard work

11. My friend and I playing Twisted Metal 1 for hours on end. I was the monster truck and he was the red sports car and we'd chase eachother. God it was a blast...

12. Playing BF1942 demo for the first time and seeing what REAL online muliplayer was about and the chaos.

13. Playing Phobos Moon in UT.

14. Seeing Unreal for the first time

15. The 3dmark2k1 Nature demo on my Geforce 3 card. I felt like a fucking king

16. Hiting level 50 in DAOC after 7 months of hard work.

17. Music and gameplay in Castlevania: SOTN

18. Taking my Honda Prelude for a spin in Gran Turismo 1.

My list, in no particular order:

1. Realizing the possibilities of video games while playing Crystalis for NES. Probably one of my all-time favorite games.

2. Of course, the obligatory playing Zelda on NES with the gold cartridge (as someone already mentioned)

3. The ending battle of Zelda: Majora's Mask (talk about an acid-tripped ending)

4. Playing on and admining a UT server that played Face almost 24/7 (Headshot..Headshot..Mo-Mo-Mo-Monster Kill)

5. In BF2, sniping the pilots of the attack choppers and watching the idiot gunner die without realizing what was going on

6. While not overly proud, playing Pokemon:Red on my Gameboy and becoming the Pokemon Champion (winning the game).

7. Playing XWing vs Tie Fighter with a friend of mine before we had good eye-hand coordination. We would switch off and one of us would fly while the other fired... all on the same keyboard.

8. Seeing a Redeemer detonate in UT.

9. Playing on the original Diablo on Battle.NET and getting conned into the "come join us, we left a portal in town" then getting TK'd.

10. The entire Diablo storyline I have always loved!

11. While playing CS 1.5, and winning the round as a CT vs 10 T's.

12. Experiencing my first LAN party and playing Quake multiplayer (remember the "God" backpacks with maxed ammo)

13. The only time I can think of actually getting physically sick from the gore in Quake Singleplayer.

The first time I saw Midgard in FF7. I was amazed.

In chronological order:

1) Sneaking on to my sister's 286 (for her college work) to play:
-SimCity 2000 - This was awesomely addictive. I loved coming up with crude names to put on the signs
-Commander Keen
-Space Quest
-Stunt Driver
-Doom
-I would try to crack her passwords for Leisuresuit Larry. I was 9 or 10 at the time.

2) On our next PC (Pentium 60) I would play:
-Under A Killing Moon - This game really intriged my imagination. I loved the ability to just go down to the street have have some interaction with the people on the street. Though the options were limited, this was more intersting than just simple pre set dialog.
-SimCity 2000 (still)
-Doom 2 (loved that shotgun)
-GTA 1
-Road Rage - Used to kill my friend at this game when he thought he was a pro.
-Monster Truck Madness - This game required windows 95, and my PC had a under powerd graphics card. We got the OS but I had to suffer at 16 FPS for I don't know how long. Somehow, I still had fun with the slow perfomance

3)Once my PC's reached the 3d graphics age my favorite game experieces occured in:
-Quake series
-Half Life 1
-Team Fortress Classic - My first online gaming experiece. Spent eon's playing this game Wish all games were as modem compatable as this one was. I am sadly still stuck on 56k until we get some better options than sattelite internet out here in the sticks.
-Motocross Maddness
-Monster Truck Madness 2 - Spent hours modding this game and being involved with it's online community.
-FarCry
-HL2

I'll try to go chronologically

1. Playing Math Blaster and Treasure Cove non-stop.
2. Mario teaches typing. Taught me that typing wrong could still be rewarding.
3. Getting 64 lines in Tetris. Telling my babysitter about it because I was oh so proud.
4. Spending an entire Saturday trying to beat the Ancient Dungeon in Lufia II. I was probably 8 years old at the time though. My best was probably Lvl 36 (of 99)
5. The days of SNES + RPG's. Too many to name.
6. Goldeneye *drool*
7. Command and Conquer, from Red Alert to Generals.
8. Building my first computer, a gaming machine in July 2003.
9. THE FRAGGIN WAGON -- Rainbox Six 3.
10. Spending too much time on World of Warcraft. But hey, it was fun.

1. First time i beat Super Mario Brothers in under 20 minutes.

2. When my old college roomate and I used to play Diablo 2.....and drink. We would get so drunk, get killed (while we had level 80 something characters, we were toasted) and then have to go get our equiptment back. the problem was we didnt have any armor when we got rezed adn we would go get killed again..and again, and then we would forget where our bodies were. it was hilarious.

3. Playing Ultima online and trying to exploit hacks. My roomate and I got on one server and found a way to break into houses using an exploit we found. We looted every house on the server, and then we got caught.....and thrown in jail....and then we did it again after we got out of jail and got banned.....we pissed off a ton off ppl that time.

My #1 gaming moment: Starting Wipeout. At that time it was just cool with a capital C. Everything about it... the music, the Designer's Republic artwork, the action, the concept was super-fresh and made my jaw drop.

Ronco said:

My #1 gaming moment: Starting Wipeout. At that time it was just cool with a capital C. Everything about it... the music, the Designer's Republic artwork, the action, the concept was super-fresh and made my jaw drop.

Click to expand...

I've gotta find Wipeout XL on ebay and add it to my playstation collection

My most memorable gaming moment.. The first time I finished MC in World of Warcraft (before the new, harder lvl 60 instances). The Culimination of about 3 months of painfull grinding, and then 6 hours of Molten Core, culminating in dropping the biggest dragon i have ever seen in a game, and watching half of the RAID party getting killed more than once.. That was the most memorable moment i have ever had in gaming.