Pilotwings - seeing the smoothness and elegance of the hangliding bits made my jaw drop. A brilliant use of bitmap technology to simulate 3D before polygons really took off.
Castlevania 4 - hearing the title theme and eventually the end theme. And just little details - like the way it zoomed into the gigantic castle map that traces your path while playing great music, and level 3 in the caves with the spooky folky music and beautiful parallax. All that later mode 7 stuff seemed a little gimmicky to me.
R-Type - level 2's giger-esque creatures and that huge bloody snake. WOW. And then level 5. that game freaking rocks.
Rastan Saga's castle bits with the crazy cool music.
GTA III - chain reaction explosions as someone mentioned above. How much FUN?!
Star Control II: Finding Fwiffo on Pluto. The first conversation with an alien, all those bright colors, awesome music, and hilarious dialouge. I was hooked from there
Starcraft - having a huge mass of zerglings take down your base in about 30 seconds
Katamari Damacy - the first time you roll up a person
Earthbound - When that dude wants to take your picture. "fuzzy pickles!" really... so many other moments as well that I can't think of any.
VF3 - my very first low blocked sweep and MC Jerky backflip. I still love the way he pauses for a split second at the apex of the flip.
Of course, this led to me getting my ass kicked for the rest of that summer because everything I did was to set up that glorious backflip, which ain't useful at all outside of combos.
Super Mario 64 - when I realized that the controls, even on the hand-destroying N64 controller, were transparent. Mario was doing what I wanted, when I wanted.
Fourthed the Silent Cartographer - "Touchdown!! HIT IT MARINES!".....but the real moment of genius came to me later in the same level when I realized I missed my marines. Companion AI up to that point had been crap. Those marines were useful and full of personality.
Almost genius award goes to the E3 New Mombasa level when the Marine driver in the Warthog kept a running tally of destroyed Shadows.
Running along the top did rock. It was a definite first :O
Punch-Out
Piston Honda.
SMB3
The look, the music, the costumes
SMW
Flying across damn near half a level with the cape. And after that, when you reach the 2nd section of the world, and go through the ghost levels. Those were so damn well designed.
Super Mario 64
Well, at the kiosk. The first thing I saw was inside the castle. Watching the joypad move in a circular motion and Mario follow with ease really. That was one of those moments.
WCW vs NWO: World Tour
I don't think there was a moment for the rest of the Aki series for me. They just played perfectly. But for this, the first time I seen a guy get busted open was genius. Being a wrestling fan, you couldn't even see their faces hardly prior to this. So to see a 3-dimensional wrestler get busted open and grab his face afterward.. It was like my fantasies I lived out with wrestling action figures could finally be surpassed. I could create my own stories through a match. Intense bloody stories.
OOT
Hyrule's opening screen. Horse running through sunrise to sunset.
Resident Evil
Dog crashes through the window.
FFVII
I thought going back to Tifa's place in Midgar was incredibly atmospheric. But if not that, Then getting to the world map after 7 hours.
Resident Evil 2
The 2 characters split up, then you meet the owner with the shotgun. You just realize this city is being torn apart by zombies. When he dies, it's on. Solitude and the plot really begin.
MGS1
The demo did it for me. Right after the DARPA chief it ended and I was ready for more. But arguably it became great as soon as you see movie like credits during gameplay and the initial sneaking segment. That was the first truly hollywood moment in a game.
Shenmue
Great opening with crazy graphics at the time. But Ryo waking up. You walk around and basically the entire game is interactive. Then walk outside and the stream of water, the weather, the town. Wow.
Ico
The windmill.
Devil May Cry
The demo did it for me. Diggin the ease of use, diggin the level ups, smooth graphics, beautiful architecture. Arguably this game becomes great from initial control. Arguably at the first boss, shape-shifting black tiger. But I kind of lost it as the demo ended. With the knight who was a mirror of Dante for a second. Right away you just knew this was a serious action fan's kind of game.
Grand Theft Auto III
Seeing the city in the opening, then just getting in the car and driving through the streets back to the spot. It just felt soooo right. And once you got to free-roam and it was truly free-roam.. like "beat a guy to death with a bat, run off a jump, and take a train across town to beat another guy with a bat cause you want to" free-roam.. Blew me away.
FFX
Finding yourself back at the opening of the game, with a whole lot more of emotional baggage. Very somber moment.
KOTOR
When the perspective changed.
MGS3
When "Snake Eater" hit. The story picked up, the tensions rose, I really got hyped to play the next segment, then BAM. Opening credits. :O :O :O One of the all time greatests.
Resident Evil 4
The building being raided by zombies and held off by Luis and yourself. It set a standard for the intensity to come.
This game doesn't get enough respect. I can't believe how so many people talk about games like Ico being 'art' when something as genius as this exists.
While that may be the case, Grandia advanced JRPGs in ways many, including GameArts themselves (at least to G1's extent), will never try again. It's unfortunate.
Dark Age Iron Savior said:
I preferred to cast the quake spell repeatedly, forcing them to rebuild and earning precious EXP.
not a game but when xbox live was still an infant and everyone was playing the motoGP demo online. that first big turn, when all 16 players would wipe out and end up on floor on the grass and everyone is laughing.
Also Ico: When the bridge is collapsing and you're trying to drag Yorda across before it's too late, and you can't really tell how much control you have over what's going on - the only time I've felt inside a scripted moment.
I loved him too but lost so quick when I was young. Piston Honda teased me, as I came on the verge of victory, only to fall to an onslaught of haymakers. Poor Lil Mac. :lol
Katamari Damacy - rolling up islands, clouds, gigantic octopi.
Ducktales - bouncing on that first monster's face with Scrooge's cane as a pogo stick.
Dragon Warrior - leveling up on slimes, drakees, and ghosts for an hour or two, then crossing that first bridge and getting raped by a giant scorpion.
Gitaroo Man - Born to be Bone
Silent Hill - first trip to the Otherworld.
Mega Man - receiving your first new weapon from a robot master. "What the... THIS GAME ROCKS"
MGS - from the very first neck snap.
Add me to the Level 5 of Rez camp. A level about the origin and evolution of life is pretty awe inspiring, let alone having a song about fear being its theme.
Max Payne when you get into the psychedelic drug induced dream levels, also bullet time. (I don't know if it was first, but to me it was my first bullet time experience.)
Serious Sam, the first one, in the later levels where you walk on the walls and ceilings plus when you bounce like a human super ball. Also, the best, from the second you shoot your first lone Beheaded Kamikaze and 3 seconds later a dozen more come running at you. Or when a giant boulder rolls past you and Sam whistles the theme to Indiana Jones. SS is just full of genius moments. I was hooked from my first Kamikaze.
Pikmin games. Leaving your Pikmin in a supposedly safe area only to find out too late a patrolling enemy floated in and began eating them all. Returning to find only a few left. Especially when it's that enemy that likes to plant the Pikmin in the ground and you come back to find a dozen sprouting Pikmin scattered all over the place.
Vexx. I was hooked the moment I entered the mural.
the eeire version of the zelda 3 hyrule song that played during this blew my mind. if i had played this when i was in third grade, i'd probably have a stroke. i also like the other zelda 3 references (mainly revised LttP songs) that pop up throughout the game. WW is a love letter to the long-time fans
Halo 1: The final Level. Pure fucking genius. The mad dash at the end? With chaos all around? I couldn't ask for anything more out of a video game, honestly. You get a true scope of the beauty that is this game when racing through all of the blood and madness.
GTA3: Honestly, the realization came over hours of just plain old experimenting. Taking cars off jumps, crashing them into other cars, jumping out, blowing everything away, getting into another car and outrunning the cops...then the fbi....then the army....and somehow survinvg it all, or going down in a blaze of glory. And I chose to do it, how I wanted it done. No scripted sequences, all me. My very own hollywood movie. Brilliant.
Burnout Revenge: After swerving VERY closely through oncoming traffic at 190+ mph, then hitting a pedestrian car going in the same direction as me, into an opponent coming out of a shortcut that I didn't even know was there, I had to stop, pause the game, and say "GOD. DAMN. that was fucking AWESOME." That was just LUDICROUS. It all happened in less than 3 seconds too. By far the most fun I've ever had in 3 seconds of gaming ever.
This topic is full of spoilers anyway, but you're warned just in case.
I also put a nod for Terranigma. However, it's not because of the underworld (which completely floored me the first time when I exited the village. Mode 7 FT freaking W), the concept of basically beginning life as we know it, or even the realization that comes when you discover the replica of your home town. The game was brilliant then.
But tell me what this picture reminds you of
Does it ring a bell? A hint: You needed to come here to get a Starstone, and it was accompanied by one of the most eerie, emotion piercing scenes in VG history. I still don't completely understand what was going on, but every time I think about it I get chills. It's also the exact moment I realized that this was a special game, one I would remember forever.
Pokemon R/B/Y: The first time I got a Pokemon to level 8 and learned a special-based attack.
Super Smash Bros. Melee - It hit me about six Event Matches in.
Tales of Symphonia - Oh, man, too many to count, but a few notables:
1) When Colette gains the Klutz title just because you're examining a hole in the classroom.
2) When I watched my first Z-skit.
3) The whole scene when Colette convinced Kratos to let Lloyd come along, and her theme played.
4) The scene where I met Zelos.
5) The scene where I met Presea.
6)
When I beat the Sword Dancer for the final time and Colette talks about how that "poor skeleton" was probably tormented, and it suddenly dawned on me that, without me knowing it, the entire game had painted her as being probably the smartest character in the party in terms of recognizing others' feelings, whether it was Sword Dancer's torment or Sheena's true nature.
7) All of Presea's philosophizing.
WWF Wrestlemania 2000 - When I figured out I could ram people's heads into the cage.
Advance Wars 2 - The first time I used Grit's Super CO Power and completely turned the tides of battle in every imaginable way.
Star Ocean 2 - Like ToS, several points. Just to name a few: 1) When I met Precis. 2) When I first heard the music in the Salva Drift. 3) When I first heard the music in the town of Cross at night. 4) When I first heard the music in the town of Cross at day. 5) The first time I surrounded one of those firebreathing cat lizard things and all four characters picked away at it like piranhas on a fallen gazelle. 6) Ashton and his obsession.
Chrono Trigger - The opening movie, in conjunction with its brilliant main theme, was enough.
Final Fantasy 6 - See Chrono Trigger.
Goldeneye 007 - Having to really use stealth for the first time in the Facility.
Yoshi's Island - Like everyone said: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy.
F-Zero GX - Hearing Captain Falcon's song in the pilot profiles.
Metroid Prime - Seeing the Phendrana Drifts.
Tyrian (PC game) - Piloting a ship shaped like a carrot and that can shoot weapons shaped like oranges or hot dogs. I mean, come on, you're not going to find this anywhere else. Forget about Jazz Jackrabbit; Epic should have ported this game to GBA a long, long time ago.
Kirby Super Star - Two words: Suplex power.
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Two words: Good Bee.
Meteos - The first time I played on that planet where nothing launches until you make two adjacent connections, and the first time I played on that planet where meteos only launch if you make horizontal connections. And the planet of Mekks in general, really.
Earthbound - When Buzz Buzz
gets killed by Pokey's dad swatting him, despite just slaughtering a Starman... Jr., I believe?
The first time I played Out of this World and had just crashed the cage on top of the guard, freeing myself and my newfound alien buddy.
Taking out Bobby at Highpool in the first minutes of Wasteland.
Converting every civvy in the city to create my own personal army in Syndicate. Enemy agents were fucking doomed.
Crushing the other side for the first time in Populous.
Getting to the big world in Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time...and then promptly getting eaten by an oversized fish. I dropped my controller in simultaneous disgust at the cheapness of the death and genuine awe of it's momentary brilliance.
Controlling a 3D Mario for the first time at E3 '96. I tried my damnedest to hog the system I was on...much to the annoyance of the N-reps and line of people giving me evil stares. Super Mario 64 was and is brilliant in execution.
Blowing up the hamster in the microwave in Maniac Mansion on the C64. I freaked out that you could actually do it.
Finishing off Akuma for the first time in Karateka on the Apple ][...only to die because I stayed in the fighting stance as I approached Mariko.
Just playing Prince of Persia for the first time after I picked it up for my then, nearly completely disused Apple. I couldn't stop playing and watching the unprecedented animation quality smoothly roll out on the screen.
Getting to Mother Brain in Metroid and finishing her off (in gloriously dramatic slo-mo) in under nine hours my first time playing the game. My cousins helped me to memorize the game's then complicated maps as they watched me complete it on the first day it was available at Kay Bee.
Swinging my way into an enemy in Bionic Commando (NES), pushing him back, and then landing behind him to take him out.
Entering the gravity core fight for the first time in Strider.
Just playing Herzog Zwei against my brother...soundly crushing him.
The first hours of learning/playing Master of Magic.
Watching racers pile up in a big, spectacular four-rider crash ahead of me in Road Rash. I was the fourth rider.
Watching half of the players on the field getting wiped out by the ambulance in Madden '92.
Getting caught up in my first team fight in Ice Hockey on the NES.
Myuren (Mullen?) and Baal just finish their conversation, the window shutters of their airship open up, and you can see the land below. The camera then pans around to a small town called Parm, where you see hijinks by the local kids choreographed to synth pizzicato.
Add me to the Level 5 of Rez camp. A level about the origin and evolution of life is pretty awe inspiring, let alone having a song about fear being its theme.
Although I completely agree that level 5 is far and away the best part, I thought Rez was genius before I ever even played it. That video at Gamespot with the white corridor (second level boss) was all it took to convince me that I had to get it, haters be damned.
I still haven't played a game as immersive as this. I think playing it on your PC is more immersive, because you're directly in front of your monitor.
The first level was nothing special. But after that, and entering UNATCO HQ, you realise just how crazy this game really is. Checking your email. Reading the newspaper. Checking other people's emails :lol Really, just how much it put you in someone else's shoes.
And past that, there were many great moments. And I mean GREAT. Moments that really made you feel like you really were in another world and NOT playing a game with set rules etc..
Like, when you inevitably switched sides against UNATCO, and take out all the guards at that base to use the satellite. It didn't feel like a game so much because I honestly spent like 30 minutes figuring out how to use the satellite without doing something as crazy as taking everybody out. It's a very hard feeling to explain, you'll only know if you've been there.
Hong Kong was another great area in the game. Just, absolutely perfect. I loved how you have this city, but then there's more "levels", like infiltrating that corporation (I forget the name). Both - unforgettable.
And all the extras in the game that make Deus Ex, Deus Ex. I encourage everyone to play it. I wish more people knew about it - it's popular, but, severely underated IMO.
Killer 7 - From the maniacal laugh in title screen onward Viewtiful Joe - My first rainbow V Morrowind - When I realized I had been playing for 10 hours and hadn't done a damn thing in the main quest Dark Cloud 2 - When I built my first town Kingdom under fire: the crusaders - When you roll up to a battle with that heavy metal playing and shaky camera and you can feel the impending asskickery (screw the people who think heavy metal doesn't fit, it fits PERFECTLY. The quality of the music could be better though..)
Dark Saviour -- i'm sure i'm remembering this wrong, but the part where your character sees his doppelganger in the city. That game was a mindfuck. i wish i had beaten it before selling it.
Resident Evil 4 - Boss battle against Del Lago Killer 7 - When you first see Ulmeyda on the TV and he blows that building up Baten Kaitos - When you realize just how fun and deep the battle system is Tales of Symphonia - When you reach the Tower Salvation (first time) and all the shit goes down Metroid Prime 2 Echoes - Sanctuary Fortress Metroid Prime - First time in Phendrana Drifts Shenmue - When you first get to explore the town Super Smash Bros. Melee - When you first blew yourself and someone else up with a bomb. Ikaruga - First boss battle Halo 2 - First 16 player Big-Team Battle on Headlong F-Zero GX - The Lighting level where you race in a half-pipe Metal Gear Solid 2 - When you first meet Vamp Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes - When the Ninja slaughters all the guards Skies of Arcadia - When you get your own ship. Zelda: The Wind Waker - When Link is shot out of the cannon Zelda: Ocarina of Time - When Ganondorf completely fucks you over after opening the Door of Time Extreme-G - The first twisty level Super Mario 64 - When you jump through a painting the first time
Each and every enemy of Yoshi's Island:
The first time a Piranha Plant appears.
Jump on a Goomba an it squashes, walks, and pops.
The Baseball guys, specially when there are puzzles with them involved.
The enemy that, when squashed, spits bubbles.
The tall ShyGuys that, when squashed, spits seeds.
Honorable mention to the bosses.
And let's not forget: the giant ShyGuys that make giant eggs! (and Yoshi's face when holding one)
Final Fantasy VI - The opera!
Shadowrun - Stealing my first 1,000 yen by hacking the matrix
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - The first sanity effect
Resident Evil 4 - The harpoon boss fight
Wind Waker -
B&W Hyrule
Counter-Strike - the first time I shot and killed a player through a wall (lucky shot; not 1337 haxxor)
Halo 2 - First successful CTF Warthog run on Coagulation on XBL
World of Warcraft - Riding a mount around the Eastern Kingdom for the first time
Metal Gear Solid - Getting a 'massage' from Naomi Hunter (yes I did put the controller on my arm :lol)
I'd agree with this. The entire game was something special from the beginning, but for me it goes into overdrive when Rock is Sponge breaks down and the Knock on Wood guitar starts up heralding the boss battle.
Do certain games deserve perseverence to get to the 'enlightenment point'?
eg I played MGS3 and just couldn't get on with it. tippy toeing around the very first few screens, the enemy randomly discovering me, then me running off like a fool. Frustrating. But by all accounts its a masterpiece.
same with GTW. I bought two (vice city and SA) and just couldn't get past the first few missions without apathy getting the better of me.
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