Those gaming moments that blow you away!

[Melbosa]

A friend of mine was talking about this today and it got me thinking.  A lot of us play various different games and I'm sure we have all had those "OMG" moments with games.  I was hoping you would share them with me in this thread.

One of the biggest moments I can recall for me was back in college days.  Sitting in Mr. Analog's Parent's basement, playing Metal Gear Solid at some ungoldly hour, and dying at the hand of Psycho Mantis for the 50th time.  So frustrating, so tiring, and such a hard ass battle.  I can't really remember how it happened, but Mr. Analog had both contorllers plugged in (we were playing some capcom games earlier) and somehow the movement stick was pushed on the second controller... and then Psycho Mantis all of a sudden says something like "I cannot ready your mind!!!"... woah!!!!! /mindblown

MGS4 throwback to that moment: https://youtu.be/hTWHX2Px3hI

Not always talking about 4th wall breaks either, even though mine above is one.

What about you guys?

[Mr. Analog]

OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE BEST!

I recall we didn't have a memory card so we tried to beat both Resident Evil 2 and MGS in one go... the Playstation got hot that night (and morning)

So far I've been really enjoying the Havok engine AND not having to get caught up in any specific quest after the tutorial zone. The dialog is startlingly aware (*walks in with no shirt* "I didn't realize this was that kind of spa"!?!)

The main thing is you get a lot of powers that give you options you don't get in a lot of games. I mean sure you can lift yourself over walls by standing on buckets / 10mm pistols and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps in Creation Engine games (thank you Bethesda) but that's kinda unintentional. This game gives you the tools and expects you to use them

I discovered doing a puzzle the other day (it's one of those ball + maze puzzles you play with the motion controls) that because you can turn the puzzle any damn which way you want and the ball resets in the same place you can simply rotate the puzzle so that you drop the ball in the easiest spot to solve the puzzle. It's one of those AHA moments.

Mechanically the game teaches you pretty early on to look for opportunities like this, for example: you get a hang glider, you see an entrance to a dungeon, you see a ledge not too far away... it shouldn't take most gamers too much effort to do the math, once the game teaches you stuff like this it changes how you play it.

The whole starting area kinda teaches you a lot of important stuff, like I figured out pretty quickly that if I was carrying something on fire in a cold zone (like a torch or a flaming arrow) then I could stay warm, but as soon as I tried to use my Sheika tablet to fix a bridge that I have to pass is it would put away my heat source and I'd start freezing. Well not far away there's a little spot with enemies and a farm of spicy peppers and a conspicuous cook pot... oh well let's see if I take these basic food items I've been collecting so far that give me small bonuses and cook them together I get a bunch of big combined bonuses, adding the spicy peppers to a recipe added a bonus effect against cold that let me wander around for up to 8 minutes per meal and not die. I swear, stuff like this is genius!

I haven't even gotten into the crafting part, but I see materials all over the world, and the world is BIG. You are given so many tools for traversing the world it seems like less of a concern though, from using your glider to finding horses to tame and ride... it all just fits so easy. PRO-TIP your horse will generally follow paths (if you've played The Witcher III you know what this feels like) AT FIRST I was trying to actively drive my horse, like a car in GTA, but this was hella awkward and the horse didn't like it much, then I realized that if I trusted the horse it USUALLY figured out where I wanted to go anyway and so now riding is kinda relaxing, just gotta speed up / slow down depending on what I want to do. I've never really played a game where horse riding felt as natural where you trust that this virtual animal has a brain and will stick to paths and not run into stuff. Horseback archery is not a problem when the horse is doing the driving and you're doing the shooting!

This game gives you so much agency over where you go and what you do that it really feels like it lets you play the way you want to. Yeah the main questline is mostly rails BUT it seems like you can completely ignore that if you want to and faff around doing random ass stuff, it feels a lot more free than say Fallout 4 did (to me at least, and I love that game)

Anyway, I look forward to people speed running this and somehow beating it in 20 minutes wearing underwear and wielding a branch and a wooden pot lid

My ONLY gripe is the combat system is a little weird, you have to manually lock-on targets, which is normal for 3D Zelda games, but kinda meh. I'm spoiled by Batman's or even NieR Automata's fluid combat systems

[Melbosa]

So far I've been really enjoying the Havok engine AND not having to get caught up in any specific quest after the tutorial zone. The dialog is startlingly aware (*walks in with no shirt* "I didn't realize this was that kind of spa"!?!)

The main thing is you get a lot of powers that give you options you don't get in a lot of games. I mean sure you can lift yourself over walls by standing on buckets / 10mm pistols and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps in Creation Engine games (thank you Bethesda) but that's kinda unintentional. This game gives you the tools and expects you to use them

I discovered doing a puzzle the other day (it's one of those ball + maze puzzles you play with the motion controls) that because you can turn the puzzle any damn which way you want and the ball resets in the same place you can simply rotate the puzzle so that you drop the ball in the easiest spot to solve the puzzle. It's one of those AHA moments.

Mechanically the game teaches you pretty early on to look for opportunities like this, for example: you get a hang glider, you see an entrance to a dungeon, you see a ledge not too far away... it shouldn't take most gamers too much effort to do the math, once the game teaches you stuff like this it changes how you play it.

The whole starting area kinda teaches you a lot of important stuff, like I figured out pretty quickly that if I was carrying something on fire in a cold zone (like a torch or a flaming arrow) then I could stay warm, but as soon as I tried to use my Sheika tablet to fix a bridge that I have to pass is it would put away my heat source and I'd start freezing. Well not far away there's a little spot with enemies and a farm of spicy peppers and a conspicuous cook pot... oh well let's see if I take these basic food items I've been collecting so far that give me small bonuses and cook them together I get a bunch of big combined bonuses, adding the spicy peppers to a recipe added a bonus effect against cold that let me wander around for up to 8 minutes per meal and not die. I swear, stuff like this is genius!

I haven't even gotten into the crafting part, but I see materials all over the world, and the world is BIG. You are given so many tools for traversing the world it seems like less of a concern though, from using your glider to finding horses to tame and ride... it all just fits so easy. PRO-TIP your horse will generally follow paths (if you've played The Witcher III you know what this feels like) AT FIRST I was trying to actively drive my horse, like a car in GTA, but this was hella awkward and the horse didn't like it much, then I realized that if I trusted the horse it USUALLY figured out where I wanted to go anyway and so now riding is kinda relaxing, just gotta speed up / slow down depending on what I want to do. I've never really played a game where horse riding felt as natural where you trust that this virtual animal has a brain and will stick to paths and not run into stuff. Horseback archery is not a problem when the horse is doing the driving and you're doing the shooting!

This game gives you so much agency over where you go and what you do that it really feels like it lets you play the way you want to. Yeah the main questline is mostly rails BUT it seems like you can completely ignore that if you want to and faff around doing random ass stuff, it feels a lot more free than say Fallout 4 did (to me at least, and I love that game)

Anyway, I look forward to people speed running this and somehow beating it in 20 minutes wearing underwear and wielding a branch and a wooden pot lid

My ONLY gripe is the combat system is a little weird, you have to manually lock-on targets, which is normal for 3D Zelda games, but kinda meh. I'm spoiled by Batman's or even NieR Automata's fluid combat systems

Got lost there for a sec until I realized you were talking about Zelda... you want this still in this thread about game moments or do you want to merge it with the Zelda thread?

[Mr. Analog]

TBH I didn't realize this was its own thread until I saw the update just now



Here's a gaming WTF moment

I was playing Mega Man III way back when and my sister had the second controller for funzies. Mega Man is a single player game so whatever, push buttons have a grand ol' time

EXCEPT we discovered that if somebody held down "RIGHT" on the d-pad when Mega Man falls into a pit he can jump out again, but his life meter is empty... so that means he can take infinite damage for the rest of the level / boss fight. The only thing that can kill you is falling in another pit (and miss the window to press the button) or hit a spike

[Melbosa]

I think one of the ones from my childhood would be learning the Konami code and using it on EVERYTHING to see if it would do something.  Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B and later added Select, Start.  So many games, so many cheats!

[Melbosa]

OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE BEST!

I recall we didn't have a memory card so we tried to beat both Resident Evil 2 and MGS in one go... the Playstation got hot that night (and morning)

That's right, I forgot we didn't buy a memory card so we had No way to save progress LOL.  That was a very long and fun night!

[Melbosa]

Oh I remembered one thinking about the good old PS1 days... so the ONLY reason I bought one, and the ONLY reason I worked at CompuCentre in Kingsway was to buy one, was for Final Fantasy 7.  And man I put HOURS and HOURS into that game... and then....

Spoiler

Aeris is killed after so many gawd damn hours, team building and investment.  F U Sephiroth!!!!

[close]

I swore at the TV, almost kicked the console I was sooo mad, so WTF just happened?

[Mr. Analog]

OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE BEST!

I recall we didn't have a memory card so we tried to beat both Resident Evil 2 and MGS in one go... the Playstation got hot that night (and morning)

That's right, I forgot we didn't buy a memory card so we had No way to save progress LOL.  That was a very long and fun night!

Gotta do that again, for old times sake haha



Here's another one:

Playing TF2 with a bunch of randos and we found a way to clip through the floor on one of the newer maps (I think this was 2014?) anyway rather than go full stupid and just have everybody down there as Engineers / Heavies or other obvious things we had 1 Engie and a team full of Spies, so the other team were getting obliterated near their spawn and thought it was just a bunch of sneaky men doing their thing, I've never seen so much confusion on a server ever - they went mad spy-checking everywhere. They'd hear Spy specific stuff like disguise kits, guns, quotes but WHERE SCHPEE? Can't find! They had no idea we were in the ground. It was the plot of "Battle Beneath the Earth" but without all the racism! (well, mostly, it WAS a public Valve server...)

It was a magical thing

Oh I remembered one thinking about the good old PS1 days... so the ONLY reason I bought one, and the ONLY reason I worked at CompuCentre in Kingsway was to buy one, was for Final Fantasy 7.  And man I put HOURS and HOURS into that game... and then....

Spoiler

Aeris is killed after so many gawd damn hours, team building and investment.  F U Sephiroth!!!!

[close]

I swore at the TV, almost kicked the console I was sooo mad, so WTF just happened?

Oh you know what pisses Tonnica off more than anything? Yuffie. When you meet her she steals Materia from you ... which you never got back, even after she joined the party.

But yeah, nothing worse than building up an NPC partner and having them DIE (or leave permanently, taking your stuff)

Actually one of the gameplay concessions in Fallout 4 I actually liked was NPCs could no longer suffer perma-death. In F3 and NV I built up a few companions and... watched them die really stupid deaths, and of course they were STUFFED with extra weapons and valuables... which I had to completely abandon augh. Also there were a few companions that would leave you if your karma swung in either direction too far, bye-bye stuff! See ya! Also you'd get companions and have adventures with them... unless things were really tough in which case you had to them hide somewhere safe and do the dangerous things yourself so they wouldn't run face first into a dude with a missile launcher or something stupid.

[Darren Dirt]

[ I am translating "blow you away" with "memorable for years afterwards" ]

3. All-night PvP of the original "Lemmings" on the Atari ST with my best friend. This would be back in 1989 or 1990 or so.

2. 1998 or 1999 almost failing NAIT CST because of a short-lived but painfully intense "Command and Conquer: Red Alert" obsession/addiction.

1. 200x-200y Pretty much every damn nightly "Task Force" I did with you awesome group of friends in City Of Heroes for that short window of time where we all actually played the same game to a similar degree of involvement.

...I guess I'm not much of a modern gamer...

TTYL buds. In probably a week or so.

[Melbosa]

I remember a LAN party at Lazy's place, and some idiot says "Have you heard of this DICE company, some game called Battlefield 1942? I think the demo came out this week" (if I remember it was September long 2002 or 2003), and there goes the LAN party. One whole long weekend of one map called Wake Island and hours and hours of game play.  We might have played something else in there... but I can't remember.

But the one big moment I remember of that weekend was taking a plane, flying it so high that the map wasn't really visible and ejecting... seeing how fast the falling body could go before deploying that shoot.  And what happens?  The guy @%&#s his pants on the way down - I mean really who thought to put that in, and when did a developer go "I think someone would be so scared that he'd @%&# himself if he free fell that far that fast!"

[Mr. Analog]

[ I am translating "blow you away" with "memorable for years afterwards" ]

3. All-night PvP of the original "Lemmings" on the Atari ST with my best friend. This would be back in 1989 or 1990 or so.

2. 1998 or 1999 almost failing NAIT CST because of a short-lived but painfully intense "Command and Conquer: Red Alert" obsession/addiction.

1. 200x-200y Pretty much every damn nightly "Task Force" I did with you awesome group of friends in City Of Heroes for that short window of time where we all actually played the same game to a similar degree of involvement.

...I guess I'm not much of a modern gamer...

TTYL buds. In probably a week or so.

Oh man epic CoH runs! Those were the days, getting slammed in the face by Dr. Vahzilok over and over...

I solo'd my way pretty far with my villain characters, I should have gone blaster when I started, tank sucked if you were solo.

I remember a LAN party at Lazy's place, and some idiot says "Have you heard of this DICE company, some game called Battlefield 1942? I think the demo came out this week" (if I remember it was September long 2002 or 2003), and there goes the LAN party. One whole long weekend of one map called Wake Island and hours and hours of game play.  We might have played something else in there... but I can't remember.

But the one big moment I remember of that weekend was taking a plane, flying it so high that the map wasn't really visible and ejecting... seeing how fast the falling body could go before deploying that shoot.  And what happens?  The guy @%&#s his pants on the way down - I mean really who thought to put that in, and when did a developer go "I think someone would be so scared that he'd @%&# himself if he free fell that far that fast!"

GOD YES and y'know Wake Island is still one of the most playable mutliplayer maps out there... so good

I seem to recall that LAN party or one around the same time with Tribes 2, me and a guy I used to work with played a fair chunk of Tribes 2 but nobody else really did, for once I completely dominated all your asses... GOOD TIMEZ eh heh heh...

Anybody else remember Crimson Skies at Mike's?

[Melbosa]

Anybody else remember Crimson Skies at Mike's?

Oh yeah now that was a game with some awesome OMG play.  That was about the same time as Giants: Citizen Kabuto, which made me cry with laughter: "Timmy, Timmy, TIMMMAAAYYYY"

Here's one I remember.  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, collecting all those items and then killing the guy at the end (and end the game).  A buddy of mine noticed something weird so we reloaded the game to kill the orb (if I remember correctly) instead of the guy (man can't remember his name) and then the "Reverse Castle" which took you from a Game Ending battle to a "your 50%" done the game.  One of those: "really how much longer can this game be?" moments from my youth.

[Mr. Analog]

Anybody else remember Crimson Skies at Mike's?

Oh yeah now that was a game with some awesome OMG play.  That was about the same time as Giants: Citizen Kabuto, which made me cry with laughter: "Timmy, Timmy, TIMMMAAAYYYY"

Here's one I remember.  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, collecting all those items and then killing the guy at the end (and end the game).  A buddy of mine noticed something weird so we reloaded the game to kill the orb (if I remember correctly) instead of the guy (man can't remember his name) and then the "Reverse Castle" which took you from a Game Ending battle to a "your 50%" done the game.  One of those: "really how much longer can this game be?" moments from my youth.

When we went to Jasper after graduating NAIT I managed to buy a copy of the damn game and played the @%&# out of it while we were there. That's one of the few games I've 100%'d (well, technically 200.6% of the map explored and EVERY weapon in the game including the goddamn super rare drops AUGH)



Actually here's a WHOA moment for me, when I first played Fallout 3 I didn't know what to expect, Tonnica was the big Fallout fan and through talking with her I ended up getting it (one of the first non-Valve Steam games I owned!) I put off playing it for a while because I was a little intimidated by it but man when I started I got right into it, the prologue where you start life (by being born no less) was great but what REALLY took my breath away was the first few steps outside the Vault. I mean words can't describe the feeling of seeing Springvale for the first time, slowly revealed to you as your eyes adjust. The sound design complimented what you saw and it was breathtaking, the silence was very loud at that point (I mean it would be a solid 10 hours before I started shooting teddy bears at people with a junk gun at least)



Another WHOA moment was thanks to Bioshock Infinite, some background first, when I got the game I wanted to explore the storytelling and not so much the combat (Bioshock games are great but the bullet sponge difficulty is a bit stupid) so I set the game difficulty to EASY. I blazed my way through the game (literally, first achievement: "Written in the Clouds" 26 Mar, 2013 @ 6:03pm, final achievement: "Tin Soldier" 27 Mar, 2013 @ 3:05am, why yes officer I played the game with virtually no stops for 9 hours)

Anyway it MAY have been due to the fact that I was tired as hell but the ENDING was just mind blowing at the time. That feeling of all these threads coming together and things falling into place was nuts, especially so late and after so much.

I'll never forget that...

[Lazybones]

The only INSTALLER that I recall because it stood out: https://youtu.be/77k-eNscp2k
Also one of the better early sound tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4AUY-v1nsE

[Mr. Analog]

Classics!

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