f13.net

I am slow on the bandwagon for games and just started playing the sequal to Vampire the Masquerade.  Ego aside, the adventure to the house haunted by the slain child scared the shit out of me.  I felt like I was watching / participating in a good horror flick.

I would have to count this as a "moment" in gaming for me - where the game illicited a visceral reaction from me I might have in the real world or at the cinema (there was also a similar "moment" in the prequal for me).

Anyone else had "moments" in other games?

Aerith Gainsbourough getting murdered.

Yea, that haunted house level in Bloodlines was outstanding.

Other moments...

Reaching Kara ( a hidden town, not on the world map) in AC for the first time, before the days of Stratics sites.

The evil choice you have to make in KotoR. If you've played it, and played Darkside, you know which one I mean.

Half Life's opening.
Half Life 2's opening, Ravenholm.
Doom 3's opening. (sadly, the moment did not continue, as the rest of the game sucked)
End of the Floating Continent in FF6.
The last third of Max Payne 2.
Stalingrad in Call of Duty.
Omaha Beach in the first Medal of Honor PC title (before WWII games become COMPLETELY cliche').
The ending of Final Fantasy Tactics.
Most all of Resident Evil 4.

This should really be called a spoiler thread.

God of War
Sacrificing the spartan Warrior.
The church cutscene.
The middle of the 3 sections against Ares.
The ending.

We <3 Katamari
The Collect the Cousins hidden stage.

HL2
Ravenholm. I don't go there anymore. Ever. Again.

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy
The Agatha scene.

Resident Evil 4
The first time you have to do something during a cutscene.
The whole game.

Lumines
Unlocking Lights for the first time. A bloody fucking 3 hour marathon of gaming.

Phantom Dust
In the first 5 minutes realizing the combat system is perfect for MMOGs.
Realizing there should be a Phantom Dust MMOG.

Zelda 1/2/3
Getting the master sword. Always felt great.

Every time I lance someone in the face in Mount & Blade. The crunch sound it makes, how I lined it up, everything just makes me feel GOOD.

CRUNCH.

Heh yep. The only thing that would make it better would be a force feedback mouse to rattle around  :-D

I sure wish they would put out an update- I am really curious to see what they do with it.

I thought it was "Aeris".   And yah, that's the first one I usually think of.  I was shocked and sad.  Perhaps you're just being sarcastic here though considering most people would think of this one.  Meanie.   

System Shock 2 tended to mess with me a bit. I think the worst was reading up about the cyborg midwife through the PDA entries and then encountering one.  All of the noises the creatures made just un-nerved me.  I was rattled half of the time playing it.

Eternal Darkness: the "tub of blood" image.  Shivers.   Some really great stuff in that game, a lot of it in the cutscenes.  The first few times the insanity meter screwed with the game was also quite interesting. 

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.  Getting told to shoot the female Israeli agent as you descend in an elevator and getting no explanation behind it.  Then shooting her, and getting no explanation.  It just felt wrong, you know there was something wrong, and yet you get no satisfaction.  Life of a Sam Fischer.


Yah, you could taste the delicious evil in that scene.

Pretty much every moment of the Max Payne series except the one annoying hallucination level. I love a good noir story, I love participating in one even more.

Lumines: playing the "Shake your body" level while delerious with flu.  Not really memorable in a good way though.

UO. Lots here, but a particularly visceral reaction would be the first time I heard an ebolt.  Sounded like a cross between a shriek and a scream and all who got hit by it died.  Freaky.  Hearing that noise was not a good thing.

Dead serious, the only time I ever cried for a video game character. I must've been 15 or so when it came out.

Heh actually, as much as I've gotten ticked by the gankfests, there was one instance in WoW recently that I loved. There's an Orc NPC in Ashenvale named "Torek", standing in the woods with 3 other Orc NPC's near the Silverwing Outpost (an Elf outpost). He gives an escort quest, where he wants you to help raid Silverwing with him.


Anyways, the quest is designed for mob killing, but Silverwing was a place where Player Elves would come in from time to time and gank lower lvl Horde characters near there. I didn't really know this at the time, but I accepted the quest anyways. "Get Ready", he says. Then the NPC's start running...

The moment we reach there, lo and behold, there's 3 higher lvl red names beating on a couple poor Horde players. Then Torek and others, by script, start charging, "For the HOORRDDE!!" LOL. 4 NPC Orcs and an Undead Warrior to the rescue. The lowbies were saved and all the Elves didn't know what hit them.

It was just a funny little, PERFECT moment, where PvE and PvP merged. I wish it could always be like that.

Another gaming moment for me was a combination of shock and humor - since I did not understand the game's AI for allies.

Fallout.  Marcus (big like an Ogre) was my NPC friend that travelled with me.  I entered a bar in New California, and what was supposed to be a lead in into an adventure started with a snotty NPC (son of someone important) challenging me to a brawl in the bar.

It never happened.  Marcus stepped forward the moment the kid challenged me, and lit his flame thrower on my challenger in the middle of the bar.  The kid's body danced around for a few seconds and then crumpled into ash.  I was completely shocked.

It seemed like a completely unscripted, unexpected action by an friend NPC.  In playing the game subsequent times without Marcus, the fist fight proceeded and lead into a quest.  That event all depended on the type of NPC friend you had with you - and the combat parameters you set on him.

Regarding WoW..


That is a great example.  I encountered some centaurs attacking a horde outpost and both players and NPCs were all involved.  It really made the game feel alive.

Most of my moments steem from japanese RPGs to consoles, I'm a sucker for all of them.

I cried at the ending of Ico (before a glitch interrupted the cutscene).

I also nearly shit myself at the tubgirl scene in Eternal Darkness. I was going to mention that before I saw Rasix's post. Also the room (in one of the middle east levels?) where there are three tiers of zombies and I accidentally saved right before coming in with only a tick on my sanity meter, and I had to kill perfectly each and every one of those fuckers just to keep a little sap in my sanity meter. (runon sentence much?) My palms sweated more then than when I asked Sauced if he wanted to be my boyfriend.

Silent Hill 4 when those babydoll-head things come running on their hands from around the corner, and when that Ringu-esque lady crawls after you on the subway car.

I also have a visceral reaction in any platform where walking a tightrope/narrow ledge is involved. Especially in Majora's Mask (or Ocarina of Time?) when you hafta do it quickly to get the hammer.

The first time I put on the Deku mask in Majora's Mask gave me the jitters.

That really upset me, I still think about it sometimes.

I was playing the Japanese version (because I didn't want to have to wait another year for the English release) and started madly scanning the translations I had printed out looking for her name - hoping that she came back some how.  In vain.

The Cradle.

Some of the cutscenes in Final Fantasy X were a little emotionally rough.  Best tearjerker was Yuna's 'breakdown'.

Another favorite of mine was the Planetside 'Bending' event.  But that was more an 'Oh shit' moment as asteroids started falling out of the sky and everything started blowing up as my squad was racing for bombshelters.  A similar event involved leading a galaxy squad on a drop that somehow went from a commando raid to a continental conquest in the span of 30 minutes. 

The most recent one was in the underrated 'Radiata Stories' game by SquareEnix that just was released.  The decision your character has to make halfway through is surprisingly deep and had me questioning everything I knew about the story up till then.

The first time one of my marines got mind controlled in X-Com and killed another of my guys.

When my troll warrior was taken over by that end mage fucker in Shadowfang Keep and I killed our Mage in like three hits.

Here's one I had recently. First time in Scarlet Monastary - being lead through by a couple lev 60s. We come in to Herod's room and they tell me to wait at the top while they fight him. They didn't tell me what was going to happen after Herod dropped...

The top of the stairs in Zul'Farrek was quite good too, even if it made my computer puke.

Didn't we do this for MMOs already? Anyway....

I actually don't remember caring too much when Aeris died...I didn't use her anyway.

I remember the final fight of BG: The Throne of Bhaal. I had fought through a lengthy fight of a continuous horde of really mean baddies, with no break inbetween waves. When the final lady comes out with a bunch of baddies, I think "Oh shit, I have like no heals left, and my HP is shit on most of my toons." I pause to look through my abilities, trying to see what I have left that could help. Then I look at Jaheria's spells, and see that I still had a use of Harm (on hit, fail save = reduced to 1 hp). I cast it, thinking there was no way the game would actually let me use something like this on the final boss of a game.

It hit. Uber boss reduced to 1 hp.


Coordinating the raid to get my rogue his Ragebringer epic in EQ was fun.

I'm sure there were plenty of Sega/SNES moments, but I cannot think of any in particular.

Planescape:Torment - when I finally discovered the story behind the Circle of Zerthimon and the history between TNO's and Dak'kon.  It was a wonderful piece of storytelling and really brought through some of the history and character of TNO.

And now we open it up to the full spectrum of gaming. Ahh the wonders of the internet. 

We have about one of these threads per year.   It's always good to be reminded of why you play games.  That gut reaction to a great gaming moment can live with you for a while. 

The Jungle level in Diablo 3. The music, the atmosphere, it was perfectly immersive.

EDIT: I meant 2, damn drinking.

GO GO TRAVINCAL! God I loved killing those council members. Ahhhh the loot whoring.

I thought the 3rd chapter in Diablo 2 was the weakest one.

The second and 4th chapter were awesome, as was the expansion's.

Echo last third of Max Payne 2.  You knew what was going to happen and it still broke your heart.

Yeah, there's a "good" ending though.

I remember there's a certain stairway in Max Payne 2 that leads down into a garage. I don't know how many times I reloaded this part, just so I could try to do the entire portion (about 1 minute) entirely within bullet time.

When you start racking up kills, the game Really slowed down.

Oh yeah, without getting hit, too.

There's a different ending??  I've beaten the game numerous times on the hardest level - how do you get it?

You beat the game on 'dead on arrival'?

Dammit. 

Give me two days.

Couple cutscenes from FF7 (Aeris dying being sad, Sephiroth torching the town and striding through the flames as an OMGAWESOME moment)  Plus the final one on one battle between Cloud and Sephiroth at the end of the game.  A very powerful "Let's settle this, motherfucker." moment.  Some of the animations for the Summon Materia were really impressive the first time.  Knights Of The Round was amazing the first time I saw it, though by the 50th time it kinda had a "Okay, let's speed this up guys, getting tired of it." feeling.

Final Fantasy 2 (american, I don't know which number it was in Japan, can never remember) when fighting the giant of Babel and all the allies you've made along the way show up to help.

The sudden rush you'd feel playing Diablo II when you see green or gold text.  I didn't even care if a unique was crap, I liked to collect them.

Some of the fights I had in DAoC where I just played really well.  Like when I PA'd a berserker running on his own, finished the chain, ran to get some distance, let him chase, restealthed, turned around and hit him again.  Course, he still won (goddamn buffbots!!) but I was very happy with how well I played that fight.  Also, when my group of friends and I managed to take down two or three times (sometimes even more) our number on our own, that was always satisfying.  Being an assassin in keep wars- whether climbing up the walls to attack defenders or hanging near the walls to chop up enemy assassins trying to sneak it, I always enjoyed it.

Same for Guild Wars.  Any time I was the last one standing on my team and managed to take out the remaining 2 or 3 enemies on my own and pull out the win for us.

The first few times my friends and I really pushed the limits on how many enemies you could fight at once in CoH.  Coming from DAoC where 2 enemies was more than you wanted pulled, it was amazing to pull 30 or 40 enemies and come out on top.  Amazing and damn fun.

Resident Evil 4.  The first time I encountered one of those blind claw dudes.  He's locked in that cell and chained against the wall, completely still, and the lever you have to pull is right next to him.  Of course I knew exactly what was coming, but it was completely nerve wracking to creep up next to him and hit that lever.  Also, the Krauser fights (cutscene knife fight and boss fight, both amazing).  Lastly, the first time I shot out a Regenerator's legs thinking "Ha, this'll buy me some time, he's helpless on the ground like thHOLY SHIT GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF AAAAHHHHHHH"

It's been said already, but the haunted house in Vampire.

The first time I went through Time Crisis 2 in an arcade on one credit.

The first time I went through Marvel VS Capcom in an arcade on one credit.

And, as I've been a fan of the antihero since I first realized that Protoman wasn't just evil, just about every major "antihero saves the day" moment- Shadow sacrificing himself on the floating island, Magus agreeing to join the group to help destroy Lavos,

Er, about Shadow. You can save him.

Patience simply can't be taught in these young gamers.

I still cry when ol' yeller dies.

And GeeDubya says No New Taxes.

<sigh>

Let me rephrase-

Shadow risking his life to allow everyone to escape the floating island, sacrificing himself unless you wait for him to catch up.

To be honest, I forgot that you have to wait for him.  I just assumed you picked him up again in the post-Empire world, like everyone else.  But it's been many years since I played.  I just remember having him throw stuff at Kefka, the stuff inbetween is a bit blurry.

Thinking back on it, Shadow wasn't really the coolest character in that game.  Setzer was.  But Shadow wasn't that far behind.

I don't really have any memorable moments from FF7... I didn't have a PS, so I had to wait for the PC version, by which time I had already heard the entire story several times over on a bunch of message boards (and I still don't understand it).  Grr!

Probably the most relevant, recent moment I can think of is from Thief 3...  (spoiler alert, etc.)  It's been a while, so the details are probably off, but this is how I remember it:

There's this secret society of mystics called the "Keepers" who basically work behind the scenes in all the Thief games, pulling all the strings.  They've got these magic glyphs that they use to do this.  Anyway, this evil monster character basically infiltrates their ranks, trying to use them for her own purposes.  At the end of the game, she reveals her "true form" as this badass monster/mystic character, who's lived for hundreds of years and is better at glyph magic than all the keepers combined, and she uses (part of) this magic to make her invulnerable to physical harm, too.  She's standing in the Keeper hall when she does this, and they (naturally) freak out, and attack her.  She basically rips through the Keeper's elite guard like they're not even there, beats the shit out of your contact with the keepers, launches their scribes through the walls, et cetera.  Huge badass time, basically. 

And there's me, playing as Garret, thinking, "Oh, fuuuuuck," 'cause all the guys she's shredding effortlessly have been kicking my ass for the whole second half of the game.  And I'm right next to her, holding the loot she wants.

And then she says something like "Garret!  You can't hide forever!"

And the next thing that crossed my mind was the phrase "Waaaaaaait a minute... she can't fucking see me..."

I was grinning like a maniac for the entire rest of that game.  To me, that moment, that sort of "I can't fight, I can't use magic or macine guns or giant robots, I'm not stronger or braver or higher level, but I STILL WIN" situation, is the essence of the Thief series.  I just loved that.

Most of the game of Secret of Evermore.  The alchemy system was just soul-crushingly bad, but the game as a whole was surprisingly fun- and more importantly, funny.

Me: "You know, it's ironic that you are called Tiny because you are actually quite large."

Tiny: "Me know.  Tiny like irony."

Escorting the British agent in Medal of Honor Allied Assault. I was in a house firing at nazis through the front door (they were outside in the yard). As I stood in the doorway picking off the enemies, he opens fire behind me with a machine gun, ripping me to shreds. I die, mission over, play again. The next time I just let him run past me into the yard, where he gets killed before I can pick off all the enemies. Mission over, play again.

The reason I was going through the house in the first place was that he kept running straight for the nazis in the yard when I played the approved scripted path, getting killed, mission over, play again.

I hated that fucking game. Maybe it's because I'm not from a console background where there is an approved way to play through and you try it a hundred times until you figure it out. I like freedom and whatnot. BF1942 Omaha >>> MoH:AA Omaha imo.

My last "OMG WTF LOLZ CUM CUM CUM" moment was while playing Wolfenstein 3D (forget the exact name, you know, the latest one that was pretty).  I started playing, and it was so amazing that I spent 3 days playing none stop almost, and barely sleeping.  It was just so well done and perfect!  And beating on the hardest setting was icing on the cake!  I think I got my hands on it a year or two after release.  I am always behind the curve.

Doom 3 scares me because I fear it would not be anywhere near as good as this game (I always equate the two series as similiar).  I figure I will finally attempt it around 2007.

Pretty much anytime in Thief 1 when fucking zombies showed up, I shit my pants. Especially that level where you have to find your way through the city to some church, I finally just gave up on the game because I couldn't make it through those areas. But Thief was just full of great gaming moments.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment, but when I finally realized in Deus Ex that I had a few different paths I could take to achieve the same ends. I could sneak or I could fight, but either one was equally good.

The first time I played ESPN NFL 2k3 in First-person mode. /sadf

The haunted house in Vampire: Bloodlines, and of course, all 3 of the Nosferatu endings.

The moment in Half-Life 1 when I figured out the soldiers would help each other, flank me and toss grenades.

The first time I took down a dragon in EQ1 with over 60 people from 15 different guilds. I was 39th level at the time (and most said that taking a level 40 on the run was risky because of the fear DOT) and hoping like hell I could remember the strategy I'd read on it.

The first time I traveled by foot from Qeynos to Freeport in EQ1, somewhere in my teens I think. Realizing that the player community around Freeport was completely different from that in Qeynos, before everyone had a druid port mule and could go anywhere.

The first time I played multiplayer Command & Conquer with my buddy.

Duke Nukem 3d and the strippers. Boob love.

The first LAN games of Duke Nukem 3d I experienced in the office I used to work in.

The first time I saw one of the cinematics in FFX and thought, "wow, Tidus is kinda hot", that was a moment.

Hammy has a good list!

Reminded me of an fps moment, playing Quake 2 LAN with a couple friends. I heard them duking it out in another room. I poked my head around the corner and cut loose with the BFG...they both heard it winding up and tried to run in different directions. Tried, but failed. LAN parties rock. And one of my favorite sneaky tactics is to poach two enemies who are concentrating on each other.  :evil:

Huh?

My inner fag couldn't even find him hot.

Remember in Grim Fandango. The last half of the game, where the characters were trudging through the blizzard up in the mountains. Completely exhausted. And you get there, and Glottis gets sick. Then you speed back to town, and have to fight the bad guy. And the last bit on the train, where Manny's a little apprehensive about moving onto the next world, and doesn't know what to expect.

That whole last half really touched me. And not in a creepy bad way. I always remember the pang of sadness I felt, physically in my stomach, when I saw them trudging through the snow, and how worried I was that Glottis wouldn't make it.


And the first Silent Hill. I had to turn all the lights on in the house for a few hours after playing that. And I kept having to take "I'm scared shitless" breaks and watch cartoons or something every hour or two.

He's hot until he opens his mouth.

I forgot Resident Evil 4. That moment when you fight the gigantic catfish, I realized then that this wouldn't just be a shooting game, it would throw new kinds of mini-game style gameplay at me every once in a while to break up the shooting. The knife fight with Whesker (?) later in the game was the same kind of thing.

Playing Karateka, getting all the way through it and then, approaching the princess still in a fighting stance and having her kick my ass.

Floyd sacrificing his life for you in Planetfall. He had gone from this annoying, bouncy pain in the ass, to your best friend. And now he was dying so you could live and get off of Resida.

Finishing Portal and figuring out where the rest of humanity had gone.

Like Haemish mentioned, my first EQ1 trip from Qeynos to Freeport as a level 12 half-elf ranger. I died three times, but when I finally got my ass across the continent, I felt accomplished. And yeah, the community was completely different.

Getting my first long term crew down in EQ1, which consisted of me, a chanter, a shammy and a warrior. Later we'd pick up a cleric and bring him up to speed and then take stuff on that groups 10 levels higher than us feared and do it with ease.

Playing the Half-Life beta and going, "damn nice AI", then playing the release and realizing that they'd dumbed it down a bit.

Building and igniting my first lightsaber in SWG. The game has gone by the wayside recently, largely due to jedi and the people that hate them, but for that one, brief, shining moment, I had walked the path and found myself happy to be among what was then only a handful of jedi.

Helping my girlfriend with her betrayal quest in EQ2. This had a bit to do with the mechanics of the quest, but also a lot to do with the way she roleplayed the whole thing.

Last and probably the greatest of all of these was the very first time I played Marathon. On the very first level, turning the corner and hearing the Pfhor warriors clicking their recognition that you were on ship and they were going to do whatever they could to destroy you. What ensued over the next weekend was just the best storytelling I'd ever seen in a game that wasn't by Infocom backed with groundbreaking FPS action and characters that made you want to keep going whether it be out of loyalty or spite.

Planescape - the 2nd half of the game. Pretty much once you find out who you are and what you have done.
The town making the transition from neutrality to evil was very cool. The people running around yelling and screaming in a panic.
The endings were all decent as well. Watching him grab the club and head down the stairs.

Starcontrol 2. Pretty much everything.

I got goosebumps from the hotel in Vampire Bloodlines. (Did I mention the Widescreen fix? + anamorphic mode = love)

Harclaves trial in EQ2. The storyteller telling the story of harclave falling into a cavern, and heroically fighting his way back. Only to have something nearly the same happen to you moments later.

Linky? Or on widescreengamingforum.com? I've been meaning to get back into that game since my hd crash wiped my saves (:().

Hard.  Many memories.

End credits of Super Mario World.  Great every time.

Eternal Darkness tub scene.  Werd.  I was totally paranoid for the rest of the game.  Also, the first hallucination.  And the second.

When SHODAN first appeared in System Shock 2.  I hate that bitch more than any other villain I can think of.

Getting my hands on the walking tank in Escape from Butcher Bay, and rampaging up to Howlin' Mad Murdock's office.  That game impressed the hell out of me in general.

Unloading a shotgun into a marine's face in AvP2 and seeing his jawbone on the floor.

The first zombie in Thief.  Also, the zombie that just laid there... I crept closer, waiting for him to jump up... but he didn't move and I was standing right next to him.  Obviously this one was just a corpse.  I creep forward a bit to look at the ceiling or something and DAMN IF THE FUCKER DIDN'T STAND UP AND LOOK ME RIGHT IN THE EYES!  Also the one that waited until he was directly behind me to moan.  Shit my pants.  Again.

A lot of people remember Aerith dying in FFVII.  I remember Cecil and Kain unwittingly torching the summoner village in FFIV (US II).  That really set the tone of the game and Cecil's growth as a person.  My favorite is IV, followed by VI.

When Dogmeat died.

Yea, torching the summoner village (I think it was Mist) was a great moment. I also enjoyed Palom and Porom sacrificing themselves before you fought Cagnazzo.

Werd.

I could do a whole page on just Fallout/Wasteland.

I love Fallout memories.  Not going to list - but even with its now dated graphics - the opening scene in Fallout 1 where the overseer describes the desperate situation for water and the need to emerge into the unknown world just swallowed my mind whole.  Total immersion.

Pretty much all of Final Fantasy 2. (Most of the major events, most of Edges' dialog)

Pretty much all of Silent Hill 2, especially the last 20 minutes then the ending itself. That game is seriously creepy. The sound combined with the character animation and graphics is amazing and the end is a pretty big mind-fuck.

Silent Hill 3 in the haunted house museum thing towards the end, in the room where the dead body is sitting. (I won't spoil it)

Resident Evil 3 running out of a room being chased by Nemesis only to have him open the door and follow you. (In previous games going into the next room through a door was always safe)

The first RE when the dogs jump through the windows in the long hallway.

The first time you see a major sanity effect in Eternal Darkeness. The scene where you first fight the really big monster in the bottom of some building. (Again I won't spoil it)

The opening movie for Warcraft II, with the kickass music in the background. It was my first RTS, and started my hideous addiction to the genre. Even if I suck at it.

Square's SNES efforts were the high-water mark for that sort of linear console RPG.  FF4, FF6, and Chrono Trigger were all classics.  Even Secret of Mana, despite all the excessive cuteness, was a great piece of work.  The downbeat ending redeemed the cuteness to a large extent, when you sat back and took the entire game as a whole.

The modern stuff?  Meh.  I played through FF7 once, shrugged, and never bothered to play another Square game again.  (Edit:  Except Bushido Blade.  I still play that now.  Bushido Blade pwns j00.)

I forgot 3:

1.  General Leo dying in FF3 and visiting his grave in Thamasa later.

2.  The ending of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.  Its the only ending that ever brought a tear to my eye.

3.  The moment in Crono Trigger when Crono and Nadia/Lucca view the computer screen of destruction after their first trip to the future and decide to fight Lavos- the heroic music starts playing.

Damn, I need to fire up my SNESemulator...

Dungeon Master on the ST.

That was it right there.  That's not where it started for me, but that's where it got....obsessive.

I can't remember which Ultima it was, but when I finished it, they had a parade for me.  No one has ever had a parade for me before or since.  That was kind of cool.  My first real day spent in UO was cool, too.  It was all awe and wonder.  I played a lute for hours and watched my dex go up.

Actually, I only started playing games to hang with the cool guys.  Then I found out the cool guys were getting stoned and rollerblading.  By the time I figured that out it was too late.  My back was shot from sitting on my ass all day playing games.

In Silent HIll 4 when you peek through the crack in the wall and the pink bunny (won't spoil it)

Nostalgia seems to fill in the gap between software house releasing anything decent....

Wow.  I have never heard someone mention that game.  I enjoyed it as well - for me - there seem to be an AI tactic where periodically they would take hostages during shootouts in the hallway.  It surprised and intrigued me.

Talk to a Mac gamer sometime (yes, we exist!)  :wink:.

;)

(http://www.paradisewebdesign.net/paradise/wei_4su0[1].gif)

Need I mention that we had Fallout, Myst, and Myth before anyone else as well?

Myth was crossplatform from go.

And we didn't get Fallout 2: Electric Boogaloo...

(well, we did, but like five years later. =P)

Myth was a fucking fantastic game, more rtS where you dont have unit building and resource gathering please.

And exploding dwarves.

The player variants that came out of that were nuts.

Rock 'em Sock 'em Dorf Riot is still my favorite. Four teams, four dwarves per team, one pit. Average game duration: 30 seconds.

I have to add a brand new favorite moment.

Firing off my newly made Gnomish Deathray for about the 4th time, only this time it blasts out a lightning bolt about three feet thick at the ogre accross the room. "Bunktavious crits Dustbelcher Shaman with Gnomish Deathray for 3702 damage."

Good game, but no Dogmeat.  Dogmeat is the Gamer's Cowbell.

Since I've been (again) giving serious consideration to having Makar tattooed on my person, I must reiterate that when I plugged in Wind Waker the first time I thought I was gonna squee myself. When you pull up a trunk from the bottom of the ocean for the first time and you just don't know what it'll be!! That's a special thing. And seeing the fairy queen was amazing.

(http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:l-ixvovptRMJ:http://saria.coolfreepage.com/images/tww/makar.jpg)

Sidenote: uhhh, I dare you to google image search "makar". Why are there nekkit ladies? Why? voodoolily confused.

I don't know, they probably just lifted the name from something else, a place or a person.

Excuse me while I clear my cache to get rid of the naked thumbnail from "crucified-women.com".  Ick.

It introduced the Mutant Town Marshal Marcus who would eventually become a travelling ally if you wanted.  In all the games - that is my favorite NPC travelling companion.

Fallout 2 wins for me because of the Remo Williams The Destroyer reference.

</obscure>

And that you can sex people until they die.

I actually enjoyed the paladin in BG2. I played as a paladin, and it was a pretty nice thing they had going on, very peaceful and benevolent.

My favorite NPC sidekick was probably the Githzerai from Planescape, just because I used to obsess over Githyanki as bad guys in my AD&D youth. Fiend Folio Ftw.

Best NPC companion? HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic.

I would give Minsc and Boo 2nd place. "Go for the eyes, Boo. THE EYES!"

Bah I was hunting for rat poison from the NPC vendors, I got so sick of hearing that.  Well original adventure anyway.  Minsc's repertoire opened up in the later expansions.

Everything you say is now suspect.

Oops. Yeah.

How about the end of Monkey Island 2, when you get the reveal that the whole first two games are just the imagination of two young brothers (Guy and Chuck) on a OMG!Pirates funfair ride...


...and then, halfway through the credits, it cuts back to Elaine on Dinky Island, wondering what's taking Guybrush so long.
Pure genius.

Maniac Mansion. When you mouseover the diagram of the human brain and it says, "Soft chewy center"

Another one - the first time that you irredeemably screw up a level in Lemmings, but your Lemmings are all still alive.

5
4
3
2
1
"Oh no!"
Poppoppopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopopop.

I would say the Black Whirlwind from Jade Empire belong somewhere on the "Best NPC buddy" list.

Worst? I'd say Tomy from Neverwinter Nights. "OY, 'OLD UP THERE!"

My most merorable gaming moment was from "Unreal". When unreal came out, it was one of the first games that really needed a graphics card. I went out and bought a Voodoo2, and was amazed by the graphics.

Anyway, in the beginging, you are walking around, and there is a ton of carnage anmd bodies, but no real enemies. You get to that part where you have to power down the generator to pass a force field. You walk to the end of the long hallway, and power it off. You hear.

CHUNK....... CHUNK....... CHUNK...... and you notice the lights turning off. One at a time, getting closer to you. You run down the hallway, and smack into a closed door. You turn around, and the darkness is getting closer and closer. finally, you are all in the dark. and you hear "GGGGGRRRRRROOOOWWWWWLLLLLL" and one of the Skarj jumps out, and the lights start flashing and the music kicks in.

I dont think I will ever forget that moment.

The infamous lights incident from Unreal. Ah...

Unreal 2 payed a homage to it. Sadly, it sucked in every other meaningful way.

Gaming moments...

10six:  
-First time being locked as a newbie, I had no idea what was going on half my rovers (tanks -controled like rts units) didn't have guns and my artillery turrets were on open ground.  But I did tank (killing someone with your avatar --fps combat) one of the attackers before everything was destroyed.  It took about two more lockings before I got the hang of the game.
-After retail launch, being in a mdn (clan) that just stomped on people, to the point where we would hit camps and nobody would defend because if they did they knew they would be next.  We disbanded three mdn's in the first week it was great.
-Every time I was ever involved in newbie locking another player, the satisfaction after a long and desperate fight of running through fields of the enemies stuff as the last buildings were destroyed.  The lag of blowing up full warehouses was always a nice touch.
-The time as we were locking someone we didn't like for perhaps the 3rd or 4th time the account logged back in and started talking to us saying it was Superstar's (the player) mother and he was crying on the bed and what had we done.

Outwars:
-Jumpjets, god I love jumpjets.

Tribes:
-Everything about that game was memorable, highlights include every successful flag return and cracking the top10 of the OGL ladder first with the Dirty Dozen (d12) and later with Allstars.  Also the Lan parties I participated in for that game.

Myth (I and II):
-King of the Hill... best gametype ever... the fake rushes and counter fakes as the timer reached zero were such an adrenaline rush.

MPBT3050:
-Becomming one of the top tier Marik players and considered a savoir when me and the others I fought with showed up on a planet to repel the fucking sweiners.
-Being one of the only people to use a vindicator in that game, the ppc would scare the shit out of people.

SB:
-Being part of the nation (the begotten) that created the LAPD to combat r30 on scorn and taking part in the first successful siege of an r30 city (which led to the first of the cracks that splintered that nation).

"You have been eaten by a Grue."

I'm a jetpack whore.

About a year ago, I found my Outwars cd while rearranging things, and tossed it in for nostalgia's sake.  I almost wished I hadn't.  The graphics were alot worse than I recalled, and years of MMORPG's had eroded on my reaction time, leading to me eating dirt constantly.

I uninstalled it a few hours later.  I think I've been spoiled too much by Tribes to appreciate it now for what it was then.

"Marines dont die! They go to hell and regroup!"

hehe Outwars... good f'ing times.

Ahh...Tribes. My buddy the eqholic was a flag-capping jetpack whore, we used to have a great time playing that game. I always played the sneaky defensive guy, and it never really got old cleaning up the guys chasing the eqholic back to base. Setting up defenses + plasma mortar ftw. Tribes 2 in many ways is still one of the best online games ever made, Planetside and BF2 are the only others even close imo.