Most Powerful Gaming Moments

TheOneFreeMan

TheOneFreeMan

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For you, what's the most powerful moment of video game narrative you've ever played? Been doing a lot of thinking about the relationship between story and gameplay experiences, and I'm interested to hear what everyone elses are.

Mass Effect's Virmire mission is one of the more recent highlights for me; may have been a cliche, but hell ... it did the cliche justice, and stuck in my head. Other than that, I have great memories of Little Big Adventure (Relentless), simply for the feeling of sheer childhood wonder of that entire game. Played it when I was about 8 and the thought of it still makes me smile.

And yours? When you think of gaming moments and icons that really stick with you on a personal level, what comes to mind?
 
Thief 3. Played that game for like 12 hours straight and stayed up the whole night because I was so engrossed in the story. Not to mentioned too scared to get up.
 
Certain parts of Modern Warfare 2, too many to name really.
 
Playing Penumbra: Black Plague and discovering the empty office where your father died and reading his notes.
 
Tali's trial in ME2. I messed up the first time and she was banished. I was so frustrated that I backtracked 4 hours of gameplay to fix it. (I'll give you one guess which romance option I picked) The resulting speech (full Paragon ROCKS) was pretty awesome.

I'll have to agree that Virmire was another powerful moment. (There where a bunch in Mass Effect 1 and 2. like the speech you give when first setting out on the SR1)

The end of HL2 EP2 was terribly powerful. I remember shouting "NO!" and watching in horror... afterwards I stared at the screen for a while... a good long while.

Talking to the Rachni Queen in ME1. "When WE speak, ONE moves All." SOOOOOO COOOOOL!

Getting hugged by Alyx in EP1 (why cant Gordon get more hugs... like when the Vorts healed her in EP2?... but that is another topic for another thread.)


Other than HL and ME I really haven't played many story heavy games.
 
FF7. Aeris.

Also - The first Call of Duty with that whole jeep escape scene. That was intense.
 
-Your first tank/witch in L4D
-The russian charge in COD1
-RDR ending
-Niko Bellic and what happens at the wedding
 
The opening moments of HL2 (/everybody yawns). I was just blown away by how well realised City 17 was, by the atmosphere and immersion. Also by Breen's first anti-Freeman speech, which occurs just before the lock gate complex on the canals - I had taken that moment to admire some of the background scenery, perched as I was on a canal walkway above floating corpse of a metrocop, when Breen's voice started to sound out and echo around the ugly tower blocks in the distance, warning everyone about me. That moment really gave me ownership of Gordon's isolation and badassness, making his character my own. (It was only on a second play through that I noticed the Breencast is also played on the screen in the nearby room)

Several points of Planescape: Torment. I've never felt so emotionally involved with the personalities of NPCs, so excellent is the writing. I loved questioning them and reasoning with them until, on occasion, I'd be left gaping at some freshly unravelled revelation about their/my past. The endgame was particularly packed with intense emotionings.

Hitman 2 - the penultimate mission in St. Petersburg.
There is something obviously fishy about the easiness of this mission objective when it's given to you, compared to all the crazy hard stuff that had gone before. Still, I was being particularly dense that day, and it took me ages to figure out that my sniper rifle was filled with blanks, even when the target didn't flinch at all the bullets I believed should be passing through his head. When I backtracked all the way downstairs, all the way across the square, all the way to the room where the target was standing, only to discover that he was a cardboard cutout, I did a little wee of fear. Then when the shit started hitting the fan, I did a little pooh.

Ico, at the battlements overlooking the castle frontispiece. The environment always leaves me dumbstruck. There's something unspeakably mindblowing about the design of the castle, so fiendishly constructed is it that it's a relief to discover it has something as human as an entrance. At the same time, the hazy view of the trees and cliffs across the water make you yearn for freedom so badly that you're once again instilled with the same lugubriousness that pervades the rest of the game. Also
the reunion with Yorda after getting separated ;( Berry saddo desu

Don't spoil yourself or you won't feel the powah.
 
There are quite a few in my 15 years of PC Gaming. Here's a few I can remember at the top of my head:

1. Facing the Heresiarch for the first time in Hexen. Coming face to face with the Heresiarch was definately a memorable moment. Moments before the creature unleashed it's powerful spells on me I couldn't help but be horrified at it's hideous and twisted figure it's robe could barely conceal.

2. Meeting Eidolon for the first time in Hexen 2 also left a big impression on me. Not only was he hideous and powerful looking, but he also unleashed a large amount of powerful spells on me. And I couldn't believe that the bastard cheated when he had to call on his Chaos Sphere to help him in battle. The other Serpent Riders never did this.

3. The Quake 2 Intro. There was something about the intro that left me awe inspired and pumped up to kill as many Strogg as I could. Some have told me that by today's standards it looks very cheesy and campy, but even today I love seeing it.

4. The Cascade scenario in Half-Life. Who the hell here cannot forget the first time all hell broke loose in the Black Mesa complex? Even before the event happened, everyone seemed on edge and unsure about the 'analysis' process, fearing that a renisance cascade scenario would occur. When the event happened and all hell eventually broke loose, you know it was one of mankind's biggest screwups in a video game.

5. Making my way into the vault in F.E.A.R. As I infiltrated the ATC secret underground complex and closer to the vault, I felt as if I was falling in a big pit, deeper and faster as I closed in closer on the vault where the dreaded Alma was kept in. Too bad I didn't get this feeling anywhere in F.E.A.R. 2.

6. The Red Square charge in Call of Duty. In the second Soviet Mission, once you made your way in Stalingrad (and almost killed by an angry Commissar in the process), you had to literally charge Red Square and into enemy fire. As well as Tank fire. Brilliant plan Stalin, next time *LISTEN* to your ^%$#@!& Generals instead of trying to take command in a war you don't understand! Ahem, anyways it's a good thing a fellow Soviet Soldier convinced you to not take a suicidal charge and instead found a way to just try to flank them.
 
1. The dread of entering Ravenholm for the first time.

2. The end of HL2: Ep2.

3. The part of the first Penumbra when you turn on the black light and there is writing all over the walls. Scariest scene I've ever seen in a video game (up there with Mr. Tibbits from Condemned).

4. Stepping out into the world for the first time in both Morrowind and Oblivion. After being confined at the start of both games, seeing the open world just waiting to be explored is a feeling like no other.

EDIT: Here is the scene from Penumbra (doesnt quite capture it as well as playing alone in the dark did).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYiiVmSydM8
 
There's a lot, but the false ending of Portal was probably it for me, because I was lucky enough to have it work pretty spontaneously (hadn't read any spoilers, "hey, what if I jump up there?", that kind of thing). For a moment, I actually thought I 'got around' the game.

Sure, EP2 made me cry, and I was wowed by the environments in Halo (shut up), AVP2, etc. etc., but that moment in Portal was very well done.
 
Doom 1 on a 486 at the age of 6.

Meeting the Machine in Monkey Island.

HL: Uplink for the first time.
 
The beginning of HL2 was amazing. The false portal ending was fantastic as well, since I thought it was actually the ending.

My second playthrough of Deus Ex has my favorite moment ever though. I stuck around to see what would happen if I tried to stay and fight alongside Paul. When the MIB blew down the door and I realized that the game wasn't just going to wait around for me to leave through the window, I had the biggest smile on my face. Top that off by me actually saving him and meeting up with him at Tracer Tong's place...

:D
 
Virmire for ME is a classic now, that's a give in.

First time I turned on Red Dead Redemption as well, having been such an avid fan of the first, it literally brought nostalgia tears to my eyes.

And not a moment, but the Mirror's Edge song, "Still Alive," always gets me all emotional for some reason.
 
MW1 and MW2 reminded me why I was a gamer.
 
God you're an awful person. Liking the iPad AND Modern Warfare? Jebus.
 
-RDR ending
-alot of the cinematic moments in MW1, MW2, uncharted 2
-Leaving UNATCO in Deus Ex
-The Illusive Man in general in Mass Effect 2
-Nemesis crashing throught the Police Station window in Resident Evil 3 (first time i crapped myself playing a game when i was young :LOL:)
-Psycho Mantis in MGS1 and
MGS4
-MGS4 ending
-KOTOR 2 when I realised my actions actually had PROPER consequences (it wasn't my first RPG but it the first one i loved at the time)
-hotel mission in hitman contracts (best mission in the whole series)
-ZOE 1 theme song
-Mirror's Edge theme song
-Playing my first GTA game, Vice City
-Playing fahrenheit for the first time
-PLaying BC2 for the first time and realising that there are actually some MP games i do like and are half decent at :p
-Playing Flower for the first time
-Playing Penumbra for the first time......then ****ting myself and uninstalling it =/
 
Master Sword

zeldaoot2.jpg


I still shiver.

Krynn72 said:
God you're an awful person. Liking the iPad AND Modern Warfare? Jebus.
Click to expand...

Nobody likes you.
 
- I had a big attraction to Meryl in MGS1 when I first played it, I was young. But naturally when she was shot by sniper wolf and was lying their bleeding out I couldn't do anything about it, it was a big emotional moment for.

- Ending of MGS1, first time I played it I got the ending where Meryl died, (I pussied out almost immediately on the torture section :p) and was almost brought to tears at seeing Snake blame himself for her death.

- Countless moments during Shenmue and Shenmue 2. The immersion aspects of that game, and the dialogue and storyline in general were absolutely superb.

- The Evacuate Everon mission in Operation Flashpoint. When you are stood in the middle of a random forest, your entire team is wiped out and the HQ is blaring on your radio of the urgency to get to the evacuation points around the island but you cannot respond to them about you being on your lonesome because your radio is out. Enemy units are closing in to your position. I was playing this on veteran difficulty too so I couldn't even see my exact position on the map, just the extraction point miles away that I had to get to somehow or risk being stranded. I don't think I've ever been greeted with such a sense of loneliness and you could say pure fear on a game before that moment.

- The Normandy beach landing on Allied Assault. As well as the Russian attack on Red Square and the Reichstag in CoD. The sniper missions on World at War and MW1. The ending scenario on MW2.

- The killing of The End in MGS 3 after a four day battle. The MGS 3 ending.

- HL2 opening sequence, seeing Ravenholm from the dam at the end of the canals chapter and first entering Ravenholm. The attack on Nova Prospekt and first entering it and the entire Citadel chapter. Ending of EP1 and EP2.

- The entire ending scenario of ME1, from talking to the hologram of a Prophean, to the battle sequence in the Citadel and seeing the HUGE Soverign in the distance occasionally letting out a huge droan, and the massive decisions to make at the end that drastically effect ME2. All of it gave me goosebumps.

- Tali's mission in ME2, along with the Collector investigation mission.
 
Been a while since I played a game that kept me pinned to my seat. That I remember, anyway. There might have been one or two, but they've been drowned out by the awful crap I've been playing lately (namely Double Agent). Forgotten most of them, fortunately. Spent so long shouting at my monitor.

Minerva. That kept me pinned to my seat.
 
You perved on her from the vents when she was doing situps in her underwear, too, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!?
 
-The last part of Zelda: Majora's Mask where the moon has almost reached it's destination and the giants try to stop it.

-When you first get outside in Far Cry(considering the kind of graphics which were done/possible before that)

-The ending of Zelda: Twilight Princess' 70-hour story that never bored me(and thinking back off all the good memories)
 
Shadow of the Colossus. All of it.

I know it's becoming a cliche to bring that up in these sorts of threads, but it's true damnit. :)
 
Stepping out into the world for the first time in Unreal blew me away. Seeing Street Fighter 2 for the first time was also a great moment. In recent years, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2.
 
-The start of Half Life 1, and all the bosses, except for nihilanth which I found ridiculous.
-Stepping outside for the first time in Far Cry 1.
-The first half of the game Undying.
-The ending of Singularity.
-Almost all of Condemned.
-The ending of FEAR.
-Nightmare level in Max Payne 1 (totally unexpected)
-CGI intro Gunman Chronicles.
-Defending the rebel base in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight.
-Mass Effect 2, Illusive man and the end boss.
-Tomb Raider 2, Venice level.
-Prey, first time stepping on the surface of a miniaturised planetoid.
-Unreal 1, first time stepping outside and the Sky Town level.
-The first few medieval town levels of Heretic 2.
-Blood 1 all of it.
 
wolfenstein-3d.jpg
.

I had only played Pong before this. I was blown away. Got motion sickness.
 
Now that Remus has mentioned it, Max Payne. I loved that game.
 
Oh yeah I forgot one of my favorites:

The opening/first mission of Homeworld. It made Angus Dei my favorite song for a while and was the best start to any RTS I've experienced. It instantly made me connect with what was going on and want to do whatever I could to win.
 
TheOneFreeMan said:
Little Big Adventure (Relentless), simply for the feeling of sheer childhood wonder of that entire game. Played it when I was about 8 and the thought of it still makes me smile.
Click to expand...

Good guy. I don't know where to start from.

Half-Life - There is plenty of nice scenes in the game, but I like this one better, because it was completely unexpected. When you ride the red train in the Apprehension chapter, it gets bombed by some grunts, which makes your train leave the rail, and bang: you find yourself at the bottom of the abondoned silo, trying to swim to reach the surface.

Quake II - the place where they kill all humans, and make experiments on them. It was a blood festivale.

Medal of Honor (PlayStation) - Now, before I begin, I want to thank Michael Giacchino, and his orchestra for their music work in this game, it's outstanding. There is some moments where you really think you are in a war, stuck in some death corner. Underground also have great scenes in the second level, where Manon goes to Africa as an undercover agent.

Deus Ex - New York levels, what to say - a great atmosphere, a living city where everyone is depressed - it reminds me of The City of Lost Children.

Fallout 2 - the moment when I start to kill every citizen in the Vault City, starting from the first, Lynette. I also like the cinematic when you manage to move the tanker from it's place.

Vampire: Bloodlines - the legendary haunted hotel level. (OT: I'm in love with Damsel).

Silent Hill - now, this is really scary. You find yourself in a narrow area, behind the main streets - the sky goes all black, all you have is a little match to see where you are going. Suddenly, you get attacked by little monsters. You can't go back, because there is a wall at where you came from - but it gets worse: you wake up in a little cafe, now you think everything is safe, but no - the little radio starts to make some weird noise, and bang: a flying creature breaks through the windows to get inside, and attack you. Welcome to the Silent Hill.

Unreal - when you manage to get out from the nightmare ship, you find yourself on the surface of a beatiful planet. There is a nice waterfall near the area where you start.

Streets of SimCity - what, it was to great to see the city you made in SimCity in three-dimension.

Tomb Raider - the valley where you meet your first Rex.

Commandos - isn't it nice to watch the firework you cause from far away after a long mission.

Clock Tower: Second - This game is sick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dmjgKCPxRM#t=00m40s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1JVuI5sTJg#t=00m32s

That's all I can think of right now, but there is plenty of more to add (from LucasArts titles).
 
Krynn72 said:
God you're an awful person. Liking the iPad AND Modern Warfare? Jebus.
Click to expand...

Well, the way I see it it's all about preference. In this case, one person's trash is another person's treasure. Hell, I myself detest Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 and think both games are way overrated, but that's just me.
 
T-6000 said:
Hell, I myself detest Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 and think both games are way overrated, but that's just me.
Click to expand...

That isn't just you. That's the entire internet minority.

They still bought both.
 
I myself never bought either one, even if they were given to me or gifted I probably wouldn't go through them. I think World at War is probably my last COD game, though I might (and that is a big if) pick up Black Ops. If it delves into some science fiction (like Killzone 2) then I may go back to the COD series.

But I'm getting off topic here. The ending of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 was, for me, one of the saddest moments in games if not the saddest. And that was perhaps one of the most powerful gaming moments ever.
 
cod sucks, end of story.
 
What? What's the problem with owning Modern Warfare? I paid £15 (or less) on it and I got an incredible Singleplayer experience out of it. I'm not sure what the hate is for it.
 
Batman: Arkham Asylum - The final scarecrow scene was just brilliant.
Modern Warfare - The nuke/final scene.
Dead Space - The arrival to the Ishimura.
GTA 3 - The very first time I started playing the first real 3d open world game, hijacking cars and listening to real licensed music.
Half Life/Uplink - The first time playing the Uplink demo at a friends and realising I'd never played anything as great as this before.
 
Hexen II - the sheep catapult.
 
stemot said:
Half Life/Uplink - The first time playing the Uplink demo at a friends and realising I'd never played anything as great as this before.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, playing Half-Life uplink was a very memorable experience for me as well. Back at late 1999 I had just finished saving up for my very own Gaming PC (Up until then I was playing PC Games on my mom's PC and since it was a 1995 model i was mainly playing older games on it), and I was ready to soon buy my PC. Since we didn't have internet at the time (I didn't have internet in my house until summer of 2000), I had my brother download some game demos at the time from the local Vo-Tech his school would go to for a few hours. Since they had high speed internet there, he downloaded a whole bunch of demos and burnt them onto a CD. Then when we got the PC I tried out most of the Demos on the CD. Many of them we tried out and I liked, especially the Unreal Tournament Demo but the one that stood out the most was Half-Life Uplink. Ironically it was the last demo we tried, so I guess we were inadvertently saving the best for last. Shortly after geting the demo, I went and had gotten Half-Life. Oh god, the memories. Halfway through I proclaimed the game to be the best PC Game I had ever played. To this day, few games have been as memorable as Half-Life. And I owe it all to Half-Life uplink for this. And though I really hate to admit this, I'll also have to extend my thanks to PC Gamer for working with Valve to get this demo out.
 
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