The best moment of your PC/Computer/Console/Electronic gaming

The Game Room
1

A counter-thread to the worst moments of your electronic gaming life. What is the game that gives you the best moments ever? It could be adrenaline pumping, tears-inducing or moment of vindication and so on.

There are two for me, I guess

  1. The ending of Chrono Cross (the official good ending). Leaves me wanting to break out in tears almost all the time, despite playing through the games countless times.

  2. The first time I restored a bloom tree in Okami. Talk about feeling like a hero…

What’s yours?

2

Game that gives me the best moments? Thats hard to judge.

I can tell you my favorite story of gaming awesomeness, though. It was ages ago - early 90’s, in a BBS game called Esterian Conquest. Esterian Conquest was a text-based, turn-based online space conquest game. Multiple players could play, and the goal was to conquer a section of space consisting of perhaps 120 planetary systems. Different systems had better production of ships, etc. Kind of like a very basic Civilization-in-space game.

I was fairly good at this game. In one particular game, though, I was having problems. I had an empire of perhaps 30 systems, and another player with a similarly sized empire was starting to take some of my planets. Every turn, another planet would go down before a massive fleet of ships - 300+. My biggest fleets were 50 ships or so.

I thought I knew what was going on. By this point in the game I knew where all his systems were, and I started assembling fleets - small ones. 5 ships each. I sent 30 or so of these fleets out, and stationed them one turn’s move outside of all 30 of his planets. Then, once all the fleets were in place, in one turn, I approached and attacked all 30 planets. As I suspected, he was sending every available ship to join his invasion fleet, and each of his planets had only 1 ship defending it. In one turn I wiped him off the map.

I imagined him logging on to the BBS that night, and getting his reports - one invasion after another, after another, after another. From 30 planets to zero planets and a homeless fleet of ships, in 24 hours.

3

One top “holy shit!” moment: CoH, watching Founders’ Falls shake, then seeing this huge robot rise over the ridge and come after me.

4

I still remember one moment playing old-school Quake. I was playing online using a CTF mod with custom powerups and maps. One powerup was Werewolf; you gained extra speed, health, and a bite, a powerful melee attack. An opposing player grabbed our flag and I, with the Werewolf powerup, encountered him in the middle of the map. A brief struggle ensued, then he broke away and ran down the central corridor to his base. I leapt up into a side passage that leads to a hole in the ceiling of the enemy base. Raced along, jumped down, and caught him just as he entered the room where his flag was kept. Five bloody seconds later, I’d recaptured our flag. :smiley: Few gaming moments have ever come close to that for feeling like a sheer badass, especially since I was always a mediocre player otherwise.

Later, in Planetside, I spent a lot of time in tank turrets. Two of the factions used tanks with ballistic turrets, but Vanu, the third, had energy weapons and so the turret was a straight-line shot. On more than one occasion I’ve shot planes down out of the sky, something that is normally nigh impossible to do with ground vehicles.

5

Late Spring in '99. I was finishing my first year in graduate school. I had picked up a copy of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri at Costco. I love(d) Civ II and couldn’t wait to play this next installment. However, due to my school workload, I knew that I didn’t have enough time to play and, further, knew I didn’t have the self-control to turn the goddamn game off once I got going! So I left it sitting there next to my computer, still shrink-wrapped, throughout the spring quarter. Then one glorious night- after I had turned in my final paper - I unwrapped it, loaded it up, and probably played for 12 straight hours. And you know what? I was right. That game was (is) awesome and playing it during the quarter would have been my downfall.

6

Ultima Online - I joined the game about a month after its released and hooked up with several friends who had been playing since beta. In the first couple of weeks, I barely left town since I was having fun with trade-skills and socializing.

One day though, a friend showed up at our normal spot and asked me if I’d like to go hunting with him. It sounded fun. He gave me a sword and we set out. It wasn’t long before my swordsmanship became my highest skill and instead of being shown as a journeyman tailor, I was a journeyman swordsman! I felt so bad ass.

Then, we found an orc camp. I charged in while my friend stayed back and blasted them with magic. We won fairly easily. They had been guarding a treasure chest full of all kinds of goodies. We grabbed it all and headed back to town to split it. It was such an awesome experience that I replayed it over and over in my head for days.

7

I still think fondly back on the original Team Fortress and the one time I was the unstoppable Engineer. By the end of 45 minutes of 6v6 play, I’d racked up a 145-0 points/death scores, had screenshot nearly a dozen wrench kills and two 5-at-once EMP grenade kills, and was feelin’ on top of the world.

Second best was seeing the cinematics/storyline for Rank Mission 5-2 in Final Fantasy XI…and then absentmindedly zoning into Norg about an hour afterwards. Holy crap! (no spoilers, except to say A) Raogrimm’s my hero and B) I STILL want Ark Angel GK’s armor)

8

A five hour capture the flag game in Continuum (Extreme Games zone). Both teams came with seconds of winning several times only to be thwarted by a last moment breakthrough. Finally winning that by blasting the flag carrier that was on the loose and then having to survive for three minutes with the whole squad defending was a LOT of fun.

Stupid little game. Lots of fun. http://www.extreme-games.net/main/

9

A Mind Forever Voyaging. Very well written such that getting to the end was like finishing a very good book (as I recall, been a long time).

10

The death bed scene at the end of Bioshock. Almost brought a tear to my eye.

11

I remember the very first time I beat Street Fighter 2 on the hardest difficulty level. That was a good moment. I remember beating Halo 2 and Halo 3 on the hardest difficulty level. I remember scores of Nintendo games that I’d play, sputter out in, then buckle down and rampage through.

12

Playing an Enchanter in the original Everquest, and taking a group to Old Sebelis. My AE Mez, a spell that caused everyone in range of it to be mesmerized for a certain amount of time, was extremely powerful at this level - that is IF I myself could resist it. Otherwise I was mesmerized along with the mobs.

More than once I saved the group after we’d been jumped by a huge number of mobs. I’d mez the mobs and (often) myself, the rest of the group would escape, and it’d be me and 5-10 mezzed mobs. I had a split second between the mez wearing off and the mobs eating me to try to transport myself out. So it’d be 30 seconds of white-knuckled waiting… waiting… waiting, until the mez ran out and I’d either get out or be subject to ten mobs on me, dying, and a long, difficult corpse run. Talk about getting the blood flowing!

13

The bonus ending in Max Payne 2,

I was just recovering from a bad breakup, feeling really depressed and playing Max Payne 2 like a madman, I played though all the difficulties in one epic session, already finished the game twice, with the same ending

Max after killing the endboss gives the dead Mona Sax(tragic love interest) a kiss And says ”I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was all right.”

and then the third time on the hardest difficulty sudenly

Mona open hers eyes when you kiss her

14

Alpha Centauri always deserves a mention in these threads - the ending video was fantastic (“No longer Earth beings and planet beings are we, but bright children of the stars…”).

I also agree about the restoration sequences in Okami, they look sensational and really make you feel like you’ve made the world a better place. :slight_smile:

15

Gotta agree with the end of Alpha Centauri. Loved that game a lot.

For City of Heroes, back way before I4 and the huge regen nerfs, going toe-to-toe with the biggest badguy around (Nemesis) and literally spending a half-hour just pounding on each other, neither of us being able to generate enough damage to take each other down. I was trash-talking him the entire time… Ended up one of my SG (Guildies) showed up at the 30 minute mark and came in to push my damage over the top.

I’ll probably remember more about 15 minutes after I post this.

16

My first solo kill in Dark Age of Camelot. I fought a well-known ranger 1-vs-1 (I was a hammer/shield thane, so I did have a bit of an advantage, as my shield neutralized his bow). After I got the killspam, I had 10-15 /tells saying Congrats! Made me feel like I actually knew what I was doing…

17

I remember a moment near the beginning of Half-Life 2 when I jumped over a wall and the music went nuts and I was pressed up against a wall by an 80 mph express train. That was the point of no return and I knew the shit was going to hit the fan. 'It’s so on!", I thought.

18

I’v got another couple - this time from Madden 2007. I’m on franchise mode, and not all that good at it yet. I barely make the playoffs for the first time at 10-6, and proceed to win three games in a row (including the regular season finale) on last-minute, time-running out plays. Two are interception returns of over 80 yards, and one was a kickoff return. In the 4th game in a row, I took the lead with a deep pass, and then the computer team ran a touchdown back on the next play - as time ran out. Unbelievable.

Another one took place many seasons later. I had a top, top running back (95 spd, 99 agility and carry), and was shooting for 2,000 yards rushing for the season. Game 15 wasn’t all that good of a game, and he entered the final game with around 1,720 yards. The first half was brutal, and at the half, I had only gained 54 yards. Then the second half hit.

I started running very well and had gained about 90 more yards by the time the fourth quarter started. Then I broke a 50+ yard run, held the other team to a 3 and out series, and immediately broke another 40+ yard run. I was still around 60 yards shy of 2,000, though. One of my D-Backs intercepted a pass on the next play - but he ran it back 60 yards to the 13! Next play, run, touchdown. Next series by the computer, another interception. With less than two minutes left, I ran the ball down the field, and finally got my total to something like 285 yards on the day (my all-time record) and just over 2,000 on the year.

19

America’s Army. There I am peering through the scope of my M-24, trying to find the last defender when he sneaks up behind me and, I assume wanting to get a perfect kill, changes magazines on his M-16. At the sound and on pure reflex I whirled and put a 7.62mm round into him at a distance of two feet.

20

Here’s a game not enough people have played: Earth Defense Force 2017 for the Xbox 360. It’s got some serious flaws, but lordy, is it ever fun. It can get extremely overwhelming at times, with the sheer number of enemies (by the end of the game, you will have killed hundreds of thousands) and the air filled with enemy fire. And nothing is more overwhelming than the last level.

My moment came during the battle with the final boss, the Mother Ship that had been menacing Earth for the entire game. One thing the game does very well is provide a sense of scale; the mothership seems immense, and you’re this one dude on the ground with a couple of guns. So, into battle I went. It gets more and more insane, as the mothership morphs into new forms (the higher the difficulty setting, the more form changes it goes through), laser fire fills the air, and you get repeatedly knocked off your feet by explosions. The greatest moment, though, came though the audio. Y’see, all through the game, you’re receiving news reports and instructions through your headset, from a newsreader and your commanding officer. When the battle is at its craziest, the audio goes something like this:

Newsreader: “I can’t believe it. Every member of the Earth Defense Force has been wiped out. Our last hope is lost.” (pause) “Hold on…we see someone! One EDF soldier is still alive!”
Commanding Officer: “My God, he’s battling that mothership all by himself!”

At that moment, I was so high on battle, I was like, “DAMN RIGHT, YOU SONSABITCHES!” I dunno, something about it really swept me up into the game and got my blood pounding.

There’s a youtube video of the final battle here, although unfortunately, the guy added music to it. Still, you can see the intensity of the final battle. The video, incidentally, shows “Normal” difficulty.