Reminds me of taking Brian, my Inv/Axe tank, to Dark Astoria early on. Went all the way to the cemetary in the other end of the zone and spotted a sea of purple & red. Lured the majority off a cliff then went after a couple of stagglers that stayed behind, one red and one purple. Took out the red with no problem but the purple, some sort of Behemoth…we started whittling each other down or not hit at all. It got to the point that the last one to land a hit would win but we both just kept missing until finally, wham! Down when the Behemoth and I got Brian out of there before his friends made their way back up!
Getting the 120th star on Mario 64. I don’t tend to completely finish a lot of games, so to accomplish that was big.
The entire end-game sequence of Okami. It’s one of the few game where I go fighting the final boss shouting, “Die! BOW BEFORE ME, I AM A GOD!”
For those who want to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCVj9lp720 (right from the beginning)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9t10jd5rGw&feature=related (for the best part)
There was this old text-based adventure game called Castaway, available as shareware which I bought of a 3.5" floppy disk. That was before the era of Internet and I beat it all by myself with no walkthrough! Yayy!!
“Elite”
Medal of Honor, multi-player. We were in France (map name). It was myself and three best friends on some server in the early morning hours, the name long since forgotten. This is just one of countless great multi-player memories.
We were four Americans pinned inside the largest of the few houses that you are allowed to go into. There are two ways into the place and a handful of really good people we didn’t know were Germans covering both exits and tossing grenades in through the windows.
We were in trouble.
Billy and Jeff had already fallen victim to the nades crashing through windows on the other side of the house. Chaz and I were dug in the main room where the doorway leads out onto steps and down a back alley. Two guys were at the door, one with a shotgun.
We were in trouble.
I fired a few rounds from my ‘Chicago Typewriter’ out of the window and over their heads to hold them off at the door while I came up with a plan. The plan was that I was going to move up to the door and open it from the ‘hinge side’ so I wouldn’t be exposed, and Chaz (from safety angled from the door) would lob a grenade right out and into their stinking laps, out on the steps where they were waiting. It was as good a plan as any concocted at three A.M. through bloodshot eyes.
I moved into position, told Chaz to pull pin and be ready (this on speaker phone conference call–because to the best of my knowledge Roger Wilco, Ventrillo and Skype hadn’t been invented yet). I could hear the one with the shotty just outside the door pumping shells into the chamber, readying himself for us, his buddy at the bottom of the steps, right on his heels. It was one of those beautiful and terrifying moments where lady luck was making decisions about which side to take.
Four of them, two at each exit. Two of us, the best of our group. We’d logged literally THOUSANDS of hours and were probably in the top twenty-five of Medal of Honor multi-players in the whole friggen’ world, no shit.
Crouching low and steady, I opened the door…
I knew something was wrong when the door swung the opposite way, and I was staring down the the long black hole of a 12-gauge. In the heat of it all, I had positioned myself on the wrong side of the door, the side you might position yourself on if you were about to la-de-da out the fucking door to get the morning paper, or to answer the knock of the Jehovah’s witness. But this was no Jehovah’s witness…
This was no Jehovah’s witness.
I took every pellet of that 12-gauge right in the face. I was thrown back into the room and my viewpoint changed to the familiar over-the-shoulder random view you get when you’ve met your maker. It was dumb luck that my view happened to be over Chaz’s shoulders.
He tossed the grenade, at least give him that much credit, because his aim was true, but the programmers of this game thought it a good idea that the door only stayed open a second or two before closing on its own. Maybe one of the programmers had a tyrant of a father beating the understanding of air conditioning and open doors into him and he couldn’t bring himself to allow a door to be open for more than three seconds, but it was we who paid the price that terrible morning. The door swung shut and Chaz’s grenade hit the back of it and bounced back into the room, rolling to a stop right at his feet.
:eek:
I knew there was a reason we called ourselves Retard Recon.
I had to stop playing HL2: EP2 for a while when I though Alyx died…
When I went back and continued on, needless to say I was very, very happy (well, after the goddamn antlion nest that seriously needs to be nuked at least). I’ve determined never to play (or watch in cases if TV/Anime) entire series in one go anymore as I get too emotionally attached to the characters to the point of temporary delusion. (Well, not delusion, but legitimately wishing I could enter the world and feeling depressed knowing that I can’t at least, it’s kinda pathetic)
Halo 2 on live. For some reason the plasma sword seemed to be the favourite weapon of the in crowd and when the hud turned red and you pressed B , it was instant decapitation.
So here I am on the Mining platform I think, and was able to grab the sniper rifle. Because the map area was small laterally, one could not service targets properly with the sniper rifle for very long. The majority of the folks on live at that time , thought the sniper rifle was unsporting and would temporarily team up to flush the sniper.
But the one time it was sweet as I was able to nail a sword boy in the head just as he was about to decapitate some unspuspecting soul.
Declan
I think this says more about the DAOC learning curve (aka vertical climb) than you might have initially intended. I speak as someone who has experienced the harsh and brutal reality of life as a DAOC noob.
Motor City Online. It was basically a Need For Speed sequel for PCs that came out some time in 2001, when online gaming was still in its infancy. I created a persona named “Bo Duke” and even made him look like John Schneider in a yellow shirt.
The game had a lot of customization options, including engine types, exhaust, pre-made paint jobs, and even horn sounds. I finally collected enough in-game money and paid $1 million to buy the ultra-rare orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the 00 on the doors and a colonial flag on the roof (for legal purposes, they couldn’t copy a famous car). I removed the exhaust, to make it extra-loud, and installed a horn that played “Dixie.”
One of the maps had a covered bridge right before the finish line. I had a habit of trying to jump the car out of the ditch and over that bridge. I usually failed. Even when I succeeded, the landing was sloppy One time, at the end of the final lap, the one other opponent was ahead by only a car-length or two, and we were approaching that covered bridge. I was sure I was going to lose, so I went for that bump off to the side. I hit it perfectly (finally!) and launched over the bridge as the other player went through. It must have been great to see the other player’s screen as the dixie-horn played a moment before the orange '69 Charger --with “Bo Duke” displayed as the player-- came crashing down right in front of his car moments before crossing the finish line.
The most emotionally moving moment was when I watched helplessly and shocked as Sephiroth’s sword pierced Aeris’s frail figure as she prayed to save the world. Her body slumping lifelessly to the cold stone. The life fading from her body. The white materia bouncing into the lifestream to the beat of our song. Tears.
As for badass moments, it was playing X-Wing on hard. The mission was to knock out a central navigational bouy so the fleet could get to the death star undetected. It was, of course, surrounded by a thick minefield and protected by a Neb cruiser. My wingmen and I headed into the field, dipping and dodging the mine blasts like my hours in the simulator had taught me to do. Then one of them exploded as a TIE fighter squadron zoomed overhead. They peeled off and circled back around, quickly finishing off my other wingman. Soon, squad after squad was launching in my direction from the Neb. I had to accomplish my mission, at any cost. I dove straight for that NAV bouy and didn’t stop til it was out of commission. I was horribly banged up and all my systems were failing. Sensors- gone. Shields- gone. Lasers- dead. Cannons- dead. The only thing I had was my engine and my flight controls. Surrounded by a capital ship, at least three squads of fighters, and a minefield, I weaved up and down, back and forth, drawing fire and dodging it. For 15 minutes I slipped in and out of their lasers. One system would come on line only to be blown out again by a stray shot. I had to weave my way back out of danger, somewhere I could find a hyperspace channel from. Finally, I made it away from the mines but the other ships had followed. For another 20 minutes, I had to go completely on skill as my shields built up enough to give me time to calculate a hyperspace route. When I finally decided to make a run for it, I watched as my engines shut down, my lasers turned off, and my nav computer started thinking while I was a sitting duck. The shields when from green to yellow to red in seconds as they absorbed shot after shot from my enemies. After a few breathless moments, the stars began to streak past me and I was home free. I can still see that last green blast of energy flying up on my rear windshield just as my engines kicked in. The laser seemed to freeze and reverse direction as I sped away from it. What a rush!! The best part was- I got it all on film. I was the hero of my third grade class for a month!
I’ve played so many simulated baseball seasons on my PC that I could list a dozen amazing comebacks and brilliant performances, but I still remember coming back from 3-0 to win an ALCS against the White Sox in a season of “Baseball for Windows.” That was thoroughly awesome; David Cone was the MVP of that series, pitching a shutout in Game 4 and then coming back on short rest to pitch another win in Game 7. More recently I was playing an ALCS game in Baseball Mogul 2009 when an opposing pitcher - Chad Gaudin, of all guys - threw a perfect game against my team. 27 up, 27 down. Of the thousands and thousands of baseball games I’ve simulated that is the one and only perfect game that’s ever happened.
However, my favourite video game experience was in the summer of 1989. I was on basic training and got a weekend of leave. I got home - my parents’ home at that point - and informed my folks that I planned to spend the entire weekend playing video games and doing absolutely nothing that required any more physical effort than that. I started up “Empire” and commenced playing a game on a map that covered the southern US, Central America, Carribbean, and the northern bit of South America.
I started around Florida and spread westward and south, taking over Cuba, Jamaica, the West Indies. I went around into Mexico taking neutral cities, and then the computer hit me like a ton of bricks. I was outnumbered and had incredibly shitty luck besides and the computer’s armies swept me out of the westrn USA, through Texas, and was threatening my base in Florida. If I lost my cities on the continent I was cooked.
I fought back, and managed to turn the tide. He had the armies, armies by the hundreds, but I had the navy. Using my capital ships as shore bombarders I fought him back over the Mississippi. It took hours. He had armies beyond counting and it took everything I had to drive them back. I ground across the South and fought him for hours across the Rio Grande, my battleships slaughtering armies by the dozens but each dying in turn, worn down. Hundreds of armies were destroyed, thousands. The war moved down into Mexico, and hundred of armies more were destroyed. By the time I got to Central America it was over, but he fought to the bitter end.
Over 3,000 units were destroyed in all. It was frigging awesome.
Best moment was when I finally moved in with people who liked multiplayer Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64. So much post-pub fun amidst much gnashing of teeth and accusations of ungentlemanly conduct 
Sir, you’re hanging out with the wrong in crowd. It’s all about the sniper rifle and battle rifle.
I was a Warbirds (WW2 online flight sim) junky for years.
I was flying around looking for random fights at about 15k feet in my FW190D. I saw a squaddie yell for help in the chat buffer and saw his icon appear on the horizon below me at the same time, heading directly toward me.
He was dragging flat out in his P38 at water level with 5 enemy planes on his tail. Now, I knew he wasn’t going to make it back to base, the P38 has decent speed but he wasn’t going to outrun the 4 Spits and the P51 on his tail.
The mob flew under me, I could see my buddy rolling and jinking in their tracer fire. I splitS-ed down after them. The 5 baddies were too target-fixated to notice me diving from behind, and I quickly caught up and downed two of their Spitfires in two short perfect bursts.
You could almost hear the “what the hell?” in the cockpits as 2 of the baddies broke off frantically. There was still one remaining, a P51, on the tail of my squaddie spraying tracers everywhere. I patiently crept up, trying to time the jink turns as they wound back and forth through my sights. Then I laid into him at barely 100’ range and saw his wing explode off of him.
My squaddie zoomed off to safety…“Thx! bingo ammo, RTB!” he said, and sped off. I was alone, not good, since those two other spits I’d scared off were now diving on me. I heard some pings on my plane as bullets zinged off of me, and I turned hard and rolled. One of the spits pulled after me a bit too hard, and stalled slightly wallowing above the water. My roll brought me right onto him and I filled him with 20mm shells.
One left. I looked out my window and saw his tail receding across the waves into the sun. Hah, buggered off! He was probably out of ammo given the notoriously short ammo clip on the Mk IX, but I like to think I put the fear of ever flying again into him that day. Gargoyle landed that mission with 4 kills and a happy squadmate.
I was playing one of the civilizations…I forget which one…
I was bored with the game and decided I would play without using any military force at all. So I expanded fast and put all my money into science, with just token units to defend my cities. I sent out boats as fast as I could build them and discovered other countries and sold connections with them to everyone I met, buying connections if they had met other countries I didn’t know. And I sold every science invention I had to everyone I met. If a country was poor, and couldn’t afford the knowledge, i gave it to them for free, so nobody had a technological advantage over anyone. I had more money from selling technology than I could spend so everything went into science and making my people happy. Eventually one country, the biggest one on the map, attacked and captured one of my cities. Rather than retaliate I bribed everyone in the game to declare war and break off trade with them. They left me alone and slowly lost ground the rest of the game.
I wound up winning the game without ever attacking anyone.
Americas Army
My team was stuck trying to make it down this trail to the other teams camp while the other team was trying to make it up the same trail towards us. The trail ran along a ledge so there was no avoiding it. I crawled under a bush facing our end of the trail and sat there with my sniper rifle. My team mates all sucked, they were all wiped out without a single kill to their name, but I picked off all of the other team as they came into view one by one and won the game.
It involved a variant of Exodus: Ultima III, which I had already played (and beaten (soundly)) on the Atari 800. A friend of a friend had the game on a Nintendo SNES, and he told me he was getting killed, regularly. So I started coming over to his place and helped him through the game (there are a number of tricks that you can use to gain lots and lots of gold - the one we used then involved the “Rot” spell and the island to the SE of the main continent).
Anyway, it took us some time to make it through the game… I can’t remember if we finished it in a weekend, a week, a month - it seemd like a long time. Scott and I played that thing all the way through, sealing a friendship that has lasted to this day.
We also were into Norabunga’s Revenge (or whatever - one of those Chinese empire games) and, of course, Civilization, long, involved games which we preferred to solve by collaboration.
The only “Golden Age” arcade game I ever “mastered” was Robotron: 2084. The arcade I went to regularly had the difficulty level jacked up to 7, and I could score 1-3 million points on it. However, I once went to the mall arcade where their Robotron was set to a difficulty level of 5 - whereupon I dropped 25 million on the game in a six-hour marathon session. The only reason I lost was because I “rolled over” my men - had 255 extra lives, earned one more, it rolled over to 0.
I also once scored 95,000 on Sinistar… don’t know how that happened, just got into a zone.
Diablo II. A few years ago, in an effort to both introduce some new content and to remove some duped items from circulation, they put in this gimmick where, under certain conditions, a souped-up version of Diablo would spawn, with insane resists, defense, HP, and attacks, and if you managed to kill him, you got a special charm with very nice properties. Well, when this was first introduced, people were going up against him with level 80 or 90 characters (the max is 99) with endgame equipment, and getting their butts handed to them-- Many had to leave the game without killing him at all, and the ones who did were taking hours with a full party. But I worked smarter, not harder, and built up a level 50 character with completely untwinked equipment, that was able to solo him.
Now, most of the things I did, other people figured out eventually, and nowadays it’s no big deal to be able to kill Über Diablo. But I figured it all out on my own, and did it at level 50.
Operation Flashpoint really stunned me with it’s realistic squad-level combat and huge open play area. It was set in a fictional Eastern European area, green grassy fields and lots of hilly open areas with small towns and stands of woods here and there. You actually felt like you were part of a combat squad. One of the early missions involved liberating a small town, you fought your way down a hill and took the town. Then enemy tanks came rolling towards town and you were quickly given the order to retreat, when those suckers shot at you it was some serious impacts and firepower, I remember actually feeling a bit of a natural “flight” instinct.
All of this was without any restrictions over where you could go. It was a fairly big island and you could go wherever you wanted. The mission designer was a sandbox that let you place units and vehicles anywhere, you could have big tank battles and stuff like that.
Nicely written 
I still remember that mission - think I wasted a full two days trying to beat it. X-Wing is the sole reason my grades sucked my freshman year.
Actually, Norabunga’s Revenge is set in Japan
On a similar note, I was playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms III, holding Chang’an when one of the computer AI sent a 120,000 force against my 50,0000 defender (you can send up to 10 officers, and an officer can have a 167,000 soldiers assigned to him).
I was wondering “How did the AI came up with so many troops!” and wonder how am I going to hold Chang’an. I stumble upon the choke-point strategy - have two officers with maximum number of troops and the best Command behind the gates, lined with archer units behind them. While the enemies pound on the gates, pepper them with fire arrows. When they make it through, only one unit can occupy the gate at the time, so the two of my best officers will perform simultaneous attacks on them.
When one of them is badly hurt on manpower, I will rotate another out.
For the first time, I have to retreat to the inner walls (The Chang’an map consists of two walls - the outer wall has 3 gates, the inner wall only has one). I finally won after a half an hour battle (and there was exciting change of battle track from a slow tempo one to a extremely face paced one when one side is toppling). I got lot of good and grains from the plunder. Went on replenish my troops.
And the next month the AI attacked again. I won again. It went on for some times before I launch a massive counter-attack…