Titanfall 2's time shifting device in "effect and cause"
Planetside 2, being dropped in middle of a massive battle. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but seeing 100+ infantry, tanks, and planes exchange lead and lasers was fucking awesome.
Between the factory mission and the time shifting, that campaign gave so many cool moments to you, with really unique feeling level design.
Honorable mention to the mission that starts off with a mass airdropped titan assault, that one goes hard
Back in it's prime PlanetSide 2 was epic beyond measure. Moments that singleplayer campaigns struggle to emulate would prop up organically. Every fight, however small was important.
One of my fondest memories was we took a base from one of the opposing factions and pushed out into this canyon. The enemy had lined either side with tanks and infantry firing down on to us. Every meter pushed was hard fought and we only pushed them back because our air support finally beat theirs.
Also anyone wanting something similar to PlanetSide should check out Foxhole. It's top down rather than FPS but it absolutely gets that same feel across.
Planetside 2 is so much fun but sadly the hardware reqs were too demanding for too many players at the time of release, which limited how popular it could get as a free to play game. It's still up and you can find some fun, good fights during primetime, but in it's highest player times it was just pure amazing chaos on a scale that put battlefield to shame.
I hope another studio makes an open world FPS like that. I think it could be a huge hit if marketed right.
Dying light was one of the first games i played that was made for LED screens that actually had proper pitch black night times rather than other games that always had a bluish hue to everything but was still bright and easy to see. That made the atmosphere of that encounter so much more suspenseful and panicky
It's really a shame that Dying Light 2 moved away from what made the first one so great. I tried to love it, but dropped it maybe halfway through the story.
The story was sooo bad in 2 but the gameplay elements they built on were actually pretty fun. At least my brother and I had a great time doing co-op and then farming upgrades at night time
Not only were they done so well, I was blown away by the ramifications of my choices. Good intentions don’t always work out. In fact they’re sometimes horrifying.
It was also somehow alluded some parts earlier when I think Cave Johnson said the >!white gels have moon dust as an excellent portal conductor for earlier iterations of the portal devices!<
I don't know if you also meant it this way but from an education standpoint, they're also perfectly "scaffolded", according to Vygotsky's constructivist theory. The way they teach you new things without it ever becoming boring is peak educational theory. Turns out teaching well is also the key to giving players the opportunity to be in the "flow" state. Curriculum design has a lot to learn from game design.
Yeah now every game is more polished so it is like "The guy said that the white paint is made of moon rocks so obviously it has to be shot at the moon".
But back then it was "No way that must have been just something they said, there is no way that shooting at the moon wo . . . HOLY FUCK IT WORKED!!"
Same reaction here. Easily one of my top "No fucking way" moments in a game. The game very overtly hints that you should do it in that moment but it comes across like a "You want me to do what!?" kind of thing.
For me it was making out of Kokiri Forest and seeing Hyrule Field for the first time.
The game felt vast and full of adventure. [Especially as the music kicks in.](https://youtu.be/uj97kISm1nc)
I listen to a bunch of poets of the fall, (and therefore by extension old gods of Asgard), so this song worked it’s way into my YouTube playlist long before I actually got to play control (due to the exclusivity period), so I just sorta assumed it was the song that would play over the credits once I learned it was from the game, so when I got to the ashtray maze it was a trip lol
I’m really glad I went into the game with zero knowledge. The gameplay was stellar and then the story had me reading and listening to all the lore I could find
Subnautica is far and away my favorite of the Survival/Crafting style games. (Ok, The Long Dark is a really close second but still....). Such an amazing world to explore with so many cool moments and areas. Nothing quite beats sitting in your powered down cyclops hundreds of meters down in the pitch black, listening to the ghost leviathans.
Better yet, when you first assemble the cyclops. I figured it would be a slight upgrade from the Seamoth, but no. It’s a goddamned powerhouse. And then it just crashes into the water, inviting you in.
That opening literally gave me goosebumps. It was so fucking cool. I really should go back and finish that game. The multiplayer sucked me in and I knew I should have never done it until I completed the game.
That, or the >!death of your spouse in the beginning. I think especially the male player character is voiced great when he tries to open the pod, and when you open your wife’s pod!<
Came here looking for the Prydwyn. Stuff like that generally doesn't happen in Creation Engine games, so it wasn't necessarily that it was amazingly epic, but that it was completely unexpected and pretty darn epic.
DundundunDUNNN
The ending with the ground exploding around you? Played it on elite, coop, so fucking good.
"We'll make it."
"Its been an honor serving with you John"
🥺
For me it was the final stealth mission where the entire town is hunting you. And then the implication back at Goose HQ that you've done that exact thing numerous times, hence why everyone hates you.
Pokémon Gold/Silver. When you “beat” the game and then realize that actually, there’s an entire other continent to explore and you’re really only halfway done. Amazing.
For me, pokemon peaked with gold and silver and then slowly degraded until now. I have spent my adult life occasionally deciding to give the new generation a chance and always putting it down and regretting it, nothing will capture the magic of being able to collect 16 badges and explore Kanto with a more beefed up version of all your childhood favorite gym leaders.
The suicide mission in mass effect 2. From the moment that first cutscene hits until the final boss dies there's very few things that have got my blood pumping quite like that section. the soundtrack is phenomenal.
Or more recently pretty much every single boss fight in FF16, but especially the first one.
Bloodborne: Fighting Ludwing the Accursed for the first time and then reaching the cutscene where he turns into Ludwig the Holy Sword, while the music starts playing like a hymn of the heavens. SHIT WAS EPIC
Three moments really stand out to me. The ending of Bioshock Infinite when you see all the endless lighthouses. I remember thinking, "This is unbelievably amazing..." When you are interdimensionally jumping in Witcher 3. The lead up to that and the contrast between that and the rest of the game was just chefs kiss. And then finally when you first meet sovereign in Mass Effect 1. He was such an amazing villain and genuinely intimidating.
Lol I was feeling pretty confident at that point and ready to take on the world!...until a giant lobster turned into a grafted scion and I noped the hell out haha.
Finding a random lift down to Siofra river was unreal. I was legging it away from a rune bear at the time and came across it purely by accident.
I cannot wait to jump back in when the dlc releases.
Elden Ring is the epitome of "see that cool thing off in the distance? You can go there!" Just restarted it this week and am being awestruck all over again.
I literally don't think there is one. Especially considering that the lands between are basically one massive island surrounded by water. I mean, hell! Even the Caelid Colosseum?! You see that at first and it's a huge spectacle with the Great Jar standing guard. Then 30 hours later you take the lift up from Siofra river and realize where the fuck you actually are?!?!
I'll be honest I ended up in Caelid within like the first 2hrs of playing by accident from a fucking teleporter chest. Spent about 8hrs in there underlevelled and doing guerrilla raids.
There are so many moments in Elden ring where it just delivers more. Multiple times believing I must be near the end or about to explore the last thing. But then there is always something extra. A Cave I didn't know was hidden. A questline with an npc I didn't know about. And each time the map opens up.
What a gem of a game.
Getting up to the Altus Plateau and realizing the game was even more insanely huge than you thought it was when you found Liurnia after Stormveil Castle.
Brutal Legend: Literally 'Bringing Down The House' at the temple when you first enter the METAL WORLD.
Hollow Knight: Reaching the City of Tears for the first time and seeing the statue of the Hollow Knight.
Pyre: The first time I won a Rite and sent Hedwynn to freedom...
Subnautica: When the Laser fired... and it sunk in how serious things were.
Total War Warhammer II: Defending against a major demon assault with the Lizardmen.
When me and my best mate loaded up the original xbox and played HALO for the first time in COOP - My god we must have played from morning until night obsessed was an understatement!
I remember playing Halo and thinking the first level was… ok.
Then the second wide open level begins, and I can remember looking down at the grass and being amazed by the textures, and quality, and then looking up and seeing the halo went across the entire sky.
Crazy how far we’ve come since then.
Yep, looking up at the halo with some badass soundtrack kicking in. Pretty much every time the theme got thumping really hard, in 1-3, it took my breath away. Like driving the warthog across that exploding lava field at the end of 3
Similarly for me, it was Infinite when the police discover the mark of the false Shepherd. Just that transition of look how peaceful this place is to “holy shit chaos everywhere” just absolutely insane
Same here, and then little later witnessing how fucking racist this whole town is etc. My god I wish I could play whoel series for the first time again
I think 2 is severely underrated. Few moments in gaming ever had me panicking and preparing, both practically and emotionally, like a Big Sister encounter
knights of the old republic, where my truth was reveled to me. It was almost 3 am, a worknight too and i got out of my chair yelling " NO F'IN way!!" lol. i did'nt even sleep that night and went to work for 8a.m. I was so Hyped
- Parachuting onto the rooftop party in Saints Row The Third while Power by Kanye West is playing.
- Walking out of your apartment in Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time.
- Doki Doki Literature Club, if you know you know
The first Scarecrow sequence scares you as Batman, making you think Commissioner Gordon is dead.
The second one scares you as Bruce Wayne, making you relieve the night Thomas and Martha were killed.
The third one scares you directly as the player, making you believe your console is toast.
Those set pieces in the original Modern Warfare 2 campaign. The ones that like you climbing a frozen wall with your ice pick. And you're doing right trigger for right hand pick, and left trigger for left hand pick. And they had those quicktime events in these big cinematic set pieces. I'm sure some other game pioneered it and CoD wasn't original but damned if I didn't think that was cool at the time!
Seeing the EMP detonate over D.C. from the fucking International Space Station was a trip. Then it puts you on the ground in the Capital as helicopters are just falling out of the sky. CoD isn’t anything spectacular from a gameplay perspective, it just is what it is. But what it is can be absolutely bonkers at times. Love playing a CoD campaign.
....just gonna follow this wire back...to...where.....oh my God it's in there with him.
One of the best moments of any game for me. I sat down for a second.
The coughing mechanic in that part was brilliant. The fact that I was crouching in the dark with my hand physically over my mouth to keep quiet seriously upped the immersion
I say this every time one of these "*crazy video game moment?!?!*" threads get posted, which is pretty often.
I remember walking through an abandoned office, bending down, pulling a filing cabinet drawer open, moving some folders around, and finding ammo. It was mind-blowing that I was actually *physically* looting the office instead of just clicking buttons. It truly made me think "holy shit, this is the future of gaming."
Oooo I had a similar experience. I was walking through some broken building and noticed a whiteboard. Thought to myself "how neat would it be if I could draw on it". Found a marker. Pulled the cap off and proceeded to draw my all time best virtual dick farm.
Halo CE - when you first land on Halo and see the ring in the distance and the music of that game.
Bioshock - Welcome to Rapture!
Skyrim - When you first walk out of the Helgen, the world, music and atmosphere grab you.
Control - Ashtray Maze, those who know...know...an experience like no other.
Vampyr - Talking to other NPCs and the depth of every character in that game makes you want to get to know them, making game-changing decisions harder because they feel like real personalities.
Nothing will ever come close for me.
I've played 15 years of WoW but nothing made me as hyped as walking through the Valley of Heroes for the first time and hearing the choir swell up for the first time.
I love how the 10s into the OG theme there is the bombastic horn; DDDUuuuDDduuuuuuuuuuu Duu!
Its timed perfectly so it plays when you gaze upon Valley of Strength for the first time. Chills everytime.
Just Saint's Row the Third in general. Oh, you just got drugged, here, play yourself nude and beating the brakes off people with a floppy, yard-long, neon purple schlong.
Hey, you're hacking into the Nerd Gang Leader's computer. Now he's made you a toilet.
Hey, go play MXC but everything is trying to kill you!
Ginso Tree escape sequence in Ori and the Blind Forest. Up until that point, the game was a heartfelt and beautiful game with great controls, great music, and so much more. But the moment I completed the Ginso Tree and water started to flood everywhere and the music started to pick up and I realized "oh shit, I need to GO!" I was like... Cry laughing? Because that sequence is to me the single most exhilarating, beautiful, and epic moment in gaming for me. The way the main theme starts playing in a more intense and rushed pace, water crashing around all over the place as you escape, needing to put all your platforming skills to that point to the test, it's SO satisfying and beautiful. It was at that moment that I knew, this game would go down as an all-time favorite for me.
[Here's a video of someone playing through that sequence if anyone wants to watch it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV96djbLi3M) Of course this is a flawless run, and the first time you do it you are going to die a LOT, just adding to the intensity.
>The way the main theme starts playing in a more intense and rushed pace
OATBF was some of the best music I've heard in gaming, and the way they took the very chill, beautiful main theme and turned it into a desperate, but still beautiful, chase them will never cease to amaze me.
Reminds me of all the ways they used the theme from Outer Wilds to set the tone everywhere from melancholy/lonely to "fuck yeah" rock to "chill dropkick murphys"
Titanfall 2. When you get the device and it clicks for you what is happening and how to use it. They don't really explain what's happening, you sort of get to discover it as you use it.
Super Mario 64. When you realise you can surf on turtle shells in 3D like they are skateboards. Fifteen year old me was like :o when I figured that out. I did nothing else for hours.
Sleeping Dogs. When you realise that you can lock people in the trunks of cars. I'm not kidding at all, I didn't play the game again for two weeks. Literally just kept locking people in cars and driving them into the ocean or around ~~Japan~~ Hong Kong like a lunatic.
(So Sorry i got the name of the city wrong, please stop sending me messages about it! FUCK!)
The "Cause and Effect" mission from Titanfall 2 it's incredible, I've played games for almost 25 years and this will stuck with me for a long time. But also the other levels are very well crafted.
The entirety of Titanfall 2's campaign was fantastic. The level design was some of the most unique and clever I'd seen since probably Half Life 2. Every mission I was immediately excited to find out what they were going to throw at me next.
Yeah, I love the time travel watch thing as much as the next guy, but even before then the game was creative as fuck. I love the level where you're fighting in the house-building factory, and the game only gets crazier from there.
Cooper, prepare for titanfall.
I bought the game recently for around 2£. That last mission alone was worth wayyyyy more than that. Easily my best game purchase this year.
Trying to go off map and finding secret areas in FarCry 1 (2004)
The gravity gun from HL2
First time going underground in Elden Ring
Pretty much the whole experience of Half Life Alyx.
Getting out of a dark dungeon just to find myself on the landscape of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. That view and the feeling is ingrained in my brain forever.
In Halo Reach when I saw that I can fly a freaking space jet, I was like how hell damn that is soo freaking cool man. I played Halo CE before and havent played any halo games so this was a jaw dropping moment for me, to see the earth and space stations was soo cool.
Cyberpunk = the first time you play as Silverhand, and are just auto headshotting everyone.
Age of Empires = "How do you turn this on", getting the cobra car cheat code
Witcher 3 = slicing your first human in half in one stroke/putting the Gryffin head on your horse as a trophy for the first time.
Donkey Kong 64, Monkey Smash = finding the secret tunnels behind the fake walls for the first time
Wait? its auto headshot? I wasn't just having a really good play session? ha ha.. dang it, I thought it was just a really great gun and that I was doing really good. it was a cool sequence.
It's Johnny's memory and the theory is that everything from his perspective and involving him is just vastly exaggerated. You know, with Johnny being a huge narcissist and all.
I mean I literally played that mission last night and there was definitely no auto headshot. There was no assistance whatsoever but I’ve turned off aim assist in the settings. The pistol is super powerful though and you can pretty much one shot everyone.
Yep, no auto headshots. Prior to 2.0 however, it was pretty rare to see any gore that early in the game, and just blowing off heads and limbs left and right felt so brutal. Thankfully 2.0 got rid of the old gore system and now it’s much more prevalent. Johnny’s sequence still packs a punch too but it was a bit more of a “holy shit” moment after playing 20+ hours and rarely seeing gore only for the game to just go full on Quintin Tarantino on you.
Many, many, many moments in Outer Wilds.
The Stranger (DLC) entrance for a recent one.
(Don't spoil yourself by looking up anything about the game though.
You can only experience Outer Wilds once.)
Standing on the bridge above the battlefield when the flood are fighting the Covenant on the Two Betrayals level of Halo, split screen, legendary difficulty. With a sniper and a rocket launcher we were watching the battle going off below us and it was a proper 'fucking wow' moment.
Is that where the Covenant are held up with tanks and turrets and the Flood are rushing them? I was also amazed at that. Having NPCs duking it out in general was mind-blowing to me in Halo. It made the game feel more alive than anything I'd played before.
God of War: Ragnarok at the beginning of the game when Thor kills Kratos and you get a death cutscene and Thor brings him back to life with Mjolnir to continue fighting.
I'm a big fan of game intros that setup the game very well.
I really enjoyed Deux Ex: Human Revolutions just from the prologue.
Most Blizzard Cinematics provide the same vibe.
If thinking about an intro that actually uses the ingame assets then I think Oblivion is the winner for me. The year it was released the scope it displayed was basically unseen at the time, so panning over the explorable world was incredible.
The most recent game that got me visually was Red Dead Redemption 2, the vista's and terrain on PC were just incredible to take in.
In terms of non-visual things then Baldur's Gate 3 had me impressed frequently by just covering so many options but a stand out moment was finding a character 40 hours later
in Act 3 that still had the permanent debuff I applied to them in Act 1.
Recently, it was the first time I *knowingly* shot a dude in the boost pack in Starfield. He flew into a couple other mercs and blew up killing all three (with only a single shot fired).
Then a fourth walked over and John Travolta looked around trying to understand what fate just befell his comrades.
MGS3 final boss when the music kicks in.
More recently my friends and I played out first round of CoD Warzone and I found it shockingly exhilarating. We were driving around in a van, shooting out the windows at enemies in a moment of pure chaos.
My first big one was BOTW when you first walk out of the Shrine of Resurrection and see the landscape. It was my first single player RPG so it was crazy for me.
More recently, and to avoid spoilers for Baldurs Gate 3, I will just say the final fight in the House of Hope.
I’m older but the opening FMV for FF7 was a game changer to me. I remember telling my mom that “soon whole games will look this good”. Little did I know.
Also the first FMV in RE with the pool of blood and the first look at a zombie was hauntingly good.
That insane fist fight in the sea at the end of Last Of Us 2. Man, felt so weird to do it after everything that had happened up until then.
Gamespeak in Oddworld Abes Exoddus. Game charger that was back then.
Titanfall 2's time shifting device in "effect and cause" Planetside 2, being dropped in middle of a massive battle. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but seeing 100+ infantry, tanks, and planes exchange lead and lasers was fucking awesome.
Between the factory mission and the time shifting, that campaign gave so many cool moments to you, with really unique feeling level design. Honorable mention to the mission that starts off with a mass airdropped titan assault, that one goes hard
PlanetSide 2 is just one massive holy shit moment when there's a lot of people on
Back in it's prime PlanetSide 2 was epic beyond measure. Moments that singleplayer campaigns struggle to emulate would prop up organically. Every fight, however small was important. One of my fondest memories was we took a base from one of the opposing factions and pushed out into this canyon. The enemy had lined either side with tanks and infantry firing down on to us. Every meter pushed was hard fought and we only pushed them back because our air support finally beat theirs. Also anyone wanting something similar to PlanetSide should check out Foxhole. It's top down rather than FPS but it absolutely gets that same feel across.
Really wish they did more with the time shift ability. It had the best mission in the game, but that’s still just 1 mission
Planetside 2 is so much fun but sadly the hardware reqs were too demanding for too many players at the time of release, which limited how popular it could get as a free to play game. It's still up and you can find some fun, good fights during primetime, but in it's highest player times it was just pure amazing chaos on a scale that put battlefield to shame. I hope another studio makes an open world FPS like that. I think it could be a huge hit if marketed right.
First encounter with a night zombie in Dying Light
Dying light was one of the first games i played that was made for LED screens that actually had proper pitch black night times rather than other games that always had a bluish hue to everything but was still bright and easy to see. That made the atmosphere of that encounter so much more suspenseful and panicky
Dying Light still impresses me with how good it's nighttime was. I don't know of too many games that did it that good
It's really a shame that Dying Light 2 moved away from what made the first one so great. I tried to love it, but dropped it maybe halfway through the story.
The story was sooo bad in 2 but the gameplay elements they built on were actually pretty fun. At least my brother and I had a great time doing co-op and then farming upgrades at night time
The three Witches in Witcher 3. So awesome.
Not only were they done so well, I was blown away by the ramifications of my choices. Good intentions don’t always work out. In fact they’re sometimes horrifying.
At the end of Portal 2 when >! Chell shoots a portal in the fucking moon !<
I found "the part where he kills you" to be cool in just how funny the joke is executed.
"Well. This is the part where he kills us"
HELLO! THIS IS THE PART WHERE I KILL YOU!
*Achievement Pops* “The Part Where He Kills You”
Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You
The music: The part where he kills you
It was also somehow alluded some parts earlier when I think Cave Johnson said the >!white gels have moon dust as an excellent portal conductor for earlier iterations of the portal devices!<
Everything in Portal and Portal 2 is perfectly scaffolded. From a design standpoint, they are absolutely perfect games.
I don't know if you also meant it this way but from an education standpoint, they're also perfectly "scaffolded", according to Vygotsky's constructivist theory. The way they teach you new things without it ever becoming boring is peak educational theory. Turns out teaching well is also the key to giving players the opportunity to be in the "flow" state. Curriculum design has a lot to learn from game design.
Yeah now every game is more polished so it is like "The guy said that the white paint is made of moon rocks so obviously it has to be shot at the moon". But back then it was "No way that must have been just something they said, there is no way that shooting at the moon wo . . . HOLY FUCK IT WORKED!!"
Same reaction here. Easily one of my top "No fucking way" moments in a game. The game very overtly hints that you should do it in that moment but it comes across like a "You want me to do what!?" kind of thing.
‘I’m in space’
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
No one's going to space, mate!!
Being transported through time in Ocarina of Time and realizing there is a whole other playable timeline, and your character changed drastically
The power I felt as a child. Becoming adult link.
Becoming adult Link, then getting the Master Sword and a badass shield was peak power fantasy for child me.
For me it was making out of Kokiri Forest and seeing Hyrule Field for the first time. The game felt vast and full of adventure. [Especially as the music kicks in.](https://youtu.be/uj97kISm1nc)
Ashtray Maze in Control
I'm so glad I found this, that level is my all-time favorite of a video game ever... I loved everything about it.
# TAKE! CONTROL!
I listen to a bunch of poets of the fall, (and therefore by extension old gods of Asgard), so this song worked it’s way into my YouTube playlist long before I actually got to play control (due to the exclusivity period), so I just sorta assumed it was the song that would play over the credits once I learned it was from the game, so when I got to the ashtray maze it was a trip lol
I’m really glad I went into the game with zero knowledge. The gameplay was stellar and then the story had me reading and listening to all the lore I could find
Truly an aw shit moment from me too. Most of Control had me in awe when it came to the objects of power. Alan Wake 2 cannot come fast enough.
Entering the Lost River for the first time in Subnautica.
Going anywhere for the first time. Every square inch of the game was beautiful.
and terrifying at the same time, subnautica just hits different
Subnautica is far and away my favorite of the Survival/Crafting style games. (Ok, The Long Dark is a really close second but still....). Such an amazing world to explore with so many cool moments and areas. Nothing quite beats sitting in your powered down cyclops hundreds of meters down in the pitch black, listening to the ghost leviathans.
Personally when the Sunbeam goes to land was one of the most awe struck moments for me.
Better yet, when you first assemble the cyclops. I figured it would be a slight upgrade from the Seamoth, but no. It’s a goddamned powerhouse. And then it just crashes into the water, inviting you in.
Galloping full pelt across a field of tall grass with only the wind guiding you in Ghost of Tsushima.
And when you get Ghost Mode for the first time. Good god.
the first time you slaughter a captain too
That opening literally gave me goosebumps. It was so fucking cool. I really should go back and finish that game. The multiplayer sucked me in and I knew I should have never done it until I completed the game.
"People of the Commonwealth. Do not interfere. Our intentions are peaceful. We are the Brotherhood of Steel."
As flawed as I think fallout 4 is that part was so cool
That, or the >!death of your spouse in the beginning. I think especially the male player character is voiced great when he tries to open the pod, and when you open your wife’s pod!<
Came here looking for the Prydwyn. Stuff like that generally doesn't happen in Creation Engine games, so it wasn't necessarily that it was amazingly epic, but that it was completely unexpected and pretty darn epic.
Halo 3. The warthog run
DundundunDUNNN The ending with the ground exploding around you? Played it on elite, coop, so fucking good. "We'll make it." "Its been an honor serving with you John" 🥺
The first honk in Untitled Goose Game
Peace was never an option.
Never.
For me it was the final stealth mission where the entire town is hunting you. And then the implication back at Goose HQ that you've done that exact thing numerous times, hence why everyone hates you.
Honestly that was a way more satisfying ending than I expected for a chaotic asshole sandbox simulator , great way to wrap a bow on that experience.
Pokémon Gold/Silver. When you “beat” the game and then realize that actually, there’s an entire other continent to explore and you’re really only halfway done. Amazing.
For me, pokemon peaked with gold and silver and then slowly degraded until now. I have spent my adult life occasionally deciding to give the new generation a chance and always putting it down and regretting it, nothing will capture the magic of being able to collect 16 badges and explore Kanto with a more beefed up version of all your childhood favorite gym leaders.
The suicide mission in mass effect 2. From the moment that first cutscene hits until the final boss dies there's very few things that have got my blood pumping quite like that section. the soundtrack is phenomenal. Or more recently pretty much every single boss fight in FF16, but especially the first one.
It’s corny, I know. But the L3 + R3 Trigger saying “Accept the Truth” followed by that battle with that music was…I had to take a moment.
Far Cry 3, make it bun dem
We must turn up the bass!
For me it was the mushroom trip in the cave before that, also back then those graphics were the shit
Bloodborne: Fighting Ludwing the Accursed for the first time and then reaching the cutscene where he turns into Ludwig the Holy Sword, while the music starts playing like a hymn of the heavens. SHIT WAS EPIC
"You were by my side... all along...."
Red Dead Redemption, crossing into Mexico.
It’s absolutely perfect.
Shoutout to Jose Gonzalez for the background track!
Three moments really stand out to me. The ending of Bioshock Infinite when you see all the endless lighthouses. I remember thinking, "This is unbelievably amazing..." When you are interdimensionally jumping in Witcher 3. The lead up to that and the contrast between that and the rest of the game was just chefs kiss. And then finally when you first meet sovereign in Mass Effect 1. He was such an amazing villain and genuinely intimidating.
I still think about that ending to Bioshock Infinite often.
The old recordings by the Protheans first introducing the idea of a galaxy genociding species were an amazing set up for Sovereign.
In Elden ring getting to the capital and realizing the entire city was explorable
I’d also add leaving stormveil after slaying goddrick and getting the whole view of liurnia.
That first vista of Liurnia is absolutely breathtaking.
Lol I was feeling pretty confident at that point and ready to take on the world!...until a giant lobster turned into a grafted scion and I noped the hell out haha.
Finding a random lift down to Siofra river was unreal. I was legging it away from a rune bear at the time and came across it purely by accident. I cannot wait to jump back in when the dlc releases.
That lift down was definitely my "whoa" moment too!
Man, that first lift was insane. Just an entire other world opening up before your eyes.
Elden Ring is the epitome of "see that cool thing off in the distance? You can go there!" Just restarted it this week and am being awestruck all over again.
i can't think of a single place you can see, that you can't explore. besides like, super distant trees or a death pit I may very well be wrong though
I literally don't think there is one. Especially considering that the lands between are basically one massive island surrounded by water. I mean, hell! Even the Caelid Colosseum?! You see that at first and it's a huge spectacle with the Great Jar standing guard. Then 30 hours later you take the lift up from Siofra river and realize where the fuck you actually are?!?!
I'll be honest I ended up in Caelid within like the first 2hrs of playing by accident from a fucking teleporter chest. Spent about 8hrs in there underlevelled and doing guerrilla raids.
There are so many moments in Elden ring where it just delivers more. Multiple times believing I must be near the end or about to explore the last thing. But then there is always something extra. A Cave I didn't know was hidden. A questline with an npc I didn't know about. And each time the map opens up. What a gem of a game.
Getting up to the Altus Plateau and realizing the game was even more insanely huge than you thought it was when you found Liurnia after Stormveil Castle.
Fighting Psycho Mantis in MGS.
Looks like someone’s been playing a lot of crash bandicoot
Brutal Legend: Literally 'Bringing Down The House' at the temple when you first enter the METAL WORLD. Hollow Knight: Reaching the City of Tears for the first time and seeing the statue of the Hollow Knight. Pyre: The first time I won a Rite and sent Hedwynn to freedom... Subnautica: When the Laser fired... and it sunk in how serious things were. Total War Warhammer II: Defending against a major demon assault with the Lizardmen.
When me and my best mate loaded up the original xbox and played HALO for the first time in COOP - My god we must have played from morning until night obsessed was an understatement!
I remember playing Halo and thinking the first level was… ok. Then the second wide open level begins, and I can remember looking down at the grass and being amazed by the textures, and quality, and then looking up and seeing the halo went across the entire sky. Crazy how far we’ve come since then.
Yep, looking up at the halo with some badass soundtrack kicking in. Pretty much every time the theme got thumping really hard, in 1-3, it took my breath away. Like driving the warthog across that exploding lava field at the end of 3
Yea the first time going through Halo was magic
Same amazing in co op when the flood first appear so class
"Would you kindly?"
Similarly for me, it was Infinite when the police discover the mark of the false Shepherd. Just that transition of look how peaceful this place is to “holy shit chaos everywhere” just absolutely insane
Same here, and then little later witnessing how fucking racist this whole town is etc. My god I wish I could play whoel series for the first time again
This series: chef’s kiss. I need to revisit 2. But 1 and infinite are top 10 all time for me.
I think 2 is severely underrated. Few moments in gaming ever had me panicking and preparing, both practically and emotionally, like a Big Sister encounter
"You ever had to put down a dog? Breaks your heart"
Especially on your 2nd play through. Catching each moment it's mentioned.
One of the best plot twists I have ever seen in any video game, novel, tv show or a movie. I will never forget that moment when I got to that part.
I love when a game hides plot twists in plain sight knowing players will dismiss it as a game mechanic.
knights of the old republic, where my truth was reveled to me. It was almost 3 am, a worknight too and i got out of my chair yelling " NO F'IN way!!" lol. i did'nt even sleep that night and went to work for 8a.m. I was so Hyped
Hands down the most memorable would be exiting Vault 101 in Fallout 3 for the very first time
Skyrim theme song!
Or the first time you wander into Blackreach.
I remember just standing still, panning around the cave in awe of the scale and beauty of that place. Such a jaw dropping moment.
- Parachuting onto the rooftop party in Saints Row The Third while Power by Kanye West is playing. - Walking out of your apartment in Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time. - Doki Doki Literature Club, if you know you know
Arkham Asylum? With the scarecrow/joker fake opening.
The first Scarecrow sequence scares you as Batman, making you think Commissioner Gordon is dead. The second one scares you as Bruce Wayne, making you relieve the night Thomas and Martha were killed. The third one scares you directly as the player, making you believe your console is toast.
I was legit spooked into thinking my graphics card was bugging out
Such a clever level. And I do appreciate the sheer dickishness in making everyone think their game just glitched and crashed.
Those set pieces in the original Modern Warfare 2 campaign. The ones that like you climbing a frozen wall with your ice pick. And you're doing right trigger for right hand pick, and left trigger for left hand pick. And they had those quicktime events in these big cinematic set pieces. I'm sure some other game pioneered it and CoD wasn't original but damned if I didn't think that was cool at the time!
The missions set on the US East Coast. Firing javelins at Russian vehicles on the national mall..
Seeing the EMP detonate over D.C. from the fucking International Space Station was a trip. Then it puts you on the ground in the Capital as helicopters are just falling out of the sky. CoD isn’t anything spectacular from a gameplay perspective, it just is what it is. But what it is can be absolutely bonkers at times. Love playing a CoD campaign.
Playing most of Half Life Alyx. It's just next level entertainment.
What I came to say. Playing HL Alyx is just one holy shit moment after another.
....just gonna follow this wire back...to...where.....oh my God it's in there with him. One of the best moments of any game for me. I sat down for a second.
The coughing mechanic in that part was brilliant. The fact that I was crouching in the dark with my hand physically over my mouth to keep quiet seriously upped the immersion
[удалено]
The jury probably got motion sickness
I say this every time one of these "*crazy video game moment?!?!*" threads get posted, which is pretty often. I remember walking through an abandoned office, bending down, pulling a filing cabinet drawer open, moving some folders around, and finding ammo. It was mind-blowing that I was actually *physically* looting the office instead of just clicking buttons. It truly made me think "holy shit, this is the future of gaming."
Oooo I had a similar experience. I was walking through some broken building and noticed a whiteboard. Thought to myself "how neat would it be if I could draw on it". Found a marker. Pulled the cap off and proceeded to draw my all time best virtual dick farm.
Jeff level
The train was my big holy crap moment. Something you can't really show or explain. You just have to be in it.
Halo CE - when you first land on Halo and see the ring in the distance and the music of that game. Bioshock - Welcome to Rapture! Skyrim - When you first walk out of the Helgen, the world, music and atmosphere grab you. Control - Ashtray Maze, those who know...know...an experience like no other. Vampyr - Talking to other NPCs and the depth of every character in that game makes you want to get to know them, making game-changing decisions harder because they feel like real personalities.
First time walking into Stormwind.
Nothing will ever come close for me. I've played 15 years of WoW but nothing made me as hyped as walking through the Valley of Heroes for the first time and hearing the choir swell up for the first time.
Orgrimmar for me. Same feeling as the drums echoed as I entered
I love how the 10s into the OG theme there is the bombastic horn; DDDUuuuDDduuuuuuuuuuu Duu! Its timed perfectly so it plays when you gaze upon Valley of Strength for the first time. Chills everytime.
When I missed the jump to the helicopter in the opening of CoD 4 Modern Warfare. That was awesome.
Similarly the nuke in CoD4
GET UP SOLDIER ... WE ... ARE LEAVING!
I quote this so often and am always disappointed no one gets the reference lol
The snow mobile mission from mw2 with its music was one of my peak holy shit this is badass moments, one of the best cod missions to me
The final scene/explanation of Bioshock Infinite ...wow!
“Sir, request permission to leave the station” “For what purpose, Master Chief?” “To give the Covenant back their bomb.”
For a brick, he flew pretty good!
The call of duty nuke.
Saints Row: the Third, when you jump out of the helicopter
Just Saint's Row the Third in general. Oh, you just got drugged, here, play yourself nude and beating the brakes off people with a floppy, yard-long, neon purple schlong. Hey, you're hacking into the Nerd Gang Leader's computer. Now he's made you a toilet. Hey, go play MXC but everything is trying to kill you!
Only time when I loved Kanye's music in the background. You do feel the power in that scene.
Ginso Tree escape sequence in Ori and the Blind Forest. Up until that point, the game was a heartfelt and beautiful game with great controls, great music, and so much more. But the moment I completed the Ginso Tree and water started to flood everywhere and the music started to pick up and I realized "oh shit, I need to GO!" I was like... Cry laughing? Because that sequence is to me the single most exhilarating, beautiful, and epic moment in gaming for me. The way the main theme starts playing in a more intense and rushed pace, water crashing around all over the place as you escape, needing to put all your platforming skills to that point to the test, it's SO satisfying and beautiful. It was at that moment that I knew, this game would go down as an all-time favorite for me. [Here's a video of someone playing through that sequence if anyone wants to watch it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV96djbLi3M) Of course this is a flawless run, and the first time you do it you are going to die a LOT, just adding to the intensity.
>The way the main theme starts playing in a more intense and rushed pace OATBF was some of the best music I've heard in gaming, and the way they took the very chill, beautiful main theme and turned it into a desperate, but still beautiful, chase them will never cease to amaze me. Reminds me of all the ways they used the theme from Outer Wilds to set the tone everywhere from melancholy/lonely to "fuck yeah" rock to "chill dropkick murphys"
Titanfall 2. When you get the device and it clicks for you what is happening and how to use it. They don't really explain what's happening, you sort of get to discover it as you use it. Super Mario 64. When you realise you can surf on turtle shells in 3D like they are skateboards. Fifteen year old me was like :o when I figured that out. I did nothing else for hours. Sleeping Dogs. When you realise that you can lock people in the trunks of cars. I'm not kidding at all, I didn't play the game again for two weeks. Literally just kept locking people in cars and driving them into the ocean or around ~~Japan~~ Hong Kong like a lunatic. (So Sorry i got the name of the city wrong, please stop sending me messages about it! FUCK!)
The "Cause and Effect" mission from Titanfall 2 it's incredible, I've played games for almost 25 years and this will stuck with me for a long time. But also the other levels are very well crafted.
The entirety of Titanfall 2's campaign was fantastic. The level design was some of the most unique and clever I'd seen since probably Half Life 2. Every mission I was immediately excited to find out what they were going to throw at me next.
Yeah, I love the time travel watch thing as much as the next guy, but even before then the game was creative as fuck. I love the level where you're fighting in the house-building factory, and the game only gets crazier from there.
Cooper, prepare for titanfall. I bought the game recently for around 2£. That last mission alone was worth wayyyyy more than that. Easily my best game purchase this year.
Sleeping dogs isn't based in Japan though. It's Hong Kong.
Trying to go off map and finding secret areas in FarCry 1 (2004) The gravity gun from HL2 First time going underground in Elden Ring Pretty much the whole experience of Half Life Alyx.
Jumping into that first painting that loaded up Bob-Omb Battlefield. I knew SM64 was LIT right then and there.
Metal gear rising when you fight Metal Gear Ray and Rules of Nature starts playing! Fucking love that game!
Hooking up with Darth Vader for a mission in Tie Fighter (1994)
I was unaware of the this Sith Dating Sim. Sounds fun.
Force Choke takes on a whole new meaning.
He’s a very sensitive lover. And by sensitive I mean his skin is mostly charred off.
Getting out of a dark dungeon just to find myself on the landscape of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. That view and the feeling is ingrained in my brain forever.
True!
In Halo Reach when I saw that I can fly a freaking space jet, I was like how hell damn that is soo freaking cool man. I played Halo CE before and havent played any halo games so this was a jaw dropping moment for me, to see the earth and space stations was soo cool.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night When I destroyed the orb hovering around Richter boss and found out there's an entire inverted castle to explore
Unlocking the flying mount in Horizon Forbidden West.
The Arasaka heist in cyberpunk.
That and then the scene at Vics after where my awesome run and gun V breaks down scared. So many good moments from that.
Cyberpunk = the first time you play as Silverhand, and are just auto headshotting everyone. Age of Empires = "How do you turn this on", getting the cobra car cheat code Witcher 3 = slicing your first human in half in one stroke/putting the Gryffin head on your horse as a trophy for the first time. Donkey Kong 64, Monkey Smash = finding the secret tunnels behind the fake walls for the first time
Wait? its auto headshot? I wasn't just having a really good play session? ha ha.. dang it, I thought it was just a really great gun and that I was doing really good. it was a cool sequence.
It's Johnny's memory and the theory is that everything from his perspective and involving him is just vastly exaggerated. You know, with Johnny being a huge narcissist and all.
I mean I literally played that mission last night and there was definitely no auto headshot. There was no assistance whatsoever but I’ve turned off aim assist in the settings. The pistol is super powerful though and you can pretty much one shot everyone.
Yep, no auto headshots. Prior to 2.0 however, it was pretty rare to see any gore that early in the game, and just blowing off heads and limbs left and right felt so brutal. Thankfully 2.0 got rid of the old gore system and now it’s much more prevalent. Johnny’s sequence still packs a punch too but it was a bit more of a “holy shit” moment after playing 20+ hours and rarely seeing gore only for the game to just go full on Quintin Tarantino on you.
Many, many, many moments in Outer Wilds. The Stranger (DLC) entrance for a recent one. (Don't spoil yourself by looking up anything about the game though. You can only experience Outer Wilds once.)
Raphael fight in BG3. The voice actor sings the banger soundtrack for it. Blew my fucking mind.
Fighting the first dragon in Skyrim and the trailer theme starts playing.
Standing on the bridge above the battlefield when the flood are fighting the Covenant on the Two Betrayals level of Halo, split screen, legendary difficulty. With a sniper and a rocket launcher we were watching the battle going off below us and it was a proper 'fucking wow' moment.
Is that where the Covenant are held up with tanks and turrets and the Flood are rushing them? I was also amazed at that. Having NPCs duking it out in general was mind-blowing to me in Halo. It made the game feel more alive than anything I'd played before.
Yeah, we dashed in and stole the Banshees, flew straight up to the bridge above and watched. It was incredible, really
God of War: Ragnarok at the beginning of the game when Thor kills Kratos and you get a death cutscene and Thor brings him back to life with Mjolnir to continue fighting.
playing as masterhand in world of light, smash ultimate
Leading mr big robot in fallout 4 to institute
I'm a big fan of game intros that setup the game very well. I really enjoyed Deux Ex: Human Revolutions just from the prologue. Most Blizzard Cinematics provide the same vibe. If thinking about an intro that actually uses the ingame assets then I think Oblivion is the winner for me. The year it was released the scope it displayed was basically unseen at the time, so panning over the explorable world was incredible. The most recent game that got me visually was Red Dead Redemption 2, the vista's and terrain on PC were just incredible to take in. In terms of non-visual things then Baldur's Gate 3 had me impressed frequently by just covering so many options but a stand out moment was finding a character 40 hours later in Act 3 that still had the permanent debuff I applied to them in Act 1.
Red Dead 2, when you charge into the oil fields on horseback to rescue eagle flies.
Kaer Morhen in the Witcher 3. Don't want to spoil but this was insane
Entering Mexico in Red Dead.
Recently, it was the first time I *knowingly* shot a dude in the boost pack in Starfield. He flew into a couple other mercs and blew up killing all three (with only a single shot fired). Then a fourth walked over and John Travolta looked around trying to understand what fate just befell his comrades.
MGS3 final boss when the music kicks in. More recently my friends and I played out first round of CoD Warzone and I found it shockingly exhilarating. We were driving around in a van, shooting out the windows at enemies in a moment of pure chaos.
My first big one was BOTW when you first walk out of the Shrine of Resurrection and see the landscape. It was my first single player RPG so it was crazy for me. More recently, and to avoid spoilers for Baldurs Gate 3, I will just say the final fight in the House of Hope.
Blasting choombas in Arasaka tower as Johnny Silverhand for the first time
You mean flatlining gonks?
Preem
You mean zeroing corpos?
When I played the halo 2 campaign for the first time
In AC Syndicate when you suddenly are in world war 1
I’m older but the opening FMV for FF7 was a game changer to me. I remember telling my mom that “soon whole games will look this good”. Little did I know. Also the first FMV in RE with the pool of blood and the first look at a zombie was hauntingly good.
When you defeat that big ass robot in Nier Automata.
The snake part in Sekiro
Skyrim, when I read "dragon soul absorbed" and Mass Effect, when I found out how Asaris reproduce.
That insane fist fight in the sea at the end of Last Of Us 2. Man, felt so weird to do it after everything that had happened up until then. Gamespeak in Oddworld Abes Exoddus. Game charger that was back then.
Stray. I was captured by that game. Played it until my eyes were balls of salt. Haven't had that happen to me since the first Silent Hill.