For Discussion #1: Your Favorite Moments
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Hello y’all! Yes, you, the person reading these words. There are two of you, which is why I’m responding to you in the plural. Two of you right there LOOK BEHIND YOU! Ahem. We here at Nightmare Mode have a lot of cool things to offer you in the near future, and the first of these things is our new weekly feature, where we’re going to step out of our ivory towers, open up the floor, and see what you all think about stuff. This week’s topic for discussion: What is your favorite moment involving a video game? Can be anything, from a particularly cool part of a game to that time you screwed your best friend over in Civilization to that time you waited in line for eight hours to get the first copy of Halo 3 at a midnight release. Though that might be a bit sad. So, yeah! Jump to it in the comments. We’ll be here. Watching. Or, no, wait, it doesn’t say watching on the script. It says participating. Sorry about that. It’s hard to read the script sometimes. |
Hey, this looks familiar! 😀
Personally one of my favourite gaming moments came from my testing days. A dozen of us were playtesting the team multiplayer component of Commandos: Strike Force on the Xbox. Another guy had dropped a molotov cocktail in a narrow corridor, effectively blocking off the route to him and giving him time to reload safely. Or so he thought until I leapt like a crazy man through the six-foot patch of fire and plugged him in the head with a single burst of Thompson fire before landing safely. Apparently it was even cooler from his perspective.
Just goes to show that even mediocre games like CSF can produce some unique, memorable moments. And that’s why even though this isn’t my favourite gaming moment or anecdote, it is one that I like to bring up because it highlights one of the unique strengths of gaming as a medium. 🙂
Oof yeah. Even in the most wretched of games, you can wring out some good moments. I’m glad C:SF did some good for someone; as a huge fan of the original two Commandos I have nothing but bile for that one.
Now I’m wondering how this looks familiar. Did I directly steal the name from someone? Have you actually read the blog long enough (and have a good enough memory) to remember where I stole the picture from? Is it a mysterious third thing?
It was not a very good game, but compared to much of what we were testing it was a breath of fresh air.
And ah, no, that was just a reference to the “question of the week” posts we used to do over on Arcadian Rhythms! Nothing was meant by it though; we didn’t invent asking questions to prompt entertaining discussion. 😉
Yeah, that is actually rather fun. I remember playing a political simulator game called Democracy (a horribly bland game), but at one point when my approval rating bars were full among all the groups in society, except for the Capitalists, I got overthrown in a coup by the, you guessed it, the Capitalists. The event itself wasn’t that spectacular, it was actually rather annoying, it was what happen afterwards. The game ended. It just ended, saying something about me having been kidnapped and sent to some remote South American region. My citizens who loved me so made no attempt whatsoever to save me from my prison in the jungle. Then I got sad 🙁
I like this story – you hear a lot about emergent gameplay generating unusual events which the player weaves into their own narrative, but this is more like non-emergent gameplay generating a player narrative. 🙂
One moment that really sticks out in my mind is when I beat Mass Effect 2 for the first time. I will admit that I cheated a bit by looking up how to keep everyone on my team alive. I did not anticipate that maybe my source on the internet could be well…dead wrong. I beat the final boss and watched anxiously as the final cutscene played. Only to have my jaw drop at sight of Mordin lying dead on the ground. Well…I didn’t take it well and cried over the loss of my favorite crew member. It was late so I headed off to bed (more like was carted off to bed by Mark) and barely slept as I mourned the loss of my showtune singing friend. Needless to say, as soon as I woke up the next morning I went about saving his Salarian butt.
I had a similar experience in ME2, although with Thane instead. When he died, I was just stunned for a couple of minutes, and I remember still thinking about what an idiot I’d been even after shutting down my computer and going to bed. It still haunts me sometimes. But then, if Mordin died I think I’d be devastated 😉
Oh well, at least I got fired up for smashing that bloody Reaper!
Well now you have an excuse to play a second time (or whatever number you’re on…I think I’m on three)? Lol. After all, who wouldn’t want to go back and rescue Thane so he can live a couple more years.
Oh god, I have many (I think we all do).
If we’re talking this current generation only, however, then a big thing for me has been the way videogames use their spaces to allow us to inhabit worlds, roles, and eras. From atmosphere to the ability, potentially, for these experiences to teach us through this immersion, it’s been a really significant feature of many games this generation, and I can only hope it continues in the future.
I don’t mean to advertise here but one example was an experience I had with Red Dead Redemption, in which I wrote about how that game’s weather systems made way for an incredible moment. I also wrote about moments again for my most recent post, this time involving my favourite game Metroid Prime.
Again, I don’t mean to advertise but the point is that I have many moments and like to contemplate them afterwards, of which the above two posts are just some examples.
I could provide many more, if you wish, but this comment is already long enough I think. 🙂
Well, I’m sure I could list a ton, but the one that immediately springs to mind for an awesome action moment is the Colossus of Rhodes level from God of War 2. As much as I thought God of War 2 lost its way when compared to God of War 1, I can not deny that the Colossus part was fantastic, particularly when Kratos was inside it.
Purely in terms of ‘gaming’ I remember a win in Fight Night Round 4 vividly; staggering punch-drunk around the ring waiting for my cocky, healthy opponent to KO me at will, only for him to be caught by a haymaker with my boxer’s last vestiges of energy. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat was sublime.
Also deserving of mention are some of the botched X-Com missions I’ve had…it’s always more fun when thing’s go pear-shaped.
Story-wise, how much time have you got?
“Don’t trust the skull.”
Cloud’s clone/not a clone question being answered with the best ‘reveal’ in videogaming.
James Sunderland finds a tape in room 312.
Meeting the T-Rex in Tomb Raider, or tumbling off St. Francis’ Folly.
Resident Evil’s first big scare.
Just about every line of voice-acting in the LoK/Soul Reaver games.
After giving some love to only a singular game before (and after seeing someone else do a list), I feel inclined to make my own epic list. Hopefully I’m not stealing anyone’s thunder here.
– Defeating Fire Leo of Viewtiful Joe on Ultra V-Rated mode.
– After so many claustrophobic environments, finally getting to see the Hanging Waters in Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.
– Large swathes of Iji, but the final boss fight with General Tor was particularly great.
– The ending of Klonoa 2, because also any other part this game narrative that genuinely elicited tears from me.
– Pretty much all of Waterloo World in Psychonauts.
– Finally getting 100% on the Hunted by Microlites level in Stuntman. It’s one of the extremely rare times where I broke a controller out of frustration beforehand.
– Defeating Space Mama in Rayman.
– The “Good” ending of Eversion, especially since the interpretation of the scene shifts so much when only one change was made from the “Bad” ending.
– The trickery necessary to defeat the final boss of Depict1 (and the boss’ monologue).
– The Shark Attack bonus level of Treasures of the Deep, for its sheer uniqueness. (Made significantly better with time extending cheats!)
– The fact that Valve anticipated players getting stuck in certain parts of Portal and creating escape hatches for those parts. Also, some of the really creative solutions Portal players came up with from limited resources.
– Sparing Darko Brevic in GTA IV.
– Getting the Neighborhood Watch achievement for Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
– The Painter boss of Castle Crashers.
– Needing to fail a string of quick-time events in Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) in order to get a good result.
– The first 30 minutes or so of Brutal Legend. (Basically everything up until you make it to the mainland.)
– Various chunks of Metal Gear Solid 3, but especially anything and everything about The End and The Sorrow.
– The Captain Qwark vid-comics of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal.
That’s a good taste for the moment!
During middle-school my sister and I got a playstation and spend most of our free time for a few years sitting in the basement and playing Tekken, Crash Team Racing, and watching each other play through FF7 and Chrono Cross. Those were the best days.
After spending most of the summer playing Crash Team Racing against my sister, we were always neck in neck for first place. The exception was Polar Pass, where I could never seem to beat her. I usually tried to make a ridiculous jump and ran into a wall. I kept trying that same course, over and over, getting so frustrated that I was making stupid mistakes. She was usually happy to win, but seeing me get so upset, she started cheering me on. CTR is not a great game, and winning a racing game isn’t really a big deal to me. Still, the moment when she cheered me on and I got first place on Polar Pass was one of the times I truly knew that my sister was my best friend.
^ I actually thought Crash Team Racing was a great game. Sure, it had nothing on Mario Kart and you wouldn’t ever want to play CTR these days, but it was an interesting experiment and a pretty good kart racer to boot.
Oh I’ve got a few:
– Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: I’d been slicing away at a wind dragon for some time and knew the fight was coming to an end. It was impossible to tell for sure since the game doesn’t have life meters for the monsters. After being sent sprawling from a direct whack of its tail, I shouted, “THIS ENDS NOW!” and ran straight for the creature, bringing my longsword down onto its head, killing it instantly. My friend who was watching decided to give the game a try.
– Halo 3: I finished first place in a swords match with 25 kills. The guy in second place had 7 kills. Shortly after I changed my gamertag to IISwordmasterII.
– Shadow of the Colossus: Every time I encountered one of the colossi for the first time.
– Dynasty Warriors 4: Siding with Dong Zhuo at Hu Lao gate and wating behind said gate until all friendly officers were dead before taking on the entire enemy army with a friend.
I just had a moment like that earlier today.
My friends and I were playing the Co-Op Campaign in Call of Duty: World at War on Veteran difficulty. It was the last mission, where the Russians storm the inside of the Reichstag. We were really close to the end, then the bannerman went down (scripted!) and I ran under heavy fire to pluck the flag from his corpse. Since it was in an internet cafe, everyone was watching me and shouting and cheering me on as I walked the final steps to plant the flag at the Nazi headquarters. I felt like a real Hero of the Soviet Union!