First Time a Game 'Wowed' You

[Fat Hippo]

It was probably a game which is hardly remembered by anyone today: a small russian RPG by the name of Evil Islands. It really isn't incredibly good, but at the age of 8 it was the first RPG I ever played, and that very concept, experience points and leveling, simply blew...my...mind. And I've never looked back!

 

[WorriedSandwich]

9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. Audible 'oh WOW's where I finally released the breath I've been holding for minutes. Multiple times in the game.

 

[Furioso]

Probably when I played Pokemon: Blue, I had so much fun with that game. I still love the games today.

 

[FFP2]

Okay so I just finished Katawa Shoujo for the first time (Hanako's route) and wow...

Game Of The Year 2012 (retroactively) for me. It's on par with TWD, and that's no easy feat.

 

[Nazulu]

I've said it before plenty of times because it really did change my life. The whole introduction in Super Metroid, followed by the space station search, and then waking up the planet just blew me away. I skipped 3 days of school I became so fascinated with it, and it's what inspired me to make games myself. I want to create an amazing experience just like it. I still haven't seen a game with as great as intro as Super Metroid.

 

[-Datura-]

Getting a SNES was the best motherfucking birthday ever. Before that, I saved up for a Game Boy literally cent by bloody cent. Before that, still trapped in our corner of the third world, so poor we didnt even have a word for "gamer", me only barely aware of the existence of personal computers, there was still Golden Axe and Double Dragon to pour countless moneys into. (Srsly, I found a stash of foreign notes, and my first thought was "I wonder if the arcade guy accepts these...")

TL;DR I was gaming for a looooong time. But my tiny little mind was utterly BLOWN when I first tried my hand at Super Mario 64 and Wave Race. That was the moment I knew I would never ever grow out of this. EVER.


Runner up: Half-life The First. On top of all its well-known qualities, it was also the game that taught me the proper way to play an FPS, simply by having keyboard + mouselook as the default controls. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

 

[EHKOS]

Not the first time, but the most promenint is when I was playing God of War 2 and I started running on that long chain to get to the huge horses. That still wows me everytime. And Shadow of the Colossus is just one huge woooooooooooooooooow.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well the first time a game "wowed" me was also the game that made gaming a hobby. It was my birthday, I was given an XboX and 2 games by my family and my Dad brought his projector to my Mum's house. The 2 games were Halo CE and Crash Bandicoot or Sonic Heroes. Anyway, I played Halo first, wasn't very good at it but once I got to the second level and stepped out of the escape pod and saw "Halo" across my entire wall with the projector it was like I was Master Chief, I felt amazing and Halo has been my favorite game ever since and I've been a heavy gamer sinse then. Many games have wowed me since (Spec Ops, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Dark Souls, Resident Evil 6, Far Cry Instincts, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and more) but none in the same way that Halo did.

 

[Theminimanx]

Some point in Half-Life 2, likely during the first level. Even though I had been playing games for nearly a decade at that point, that was the first a game truly made an impact on me, propably thanks to it's amazing atmosphere. This being the first game that wowed me probably explains my undying love for it.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

I haven't been the type that is impressed so easily but I think my moment is when I played Descent. Being able to shoot up baddies in a zero gravity environment with the ability to go any direction and orientation at will was pretty awesome.

There's also some small moments like in Outcast when your character says something different in the same conversation when playing the game a second time. Didn't think the devs would of went out of their way to do that but that's a sign of effort.

 

[soren7550]

While being exposed to video games my whole life, I don't think I really had a 'wow' moment until I first saw the level 'Crew Expendable' from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare around its release. Up until then, I never really knew that games could be so epic like that.

Spoiler: Crew Expendable

 

[Mikejames]

I think Legend of Dragoon was probably the first time I really felt drawn into a world and its characters.

Granted I'll admit that I was at an age where I hadn't really experience fantasy cliches.
A man trying to avenge his destroyed village and getting swept into a quest to fight the evil Empire while searching for his childhood friend/love-interest was breaking all sorts of new ground for me.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I'm old, so...

Altered Beast on the Sega Mega Drive. The upgraded transformation sequences.

 

[TehCookie]

I'm old, so...

Altered Beast on the Sega Mega Drive. The upgraded transformation sequences.

Same here. I'm an animal lover so I loved playing as a fuzzy dog-man, an awesome dragon and Tony the Tiger. The bears were lame.

I also remember being wowed by FF7's graphics, which is hilarious to look back on.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Several moments come to mind if we're all being honest. There have been too many great games...

Getting to fight Mike Tyson on the NES was a major wow moment for me, and being knocked out with one punch of his was another.

SNES Super Mario World - the last fight with Bowser wowed me. I didn't think that the SNES could do that 3D-ish thing with the graphics.

The gore at the end of Bionic Commando on the SNES, and the graphics for the explosion at the end also. Definitely wow on the explosion because it looked awesome, but wow on the gore b/c I wasn't expecting it, yet it was used tastefully. One of the most satisfying endings for the challenge.

Street Fighter 1 after discovering that fireballs and etc were possible.
Street Fighter 2 after discovering that game at a carnival. I thought I was going to die and go to arcade heaven.

Ico - the whole experience. Not a fan of story driven games, but this game does it right.

Einhander - the amount of ships available to you, and the overall experience. I miss side scrolling shooters! We need way more than what's available now!

Discovering who Revan really is Knights of the Old Republic. That should be on everyone's list.

Urban Reign - the animation was so smooth and the combat was so gritty. It's the best brawler so far.

Bayonetta - the guns on her heels and the way she fires them. I passed up Devil May Cry, so Bayonetta was the 1st game I played with that kind of craziness. Loved every minute of it.

Zeno Clash Ultimate - the fact that it combined my favorite genre (brawlers) with gamings most commercially successful genre (First Person Shooters) and does it well, but it seems like no one cares about that game. That's two wows.

There are too many games for me to list with too many reasons to list them for. Great topic.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The first time playing Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.

Just the visual design of everything blew my fucking mind.

 

[Innegativeion]

Super Mario 64,

Granted, I was a wide-eyed four year old who'd never played a video game before, buuuut

ALSO granted, it was the moment that inspired me to become a game developer, something I still aspire to do.

 

[uchytjes]

Let me list them:

First "wow! gaming is cool!" game: Metal gear solid

First "wow! Choices are cool!" game: Steambot chronicles

First "wow! Why didn't I know about this sooner?" game: minecraft.

 

[Worgen]

Well, I don't remember the first time but I do remember the last time. The last time I was really wowed was a couple days ago when I finished burning all my toys in Little Inferno. Holy shit does that game have a powerful ending.