First Time a Game 'Wowed' You

[OneOfTheMichael's]

First game I could remember wowing me: I dunno, I guess a while ago when I played Star wars force unleashed and i was all like "OMG I can throw my lightsaber at this can and shoot out tons of lighting."
Latest game to do so: Farcry 3, Everything about the game.

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.

In other news: that trailer was the quickest escalating trailer that left me terrified and scarred.

 

[uzo]

Hmm ... see my avatar ..

<<<

Elite II: Frontier. I'd played the first one but never really though about it much. I was old enough to appreciate the incredible work David Braben had done by creating a galaxy that could replicate ours not just with four or five systems, or 50 or 60, or 500 or 600 ... but with, as far as I could see, INFINITE systems. That shit blew my mind. I remember jumping from Sol to Barnard's Star, and trading, and so on, just to see if I could reach the absolute limits of human expansion. Goddamn it took in-game months of travelling.

Once as a kind of weird little Moses homage, I took a ship with a few dozen tons of slaves (lol i love how we counted them in weight, nice and dehumanising), farming equipment, tools, medical supplies, live animals, weaponry, and did a forced 'misjump' (pirates could track your warp signature and calculate your destination point and jump after you, ambushing you when you arrive). Misjumps were a good way to get out of a sticky situation without anyone following you, but they were risky - you could burn out your jump drive rendering your ship an expensive paperweight, or capable of only intra-system or environmental flight. Anyway, my forced misjump did exactly what I'd planned - dumped me in an uninhabited system some 10,000 light years from the edge of human space and burnt out my jump system. There was a suitable planet for supporting life as well - so I flew down, landed on on of the northern continents, and established the Empire of Uzo by freeing my slaves (and keeping it a secret that I'd done it on purpose, of course).

I like to think that we would have been happy on our isolated little alien world a bazillion gazillion miles away.

 

[his1nightmare]

I think the first time a game legitimately "wowed" me was the ending cutscene of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, when I would watch my brother play. The combination of the music and the incredible majesty of Tyrael was mindblowing to ten-year-old me, who had grown up playing rather simple games on an aging Macintosh PowerPC.

Pretty much my words; the opening, followed by the sound of rain and despair, underlined by one of the best tracks in gaming history...
I still play Diablo 2, almost 12 years after the release (got it day 1), and still consider it the best game possible.

2 and a half years later Metroid Prime blew me through the wall with its own way of endless perfection, landing on Tallon IV and the some seconds after was burned into my heart like only a few other things managed.

I can't quite differ which of these two is superior, but however, Diablo 2 was first.

 

[Airon]

There's a couple of experiences I've had with games that WOW'ed me.

SPACE HARRIER (1980s - arcade game - full motion seat setup)
Unbelievable. Expensive to play but a blast. Sega was the one to beat back then. The only thing missing was wind blowing in your face.

Wizball - C64 action game. You coloured the world and shots lots of abstract critters, with a flying cat and tons of upgrades. Brilliant sound, fun gfx. It was otherworldly.

Uridium - C64 action game. As smooth as any arcade game. Your main ship had the smoothest animation.

Sidewinder (Amiga version)
That game is the reason I bought an Amiga 500. The explosions won me over. Felt like going from pocket radio drama to cinema presentation of Star Wars. KABOOOOOOM!

Contra 3 on SNES, second level. I liked this game in general for its sheer creativity, but that Mode7 level blew my mind. Also loved the music too. For the same reason I enjoyed F-Zero on the SNES. Fast as hell, lots of multiplayer fun.


Doom - PC version. I was actually shocked when I pistoled and shotgunned some mutant folks away. It actually scared me, never mind the guys at the end of world 1. A milestone. In most levels you knew where you were just because of the creative level design too. LAN parties were the thing then.


Super Mario 64 - the first of its kind. It felt natural.


Bioshock - a new world that pushed my emotional buttons. Always freed the little girls too. Awesome.


Truecombat 1.1 (PC mod of Quake3) - I probably had my most intense multiplayer moments in that game, ever. Heart racing, actual fear, the works.

Half Life - endless fun and so much unique locations. Punishing soldier AI too.

There are quite a few more great moments I had in gaming, but this is enough for now.

 

[BoredAussieGamer]

When the cutscenes in the LOTR: Return of the king hack and slasher transitioned from movie clips to gameplay footage surprisingly smoothly. Especially considering that these were the PS2 days and I never saw that ever happen.

 

[Zeraki]

The Opera scene in Final Fantasy VI was the first time a video game had ever made me get all misty eyed. That entire game has some of the greatest music I've ever heard in video games. The emotions that game managed to convey with the limited SNES hardware was simply astounding. Some people take that kind of stuff for granted nowadays.

 

[Kirov Reporting]

When the cutscenes in the LOTR: Return of the king hack and slasher transitioned from movie clips to gameplay footage surprisingly smoothly. Especially considering that these were the PS2 days and I never saw that ever happen.

Gamecube here, completely agreed - the LOTR hack and slashers were astoundingly well presented, and along with Star Wars Battlefronts 1+2, managed to put up a damn good case for movie-to-game transitions. It's just a shame every other M2G sets fire to the case, insults its mother and chucks eggs at its front door.

OT: Bioshock, the first cutscene finished but I didn't realise it. It took me about 30 seconds and a stunned breath before I realised that the water I was in was being rendered right there, and I was blown away.

How simple it seems in retrospect!

 

[Ti0k0]

Is it done Yuri? No Comrade premier, it has only begun...

 

[azukar]

Final Fantasy VIII. There's a short FMV at the very start of the game when you're leaving Balamb Garden and the camera pans up to show you the view from above.

Might not be the very first "wow moment" in a video game, but it's the first I can remember off the top of my head.

 

[Ascend]

It was when i first played Battlefield 2 i was amazed at how you could just jump in to a tank and how everyone had a role and how easily you could die and how you could feel mortal. That was just against bots when I was younger.

 

[Dree]

I loved all my 64 games growing up like smash brothers and OoT but I think for me it was definitely "Morrowind" for the first time I felt like I was submerged in a whole new world and I could have a unique and varied impact on it.

 

[Raddra]

It was around 2000 and I was fairly new to the internet having got my first computer a year or so before. I played a game called 'Everquest' and it was the first time I had seen an entire online world. I was enticed by a Kunark box I had picked up along with the original game. Suddenly I was confronted by this amazing online world.. with real people around! Playing characters in a game! I had an entire world to explore! It was amazing to me at the time. I had grown up on Megadrive and Playstation. This was the first time I had ever played a game that wasn't 1 or 2 player. The feeling to me at the time was amazing. I took my Iksar SHaman off exploring, fighting monsters and making friends. Back then the community was very strong and you would recognize other players around and make friends and group up (and you had to, the world was dangerous and solo adventurers didn't last long.. unless you were a necro or something)

 

[Shinsei-J]

Klonoa, just such an amazing game to play and I could tell at the age of four.
My eyes sparkled as I fell in love with gaming.
Before that the best point was the opening of FFVII but I was too small to comprehend how grand it was at the time.