My god......

[Wolfram23]

I am simply awesturck Escapist, just awestruck. Minecraft's world is estimated to be 8 times the size of the earths, I thought I had colonized a relativly large chunk of it when I decided to venture off into the distance with nothing on me just to recon the sorrunding area near one of my bases. I climbed over the nearest hill top and simply felt my breath leave me. Facing me, sitting there for what must have been miles, was a desert. Infinite and unyeilding, sitting there staring at me. I quietly slipped back down the hill and retreated into my base for the remainder of the day.

So my question to you Escapist, have you ever been simply awestruck by a game? Recount your tales for us.

Speaking of Minecraft, I was playing the other day and exploring a massive cave system at the bottom of the world. Found a huge slime. Lots and lots of baddies. Lost my way back. Mined my first ever diamond (4) in this world. And fortunately I didn't mine the tons and tons of iron around, because I then accidentally fell down directly into lava and lost it all. BLEH!

Anyway, as for being awestruck... well, definitely that first time exiting the Vault as mentioned in FO3. Also, entering Rapture in BioShock.

 

[loc978]

The first time I played an 80km X 80km map in Supreme Commander. I was a little too used to heavy artillery and tech 3 radar reaching all the way across the map... and now they barely covered the island I started on (which was one of eight, each dwarfed by the ocean that comprised the rest of the map)...

 

[BENZOOKA]

Ever so often.

I've had very similar experiences in Fallout: New Vegas in the last couple days. Getting out from an area I've been exploring, doing quests and so on, I'll pick a new direction. Climb on a high spot and just look at the scenery and think about everything it holds within. Then go forward. There are awesome moments as well when I see something when I didn't expect there to be anything. Looking at a some kind of base, that gives an impression no outsider has been there for decades and it holds something new and exciting.

I could give dozens of these kind of examples, but I'll go by this one from one game for now or I'll get to press the Post-button after I've gotten sick of writing forever, eventually getting sick of it and erasing it all. Which usually happens.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

MAG in its hay day when everything went smoothly.

Killzone 2 when I 1st saw the graphics.

Mass Effect 2 ending (nuff said)

Oh and the Skyrim trailer

 

[Torrasque]

Also, when I was playing Bulletstorm yesterday, when I left one of the buildings, the scenery spread out for miles in every direction, and it was beautiful.

For a game about beating the crap out of people in the goriest ways possible that game world was absolutely beautiful. Seeing the destroyed, overgrown cities stretch into the distance was breathtaking.

I loved the plant sceneries, and the sprawling worlds that were there just as a backdrop, were completely amazing.
The best moment for me, was when you leave the building that you just met up with the girl in, and you come up to the bridge with the giant gears of death, and the scenery stretches for MILES. What made it all better, was the fact that I interacted with most of that scenery!
Most of the time, you have a set path through the world, and most of it is there to make the game look pretty.
But in Bulletstorm, you actually interact with just about everything you see, and that is something that made me really enjoy the game.

It was also fun finding new things to impale people on

 

[NeedAUserName]

Red Dead Redemption. Watching the sun come up over the mountains, slowly lightening the vast plain in front of me. Wow.

Also, when you first enter Mexico after the mission on the river. Beautiful.

Stole my answer. But yeah, this, easily this. I had a sudden urge to Email Rockstar with my approval within about 5 minutes of playing it (I didn't, I don't imagine they're too bothered about what one teenage boy has to say), but yeah, its breathtaking.

Especially Jose Gonzalez's voice welcoming you to Mexico. That part of the game is probably the best argument that videogames are art I could imagine.

 

[sheah1]

In Mass Effect 2, when I really got involved with Thane's character. It was the realization that, although I could save the world, I could thwart the Reapers, I could send half a dozen Geth flying with one biotic blast, I could change this world, completely change this game's universe through my actions.
And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop this brilliant character dying.

 

[B33J33]

As a kid grasping the shear size of the world in Daggerfall (The Elder Scrolls II). And after playing for a few days...

Spoiler

Catching a case of the 'lycantropies' and being a badass wherewolf from then on out

 

[Osaka117]

It may be insignificant, but I know I was awestruck in the opening of Bioshock when you can actually watch the end of the plane sink into the ocean...I don't know why but I sat and watched the whole thing.

Also, I went through the entire Act 4 of MGS4 in a state of awe, because it was just such an awesome stroll down memory lane. Then the climactic ending of REX vs RAY just blew me away even more.

 

[Megacherv]

When I first played Half-Life 2. Despite getting it around 2008/09 for the PS3, it was still fantastic to play and I was in awe at how it all looked, when the engine is from 2004.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I was dumbstruck with awesome while I was controlling the one and only Waggleton P. Tallylicker in Bulletstorm.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Most of the Scarecrow encounters in Arkham Asylum come to mind.

The world is twistedly cool and nice looking.

 

[spartandude]

Morrowind
Oblivion
and the new Skyrim trailer
all have (and seem to have) amazing worlds, but its also coupled with the amazing scores by Jeremy Soule

also the KotOR games (2 best games ever created) blew my mind, just making my jedi the way i wanted

and then dragon age also made my jaw drop because it was some of the best character work ive seen since KotOR and the shear amount of voice acting and polish in that game

and Bioshock, scared the crap out of me, amazingly atmospheric, beautiful even by todays standards, great story and just brilliant voice acting with fantastic gameplay (best fps ever)

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Mass Effect 2

Spoiler

When I saw the Human form Reaper and understood what the Collectors were really doing.

My Captcha is nsidel then a triangle and the symbol beta... the fuck?

The Mass Effect games are full of these moments for me. There's the one you described, the first time you see Sovereign in ME1 (Holy sh*t, i believe went me response), and when you emmerge from the Omega 4 Relay in ME2 (The space around you brilliant orange, all the discarded wreckage of old ships, and the collector base ahead of you (and another thing, when the Collector ship that killed the Normandy comes out from a little docking point and you realize just how fucking huge the main base is.)) Wow, just wow! I can say without a doubt that one moment is the most beautiful/shocking that I have ever found a game. (Sorry if I'm gushing)

 

[The_Fezz]

The train sequence from Uncharted 2, I was shot to pieces for staring at the scenery.

 

[pyrosaw]

The beginning sequence of Half Life 2. And I played this in 2009. This is why I don't believe it will age. I was "awestruck" about the ending to Saints Row 2, it being as anticlimactic as it was.

 

[Irridium]

Seeing the first colossus in Shadow of the Colossus. Then climbing it, and staring at everything around me. Birds were circling overhead, the colossus was walking around, trying to get me off.

Just... holy shit that was amazing.