Your best gaming experience, ever?

[II2]

Kinda curious to delineate between ones favorite games and one's best experiences, overall, since the two naturally overlap... And yet, when if asked about my favorite experiences, I tend to come up with different answers. Safe to say overall my Fallouts, Shocks, whatever had the broadest consistent impact, but...

If I had to nail down something more specific, I think I'd be inclined to go with playing the original Team Fortress Quake 1 mod, Local Area Network, with friends and coworkers over summer. There had been CTF deathmatch modes before, but I think it was genuinely the first shooter with classes. Blew our minds. Easily impressed and all, but it was genuinely something.

Quake and Quake 2 weren't really important games by themselves, for me, so much as a platform to play total conversions for multiplayer. Team Fortress, Superheroes, GLOOM, ActionQuake, etc... Halflife was more of an important game proper, to me, but it continued my interest with the original Counterstrike mod, TFC, Science and Industry, Natural Selection (a spiritual successor to GLOOM)

Starsiege Tribes / Tribes 2 landed in and above all that, too. Vehicles, deployables, jetpacks, huge goddamn maps with no load times, fully modular classes / kits / loadouts.

...

I'll fully confess to a strong degree of nostalgia regarding these titles, but it's important to note how the sudden abundance of these multiplayer variants and the late 90's rise of Gamespy as a platform for integrating mod management and connecting server / client multiplayer games was really fresh and wild at the time. I haven't been as crazy a mod head with games in recent years, but I find it troubling that so many companies clamp down and try and strictly control their multiplayer components, rather than letting people build on top of it... On the flip side, it was was easier to model, skin and animate a new weapon or character back in the 90's than it would be now with all the technical advances. The low fidelity made the distinction in company versus user generated content less noticeable. I think games like Minecraft's modding community benefit from it's visual style since it's easier to just throw in whatever crazy ideas you can cook up, without worrying about framing it in photoreal presentation, but I'm rambling, at this point.

 

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

Picking my starter and setting out on my journey in Pokemon Blue. Even a decade and a half later I still anticipate the arrival of a new Pokemon game.

Seeing (and fighting) the first Colossus in Shadow of the Colossus and realizing what you were going to be up against over the course of your quest.

I was never a fan of the Metal Gear series, but the first boss fight in Metal Gear Rising where you slice a Metal Gear Ray in half with a sword cemented that game as one of my new favorites!

 

[Seraj33]

Kinda curious to delineate between ones favorite games and one's best experiences, overall, since the two naturally overlap... And yet, when if asked about my favorite experiences, I tend to come up with different answers. Safe to say overall my Fallouts, Shocks, whatever had the broadest consistent impact, but...

I find it pretty understandable! Like as for my post. Gothic isnt my nr1 favourite. That would be STALKER.
But I pretty much look at it like this.

One part of the game was amazingly bloody awesome and there for my best gaming experience. But overal, my experience of that game was STILL lesser than that of my favourite game, that had a great quality through and through. If you get what I mean.

 

[Angelblaze]

Geneforge 1.

Forming my first creation as a Shaper class. That was the first time I ever used the tense 'I' allowed when referring to my character.

My words?

'Yup. I'm gonna make a dragon army.'

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Usually the first games I play on any given console are the ones that impress me the most. So that would be Super Mario World and the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES, Pokemon Blue on the GameBoy, Legend of Legaia and Spyro 2 on the PS1, Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2, etc.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Saving Zulf in Bastion. Between the music and the Kid just staggering on while being pelted for all angles, it was easily the most moving scene in a video game for me. The entire ending of the game is fantastic, but that moment stands out from the rest as my favourite gaming experience. I wish I could relive playing it for the first time.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Probably back when I used to be my brother second player on the SNES (for games like Contra and other co op games) and on multiplayer when playing Halo 1-2 campaign. I guss those were my bounding time with my bro.

Sadly those days are over since he can't be arse to bring his xbox 360/ ps3 over and I had moved onto PC gaming.

 

[Azure23]

Definitely a moment I had during the first Bioshock.

Fort Frolic is a truly amazing level, a crumbling ruin of what was once Rapture's ritziest entertainment district presided over by a homicidal artist who rants at you over the radio, encouraging you to kill and enshrine his proteges in his latest piece. Truly the grimmest fetch quest I have ever set out upon. My favorite moment here is actually twofold. After you have killed two out of the three former students and put them in Cohen's macabre masterpiece, (a triptych of photos of their bodies) he asks you for your opinion. Jack looks at the grisly work silently, Cohen takes this for criticism and, well. . . he doesn't take criticism very well. "Fly away little moth, fly away!" He shouts as he sends for his minions (the gruesome spider splicers) and cues up his music (waltz of the flowers). A spotlight comes on, the others dim, Jack is picked out by the light, standing halfway up a crumbling, though elegant, stairway, shotgun at the ready. I hear the music begin to crest, a horrible chuckle sounds over my right shoulder and I turn, barely managing to send a tight grouping of buckshot into the chest of the deranged lunatic trying to tear at me with meathooks. There's no time to rest, more come, dropping from the ceiling or skittering down the walls. I pirouette and twirl, my shotgun dancing with me, up and down the stairs I dance, killing all the way. Waltz of the flowers plays while my waltz of death puts paid to life after life. Before long the music fades and Jack is left to contemplate the glorious carnage around him; bodies litter the stairway and plaza, some draped over bannisters, others crumbled against walls, all with large, bloody holes in their heads or chests. Sander Cohen comes back on over the radio, he apologizes for his. . .outburst, and chalks it up to his artistic temperament. I forgive him, for now.

Later on, I am exploring the area more thoroughly before I leave, the entire time I have been here I've been haunted by Cohen's grisly work, the bodies of splicers covered in plaster and posed in disgusting dioramas around Fort Frolic. I never know when I'm going to come upon them, these disturbing statutes seem to inhabit every inch of Fort Frolic. Before long my exploration takes me to a liquor and fine spirits shop, perhaps thinking that Jack could use a little absinthe for his frayed nerves. More gruesome statues inside, this time lining the entryway, kneeling as if in supplication. I walk between the two rows of kowtowing plaster monsters, briefly feeling like some sort of macabre monarch, presiding over his dead, silent subjects. The absinthe removes the notion quick enough, and my search for more libation takes me behind the counter. While rifling the register I notice a small button underneath the counter, curious as always, I press it. A panel on the far wall slides up, revealing and stairway down to what looks like a wine cellar. I cautiously venture down the stairs, the cellar is dark, and one of Cohen's statues is sitting in a chair, facing the far corner, lit up by a flickering spotlight on the floor, the cellar's only means of illumination. There is a small passageway leading away from this creepy scene. And however loathe I am to turn my back on that statue, a glimpse of a Power to the People machine at the end of the passageway provides me with ample convincing. I walk down the short passageway and use the machine, I admire my shiny revolver, now more powerful, and go to turn around and leave. As soon as I turn my heart leaps into my throat as the statue that was previously sitting is now standing two feet away from me, frozen in a parody of a ballet pose. It retains this pose for a moment, then attacks. After that initial shock my reflexes kick in and the plaster monstrosity falls with a gaping hole in its head. I climb the stairs up from the cellar and find that no statues remain, the only proof of their existence being flecks of plaster and drops of blood on the floor where they once kneeled. For the rest of my time in Fort Frolic I am attacked by silent white shadows, scampering along the ceiling or flinging themselves wordlessly at me, these now animate plaster creatures give me no rest. I am chased into the lowest level of Fort Frolic, a large flooded basement with only some spare boxes and store mannequins. It's not long before I realize that I have trapped myself down here, there is no exit save where I came from, and I swear the mannequins get closer every time I turn my back. I back up, soon there's nowhere left to go. My back is pressed against a massive glass window that separates Rapture from the cold sea.
I see an advancing tide of silent white figures, moving with an eery grace through the knee-deep water. My shotgun is spent, my pistol and rifle too weak for so many, there are at least ten of them. I steady my plasmid hand and ready myself to give a good accounting. I let them get close, just as they pounce I electrify the water we're standing in, over and over I shock it, killing the unnatural creatures even as my body burns. In the end I am left with a sliver, my healthpacks all spent earlier in the running battle that my flight from these creatures had become. But I am alive, I limp to a healing station and restore myself. Seeing more white shadows in the distant corridors provides me with all the incentive I need to leave, I hop a bathysphere and head to Hephaestus, putting the horror of Fort Frolic behind me.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Probably my first-time encounters and defeats of various final bosses, particularly ones that involved you story-wise. The impetus to punish them for their crimes, the terror as they transform into horrifying alternate modes and set out to devour you, the grind on your soul as you die and die and sweat and pant and get a little bit further each time... and the euphoria when you realize those explosions aren't the sign of another transformation but their final breaths. It's over. You did it. You won:

NES: Nightmare in Kirby's Adventure, whom I have talked about before.

SNES: Sigma in Mega Man X. If you haven't yet, watch the Sequelitis video to see what made the rest of the game so engaging as well, and remember I played through it before anyone knew Zero wouldn't stay dead for long, though his appearance in the 2nd game was also impressive. Also Kefka and Lavos.

PS1: Genocide Heart in SaGa Frontier. The others too, but that was the one that really stymied me for a while. He's very unpredictable with the scenery changes.

N64: Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time. Apparently his final form was going to be even bigger than it was, but got scaled down because people were having trouble spotting the colours of his tail in the darkness (though the lightning remedies that so I don't see why not, maybe they thought that would be too much after the 1st form plus the castle escape).

PS2: Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts 2. If the third game's final battle (presumably with Xehanort) is better than this, I will buy it just for that.

GB: Xagor in Final Fantasy Legend 3/SaGa 3. Your airship actually breaks through the roof of the dungeon to turn its weapons on him, but even with the extra help he is extremely hard. He's better in retrospect: all of the 'Masters' in this game look closer to Eldritch Abominations than most RPGs, and Xagor is probably the closest with all the tentacles and mouths. His blood is even able to mutate people who drink it into monsters.

GBA: The SA-X in Metroid Fusion. The invincible, remorseless juggernaut that has been hunting you all game finally meets its match. And when it transforms it actually gets much easier but oh well. Just proves that an evil copy of Samus Aran with full upgrades is the deadliest possible threat, and adding additional muscle and mouths on only dilutes it.

DS: Count Dracula in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. He's been getting progressively harder to beat since Dawn of Sorrow, and like with Kingdom Hearts I was looking forward to the next Metroidvania on the DS/3DS just to see what he would do...

PC: The final boss in the Jedi Consular's story in SWTOR. With the others I was too pumped up with Legacy abilities to feel threatened much, but this one can drop an entire cave on you. Also the only one that teleports.

 

[StormShaun]

Jak 3.

That is all I can say.
It was a game I waited for in my childhood, and as we all know, waiting in our childhood is much longer then waiting in our adult and teenager days.

I go this game on release. I freaked out, and I played until late night (like 9/10), went to sleep thinking about it, played it some more the next day.

After completing it, the memory of the Jak series is always on top in my gaming mindset.
Even now I wish Naughty Dog had the hope to make a fourth game.
Alas, I do not mind, because the first three Jak and Daxter games will forever be with me (and the HD collection). ^_^

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I have a lot of good gaming memories from over the years. Some alone, some with friends.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES)
This game was a blast. It was also super difficult in some spots. But what made it so much fun was the clever level design, the memorable enemy sprites, and the unique weapons. Playing this game co-op with the person who would eventually become my best friend over the years is one of my favorite gaming memories.

Street Fighter 2 (SNES)
I played a LOT of fighting games when they were popular in the 90s. I once skipped a whole day of college classes when I found out that SF2: Champion Edition had finally come to our local mini-golf place. But one of my fondest fighting game memories came from when the game finally came out for home consoles. My friends and I all bought a copy and a few days later we got together to play some one on one SF2. I was already the better fighting gamer among most of my friends, but I really got in the zone on this particular day. Round after round, match after match I clobbered them. By the end of the session I was 50-1. My hand was cramping so bad from playing that I eventually lost one after the 50th victory. I probably should have retired in glory, but hey what are you gonna do?

Twisted Metal (PS1)
This game was just a ton of fun to play with friends. And my entire social group was really into playing this series for the first two iterations. I wasn't as good at TM as I was at fighting games, but it was still a blast to play even when you were losing. I liked to take the fastest car and make hit and run attacks while the others faced off against one another. And yes, it often led to me being called cheap and no, I didn't care.

Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX)
I actually started to feel bad about being so much better than my friends on this one. I was the only one among my peers to pick up the original Xbox for the first year or so it was around. As such, everyone wanted to check out the new machine at Paul's house so I ended up playing A LOT of Halo. And this led to me having a much better understanding of the maps than my friends. But the game really got fun when we tried co-op for the first time. We enjoyed it so much that it stopped being customary to go straight into multiplayer and we started going for more and more co-op matches. Then started learning about the tricks of playing around with the physics engine, the hidden vehicles in Attack on the Control Room, we once even launched a tank from a pile of plasma grenades and had it land on the two bridges in the big canyon. That one was tough, but we did it. Shame Game DVR wasn't a well known thing at the time, I'd love to have a recording of that.

Those are the first few that spring to mind. If pressed I could probably keep going, I've been gaming for over 30 years. But I'll leave it with the fondest few to keep the thread from getting too encumbered.

 

[EHKOS]

There are a lot of them, but the one that springs to mind first was when I first played Condemned.
It had to have been around seven or eight at night and I had never played it before. I'm a bit of a pushover when it comes to horror but not terribly. I sat up all night until about five in the morning, finding a very good portion of the secrets and beating the game. It was at night so it was perfect, and playing it all in one go gave the story an extra boost, which in turn boosted the atmosphere of an already great game.

The second one I can think of is Pokemon Blue. I got a Gameboy Color (See through purple) and Pokemon Blue for my birthday. It was raining and everything felt comfortable, and I was super into the anime at the time. Every time we went to the video store I would rent one of the VHS tapes with three episodes on it. So to be able to participate in that world was amazing. Then I got into a Metapod Vs. Metapod battle and had to restart the game. But that was a great first day to be introduced to the Game Boy.

 

[Spacemonkey430]

Several of mine have been said already so I'm going to throw out Thomas was Alone. It was such a simple game in every way but so much feelz. The score, the lovely British narration, all the different characters that made those funny little quadrilaterals come to life *sniff* so beautiful.

 

[ExtraDebit]

GTA san andreas

The game had a cohesive story with shit loads of contents from acting like a red neck in the desert to fucking JET PACKS!!!! invading a secret military base to piloting jets. There's just so much to do there with more role playing option like working out to be a muscle man or a fatty to cars mods to clothes you wear, a lot of games that claims it's a rpg like mass effect 2 and 3 doesn't have the customization options that gta SA had. It was truly the best gaming experience I had so far, and I started gaming with pong.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Minecraft. Okay, this is what went down. Me and a buddy were playing minecraft (360, shut up I know the PC version is better.) We wanted to go spelunking, so we got all geared up and ventured into one of the many deep dark caves. Well, this thing ended up becoming one of those massive, never ending subterranean tunnels that snaked on forever. We battled zombies everywhere, and screamed like girls when creepers came out of nowhere and tried to ruin our day. We were at least an hour in to this hell hole before we stumbled on an actual dungeon. Mind you, this is the first dungeon I'd seen in the game, so I was excited and instead of doing the smart thing and going back up to resupply, I was like, "Fuck it, lets roll." That, and we were hopelessly lost. Already low on supplies, we began to find ourselves attacked by hordes of more zombies, weird slime things that multiplied, and eventually to top it off poisonous spiders. We had accumulated a treasure trove of rare minerals and goodies from this huge cave, so motivation to survive and make it to the surface wasn't lacking. Eventually, I found myself without food and dying of starvation, and my friend not far beyond in that regard. We were on normal, so I was enduring with a sliver of health, hounded by the denizens of this place. Lost and beginning to look on one another with suspicion as to whose fault it was, we began to frantically search for an exit out of this labyrinth. And then we got stuck. One of us fell in a small two blocks deep hole to mine something and then I fell in after him for some dumbass reason. Our tools wouldn't work though, so we couldn't pickaxe our way out, and placing ladders was hopeless. So there we were, loaded with valuables enough to craft a million freaking tools and useful toys, stuck in a hole a hundred miles beneath the surface, with those damn poisonous spiders lurking 'erwhere. We squealed and yelled at one another, laughed at the absurdity of it and then almost broke down in defeat. Then, I thought of a way out. One of us logged out, allowing the other to climb out, and then logged back in. After that, we somehow (SOMEHOW!) managed to crawl our way out of the damn dungeon and cavern and rejoiced under the sun.

That's a very epic and personalized story. I wish AAA games would allow more of this type of scenarios, but I guess we gotta settle for another rail shooter yearly.

 

[EquestrianGeneral]

While I wouldn't say that Day Z (the original Arma II mod) has lead to my best video game experiences of all time, it has created many of my most recent memories.

The main event that comes to mind was one night several months ago; my friends were either asleep or playing something else, so I decided to join a vanilla Day Z server by myself. There were about 10 people on the server, it had a low ping, and it didn't seem to have any unusual features (999 vehicles, max choppers, etc). The server spawned me with nothing except an empty backpack.

Basically, I spawned right outside of Cherno and decided to throw caution to the wind and check the city out. On the way to the firehouse and hospital, I heard several M14 shots ring out and saw at least one player running around without any gear. Eventually, I got to the fire station and started looking around. Eventually, I found a hatchet.

Suddenly, I got hit from behind by a hatchet--I turned around, had a bit of a duel with the guy who jumped me, and eventually killed the jerk. I bandaged myself and had less than 3000 blood; my vision was black and white and blurred, so I just retreated to the upper floors of the fire station.

A minute or two later, I heard two guys talking over Direct Communication with mics. Having nothing else to do, I walked down to the bottom floor, dropped my hatchet, and told them that I was friendly and needed blood. To my infinite surprise, they didn't actually shoot me--they told me to pick up my hatchet and then they gave me a blood transfusion.

After some talking over Direct Communication, the two guys agreed to let me tag along with them. They didn't trust me with a gun, but it was a start. We worked our way over to Balota, throwing a few passing comments back in forth. In all honesty, I had been considering trying to steal some gear from them, but they definitely seemed like cool guys, so I decided not to try anything.

Long story short, we got onto the Balota air field, found some rifles, and the two guys ended up on the airstrip and I was in the tower overlooking it. I was prone on the top floor of the tower, scrounging for gear when suddenly, a geared-up guy ran up the stairs and started shooting down toward my buddies. Before he got too many shots off, I took out his legs with my hatchet and killed him shortly after.

The two guys, both unscathed, were surprised and grateful for me helping them, so they let me have all of the dead guy's gear. So, we all left the airfield, very well-armed and ready for more adventures. We started going toward Elektro, and they were much more willing to talk to me; by the time that we got to Elektro, we were actually pretty comfortable with one another.

In Elektro, we were walking along a sidewalk when someone approached us, asking if we could spare some morphine for his friend. Before we could really respond, someone shot me from behind. I died, one of the other guys in our trio died, and the last guy shot the initiator. I told the last guy standing to use the morphine on my dead body to help the other person's friend, and then disconnected.

Looking back, it was really a cool little example of the interactions that people can have in Day Z (when people don't shoot on sight, anyway).

 

[Schtimpy]

Back when I first started with Ninja Gaiden (Xbox), I was playing the fourth level (Tairon) and I got my butt kicked in the stairwell leading up to the clock tower. I had a sliver of life left, and there were ninjas waiting for me at the top of the stairs. This is back when I couldn't take out ninjas at full life. I could of healed, but using items in that game always felt like giving up to me. So I went for it. When I got into the fight, time slowed. Like actually slowed, Bullet time and all that. Only time I ever experienced it. I can't remember anything that happened except the end of the fight.

There's a couple of moves, when an enemy is almost dead, that are instant kills and decapitate. I used a sweep move (X X Y Y) that cut off all three of their heads at the same time. One of the ninjas hucked a exploding shuriken a frame before I hit him and I got killed. I had a Talisman of Rebirth (fairy from OoT). My dude rose up in a pillar of blue light, and exploded at the top (exploding shuriken) while being animation invincible. All as the three headless ninjas "exploded" on the ground because corpses don't stay in Ninja Gaiden. I stared at the screen in awe for at least two minutes, then reloaded 'cause I used a talisman. Sigh.

I was going to put the game down, but this got me to finish Ninja Gaiden, and now I'm a Master Ninja on Black. Good times.