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[Trancetronic]

Way back in 2001 when the GameCube was being hyped up, a friend and I jetted inside of a Target to find a GameCube on display in the Electronics section with Luigi's Mansion on display. We were like "OMG LOOK AT THE GRAFIX THIS CONTORLLER IS SO AMAZING!" That was like the best 20 minutes ever. I think we were like 14 or 15.

A few months later same friend called me and said he had Super Smash Bros Melee a few weeks after the GameCube launch. I quickly put my shoes on, slammed the phone and literally ran to his house to play.

 

[Yoshichan]

Installing Half-Life 2 on (shitty) Steam... exciting in many ways.

 

[injurai]

Getting my PS2, my first game was Ty the Tasmanian Tiger which was greatly under appreciated.

 

[Tunavi]

Christmas morning 2002, getting a Game boy Advance, metroid fusion, mario kart SC, and Link to the Past.

 

[Goli]

My mom surprisingly coming home with Final Fantasy XII a day before it was released... I wasn't even planning on getting it at launch!

 

[Memento_Mori15]

Super Mario 64. I couldn't believe I was actually playing in a 3D environment and I thought the graphics were incredible.

 

[entremet]

Lots.

Playing SMB for the first time. Sold me on gaming. I played my cousins Atari, but never cared for it.

Summer of 91 when SF2 came out. The arcade scene was revitalized. So much quarters wasted.

RE1 and the dogs. The dogs get everyone.

 

[Banjotanooki]

Finally finishing my pokedex in Crystal. Stopped playing the series when they introduced more and more new pokemon.

 

[Mama Robotnik]

Experiencing the finale of Soul Reaver 2.

As someone who practically had the scripts of Blood Omen and Soul Reaver memorised, the time-traveling revelations in the final five minutes of Soul Reaver 2 were some of the most shocking, intelligent and profoundly breathtaking moments in video game storytelling. With a single line of dialogue, the meaning of the entire Soul Reaver saga changed and everything made sense. But it was the most horrifying sense possible. Dialogue and revelations, from the opening moment of Blood Omen through to recent character development, all of it develops an immediate and sinister double meaning.

I had to remind myself to breathe. Well played, Amy Hennig and Crystal Dynamics. No game has ever got that response from me before or since.

 

[Beth Cyra]

The intro to Final Fantasy VIII was probably my hypest moment in gaming.

 

[Amir0x]

I guess this would be my most exciting game memory:

It was Tomb Raider 1. Game just released. Me and my friend are all getting each other hyped up as we take turns playing. Like, "don't fall in that fucking pit, 'cause a goddamn bear is going to eat your face." So we eventually got ourselves absolutely paranoid of every turn and trap in TR (god I miss the Tomb Raider feel of games).

So this one level with some fucking dinosaurs, you know the one with the t-rex? Well, I was walking around a dark corridor. And through the darkness, I hear a screech of some sort, and footsteps. Already I'm freaking out, start running through the halls. Get to a corner, all of a sudden a fucking RAPTOR jumps out from behind my line of sight and I jumped so high out of my seat that I landed back down hard, fractured my ankle and tumbled all awkwardly over the chair as I fell down from the pain.



It was an exciting day, to be sure.

 

[QP3]

When we upgraded from the SNES to N64. Super Smash was (is) the shit.

Also, when I got Pokemon Yellow for xmas with the special edition gameboy. That was the firsts ingle player game that I actually put significant amounts of time into.

 

[Deleted member 81567]

Buying Modern Warfare 2 a week early and being an Internet Celebrity™

 

[Midou]

Got a PS1 with Legend of Legaia because of an operation I went through. I know the game isn't particularly great, but it made the fact I could barely get out of bed for days pass by much easier.

 

[Jackl]

3 Events tied.

SNES on with SF2 and Mario bundle.

Mario 64 demo in Best Buy. To this day I can't explain to the new generation what it was like to watch gaming go from 2d to 3d. You had to be there.

Metal Gear Solid rental. I tried it on a friend's PS1 out of sheer boredom while at their house. Played it for 12 hours straight. Main reason I stepped away from Nintendo.

 

[Trancetronic]

Buying Modern Warfare 2 a week early and being an Internet Celebrity™

Wait...are you that guy who had it and tried to trade it in at Gamestop and the girl working there was like did you steal this game or something? Just asking.

 

[Anteater]

Getting into FFXI was my favorite gaming moment, I remember reading up on the game before it launches in NA, I was so looking forward to it, I remember getting an usb adapter for dualshock before I got the game, being my first mmo and exploring the world and making friends with other FF fans were one of my favorite gaming moments ever, because there wasn't a single soul I know in rl that actually plays final fantasy, or video games.

It had a really great community and I ran into a lot of different people and they were all very helpful, so there was never a dull moment and the linkshell chat was always lively, because we just don't really care and just wanted to have fun.

 

[The Albatross]

I've got a few.

Getting my Sega Genesis was awesome. Christmas.

I remember getting SMB3 with my sisters. My parents gave us a challenge, if the "kids" out-read my parents over the summer, by either total books or total pages, then we'd get SMB3 at the end of the summer. If we lost, we had to like do yard work or something. My parents might have technically won, I can't imagine how 2 adults could lose to 3 kids (ages like 14, 12, and 6), but I think they gave it to us anyway because we all read a lot. I remember going to Toys R Us and picking up the game, going home to play it, and my mom insisted on playing first because "She bough it," and she just died like 4 times in a row and was terrible, and quit out of frustration... then went onto watch her kids easily beat the first level.

Other exciting moments:
In College staying up till 4am for HL2 to be released... and the download barely working at all.

Driving like 1.5hours to an internet cafe to play the CS:Source BETA.

Buying a 360 post college.

My first online 32 player game... TFC. I remember the map being Dustbowl, I was a Heavy Weapons guy, and the lag was so ridiculous and my friend and I had no idea what was going on. But it was great.

 

[Grakl]

In the Mako, driving down the tunnel full of cryogenically frozen protheans, and then hearing the amazing music.

 

[Fracas]

Camping out at Target at 4am for a Wii.
Awesome.

 

[HyperBitHero]

Playing Dark/Demon's Souls for the first time.

 

[The Albatross]

Installing Half-Life 2 on (shitty) Steam... exciting in many ways.

Yep, like the stupid game not even working. It released at 3am that night on the East Coast, and even though I had it preloaded for months, the install barely worked, and took hours. I remember finally loading it, the game didn't even work, it was running like hell and I couldn't even play it, and finally at like 4:30 or 5, I was like "Fuck it, I'm going to bed." Had a 930 class too.

 

[RockAction]

playing half life 2 for the first time in 2009; i'd been aware of it since 2004/5, having seen it on some TV show, i thought it was photorealistic at the time - and it held up, probably my favourite game and played it six or seven times now

other things are as other people have suggested, parents buying me the gameboy and gba etc

end of metal gear solid 2 and assassins creed 2 elicited excitement from the pure craziness; also favourites

 

[Yoshichan]

Yep, like the stupid game not even working. It released at 3am that night on the East Coast, and even though I had it preloaded for months, the install barely worked, and took hours. I remember finally loading it, the game didn't even work, it was running like hell and I couldn't even play it, and finally at like 4:30 or 5, I was like "Fuck it, I'm going to bed." Had a 930 class too.

Yeah... I don't think I've ever raged as much as that day.

 

[The Technomancer]

In the past it was probably the night I got Brawl and two other guys and my brother and I stayed up all night playing it.
Recently it was definitely getting Portal 2, my brother and I starting it at roughly the same time, beating it the same day and going "holy shit..." to each other.

 

[olimpia84]

Playing Super Mario World for the first time. It was on my brother's Japanese friend house and he had the Super Famicom with (obviously) the Japanese version of SMW. Played the game non-stop for about 2 hours and that literally got me into gaming in a hardcore way.

Another good memory was going to the local videogame store pretty much everyday to check if they had F1 Pole Position for the N64. At the time, the console didn't have a single F1 game and I couldn't afford to buy a PSX to play them so I had to go to my friend's house to play F1 97 (I believe). The day the store got F1 Pole Position I bought the game and ran back home as fast as I could to play it. Yeah, I was a huge F1 fan back then!

A similar scenario happened when REmake was released for the Gamecube. Went to the local videogame store pretty much everyday after school to see if they had the game (I was raised in South America so games there don't have a fixed released date, you just have to keep checking with your local store). Once they had it in stock bought the game and ran home

 

[Haunted]

Stealing off to my older brother's apartment to play some Hostages even though I totally wasn't allowed to.

Sweaty palms and a good adrenaline rush

Spoiler

for a sheltered kid like me.

 

[BrokenFiction]

Old Man Alert:

My dad totally pulled a "Christmas Story" on my brother and me. We'd opened all of our presents, and were basking in the glow of all the new toys when he pulls a "Hey, what's that under the couch?"

We hauled butt over there and pulled out a giant box, tore the wrapping off, and screamed our heads off over a shiny new Atari 2600.

That was a great, great day.

 

[King of the Potato People]

It's a cliché I know but as a kid; pulling out the Master Sword in Ocarina of Time, becoming an adult and then seeing Hyrule Castle with its town in ruins. It devastated me!

 

[willooi]

Back in high school, waking up extra early on the weekends for a complete bender of Championship Manager right through to late Sunday nights.

Going to a game shop in Chinatown to pay $1 for half hour plays of Mario 64, and feeling in awe of how 'the future' had arrived.

Great sense of wonderment over the freedom of flight in Pilotwings 64.

I have such fond memories of GTAIII on the PS2, sleeping over at a friend's place during the English Premier League title run-in in season 01/02. Staying up late to watch the Championship-clinching Man Utd vs Arsenal match (we each supported one of the teams) and playing the game, totally amazed by the full-3D realisation of the earlier games.

Taking annual leave from work for an equivalent 'holiday' in the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3, and the excitement of playing through New Vegas for the very first time after picking it up from the store after work on the day it came out after going through Fallout 1 & 2 in the leadup to it. Loved finding that Wrecked Highwayman reference to the Chosen One.

 

[DCharlie]

seeing Knightlore on the ZX Spectrum was a point of WTF that will never ever be replicated.

 

[Zabuza]

My dad bringing home an N64 and a PS1 on the same day. Me and my brother had a fit.

 

[Grakl]

Oh, and every time I heard music in Wind Waker - though specifically entering Hyrule for the first time.

 

[Beth Cyra]

Actually I just thought of one aside from FF VIII.

Went on a Tempest Keep run with a random group only to have Ashes of Al'ar drop and rolled a 98. Granted that was before everyone had one so at least at the time having it not only drop but to win it was crazy exciting for me.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Getting pokemon Red along with my gameboy pocket at a Walmart at the age of 7 and picking charmander as my starter on the ride home. The excitement and magic of that day will probably never be passed.

 

[Verelios]

My first sega genisis (I had two by the time I was done with it). My super nintendo was fine and all, but one can only play so much Zelda II. Dear lord, that thing. My first game was Sonic 3 and let me tell you, on that day my entire world changed.

How I viewed games, the effort I put in, my love for all things Sonic, and by association of blueness, Megaman (which is why I started going crazy for Megaman X-X4 and the classics), even on my shitty, 15'' SD TV, I knew. I could feel it in my bones, that all my previous preconceptions were wrong. This was my new reality. And fuck Robotnik and his marble garden bullshit (most hated stage), this was my childhood.

It was..beautiful. If you had told me back then how Sega would have turned out, we would have gone down swinging.

 

[Sentenza]

Being lost in the dungeons of Ultima Underworld 1 and 2.

 

[ascii42]

Probably getting a PS2. I didn't even get a game for it for a month, I just rented some until then. I think the first games I rented were Tekken Tag Tournament and Timesplitters. The first game I actually got was Oni.

 

[Ardenyal]

Noticed a conspicuously large christmas present a couple months before christmas... Of course curiosity won over and I had to take a peek... That peek took a good few hours and of course I got caught when my parents came home. Gift wraps all over the living room and the new PS1 happily playing demos for the nteenth time.

 

[The Chef]

I guess this would be my most exciting game memory:

It was Tomb Raider 1. Game just released. Me and my friend are all getting each other hyped up as we take turns playing. Like, "don't fall in that fucking pit, 'cause a goddamn bear is going to eat your face." So we eventually got ourselves absolutely paranoid of every turn and trap in TR (god I miss the Tomb Raider feel of games).

So this one level with some fucking dinosaurs, you know the one with the t-rex? Well, I was walking around a dark corridor. And through the darkness, I hear a screech of some sort, and footsteps. Already I'm freaking out, start running through the halls. Get to a corner, all of a sudden a fucking RAPTOR jumps out from behind my line of sight and I jumped so high out of my seat that I landed back down hard, fractured my ankle and tumbled all awkwardly over the chair as I fell down from the pain.



It was an exciting day, to be sure.

This is excellent. God those were the days.

For me there are too many to count. If I had to narrow it down to just one it would have to be playing Kings Field for PS1. There was this sword called the Grundle Blade and it was a rare item drop from these crazy lookin creatures. My brother a friend and me were switching off playing. You'd leave the area, and then re-enter and reload the area, respawning all the enemies. You make the long hike to the creature, kill it and hope it dropped the sword.
It was nearing 4am and we were nearing our breaking point. The strategy guide said it was a 1 in 500 chance it would drop. We figured all we had to do was kill it 500 times. Surely it would drop! Around the 700th time (yup we had a tally sheet) we all happened to be awake and we saw the creature slain for the last time...his body fades and a long jagged blade falls, lands on the hilt, stalls for just a moment and then slowly falls to its side.

It was a good 10 seconds of silence before the 3 of us exploded with excitement waking up my parents. Those moments are truly once in a lifetime.

 

[Maximus.]

Man there are just so many...

duck hunt
Playing and beating Ocarina of Time on the N64
countless hours playing Mario Kart 64, Starfox, Goldeneye
Power Rangers on the SNES with COOP
POKEMON

I could go on forever about all the amazing memories...

 

[kittens]

Watching the Perfect Dark first level gameplay video on my friend's 56k internet connection in 1998. Took over an hour to download it, hahaha. After spending two years playing Goldeneye, we were SO hyped.

 

[arglebargle]

i only really remember it because i saw it on home video years later, but i was apparently really excited about getting mario 3 for christmas when i was like 5.

 

[Ramblin]

Hmmm most exciting. I was pretty darned pumped to unwrap a 3D0 after months of annoying my parents about how awesome it would be to own one. (It is also my guiltiest video game memory.)

But I'd have to say my most exciting was back in 1997. I'd taken a short hiatus from video games after the 3D0 guilt, and while I was awed by the first Playstation, I couldn't ask for another game system. My future mother-in-law unexpectedly bought me a ps1 for my birthday.

 

[RyougaSaotome]

Christmas Day many years ago, when I unwrapped a Playstation 1 console complete with DUAL SHOCK controllers.

And then when I opened the surrounding boxes and found Resident Evil 2 Dual Shock Edition, Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve.

I played Parasite Eve first and that opening cinematic blew everyone in the house away. I remember it like it was just yesterday.

 

[Camilos]

Finishing Metal Gear 1, Rygar and Ninja Gaiden 1 on my NES when I was 12 years old while on my summer vacations. Those were the days.

 

[ShaneB]

Getting an NES for christmas 89. I only remember 89 because I got Ninja turtles with the NES, and my brother got RBI Baseball.

I really don't remember much, but I know I went absolutely bonkers. N64 Kid style bonkers.

Recent memories, first experiences with WoW and being so enthralled with such a large and active world.

 

[arglebargle]

i thought of a couple of more recent ones. both were with the same real life friend of mine who is also on gaf.

shenmue II- he had broken his thumb at a batting cage the night before and came over my house to play shenmue. we were up to the fight with

Spoiler

dou niu

. he was able to do the fight itself with his fingers rather than thumb, but couldnt execute QTEs that way. so he won the action part of the fight and tossed me the controller where i did the QTEs.

resident evil: code veronica - we rented this when we first got the dreamcast and played through it in a night or two. we made it to the final boss without the magnum

Spoiler

apparently you can leave the fire extinguisher in the metal detector and not have it once you need to put out a fire to get the magnum

and killed him on literally our last bullet.

fun times. i love the dreamcast.

 

[CrazyArcadia]

I actually had one two nights ago. Been playing Shenmue 1 again over the last few weeks and jumped into 2 afterwards which I never played past CD 2 ever before (for some reason I just stopped back in 2001)... Boy did this get better and better and for the first time in years, I couldn't let go of a game until the sun came up again IRL. I'm as emotionally involved in a game and its world as I haven't been in years and I already fear whatever cliffhanger it will end on

Made me remember why I love my Dreamcast so much as well, since I had many such moments on that system already. E.g. being blasted away by Jet Set Radio by style and music, moments in Skies of Arcadia, playing Last Blade 2 for the first time and falling in love with SNK...

The only other recent ones were Mario Galaxy which made me young again, Catherine's ending days, the world of Xenoblade...

Otherwise, the usual stuff. Mario 64 on launch day, Final Fantasy VII-moments, Zelda OoT on christmas...

 

[BY2K]

"But before you leave, I'd like you to step inside one more world for Nintendo Gamecube..."