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Times your mind was actually blown by a video game

Vire

Member
A lot of times you hear the phrase "mind-blown" being thrown about to signify a memorable moment in a game, but I honestly and truly can only count on one hand the times my mind was legitimately blown playing a video game. Something so impressive that you were literally left speechless...

The number one most mind blowing, absolutely magical moment for me was the first time I booted up Super Mario 64. To put yourself in my shoes, I had been gaming for my whole life in 2D. Everything I knew about games was 2D... Suddenly that was thrown out the window entirely and I see a Lakitu holding a camera, floating on his cloud, zooming out and "filming" Mario in 3D. I literally could not believe what I seeing, granted I was six years old at the time, and I had very little exposure to commercials or press about the 3D capabilities of the Nintendo 64, but holy shit that was incredible.

Seeing 3D Visuals for the first time.

SM64Camera--article_image.jpg


I remember specifically calling over my Mom to look at how amazing it was... I imagine the conversation went something like this: "Yeah it's great Andrew... whatever". "BUT MOM, I JUST CAME FLYING OUT OF A FUCKING PIPE IN 3D!"

That was pretty amazing for me, but what was the one moment that just left you beyond impressed with what video games could accomplish?
 
Seeing Hitman on PC for the first time kind of ruined a lot of games for me for a while, because ragdoll physics were so amazing to me that I never wanted to see a canned animation ever again.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Final Fantasy 7, leaving Midgar. Up until then I had seen games as self contained small experiences. It blew my mind seeing that his game was something far grander. That games in general could be something more than shitty little short arcade experiences.


Other than that, Seeing Dark Forces run on a PC for the first time, made things like Mario 64 have no impact at all on me when they happened.
 

Skyzard

Banned
Tearaway being able to captivate me in a similar way through a whole bunch of its design coming together.

The speed and amazingness (visuals, control, music) of wipeout.

The moments in the new Tomb Raider that show how the player would have felt approaching the regular enemies I've been fighting without fear (since I don't play horror games) for years. Although the clash when you jump back to the gameplay was a bit weird but it's a nice start and I hope there are more situational changes to characters and their reactions or abilities in future games - whether it's just for show or it affects mechanics.

When I got my PC build (a few years back) and I had splashed out on a card. I installed Crysis 1, moved our plasma tv right onto my desk, turned off the lights and played with headphones...felt like I was in battle!

-definitely shenmue too, having a living breathing world there on my console was amazing, with how it was detailed and the cultural aspect was right up my alley at the time.
-shooting barrels in the source engine
-I agree with what someone said below about GTAIV, especially the animations too
 

Crayolan

Member
Shadow-of-the-Colossus-Valus.png


I think my thoughts went something like "WHAT THE HELL, THAT'S A COLOSSUS? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIGHT THAT?"
 
Fucking Kessler

Kessler-Attacking-Cole.png


I guess Mario 64 'blew my mind' but back then I was just getting into gaming so learning to play in a 3D world kind of just felt as natural as learning to play in 2D worlds. Was certainly far more captivating though. I don't think I've ever spent so much time just dicking around with a game idly
 
zeldacube2.jpg


Blew me away when I first saw it. Was jaw dropping at the time. And then they revealed the Wind Waker.........
Which I came in turn to love but was highly disappointed when I first saw it
 

antitrop

Member
The ending of Spec Ops: The Line, most recently. I beat the game in one sitting and I wasn't actively trying to figure out where the plot was going, so when the big reveal at the end hit I was just floored.
 
Playing gta4 a few years after it came out. Had not played games since ps2/dreamcast.

I was freaking out. The graphics, the animations Holy crap he elbowed the window and reached in to unlock the car!

Vshdudjdgeueyeudurr!

Mind was blown.


Now I'm jaded to everything....
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
Zelda OOT many things (riding fishing swimming fighting for first time in a fantasy open world, so much freedom).

Witcher 1 figuring out the ending twist.
 
The jump from PS2 to PS3 blew me away. Resistance: Fall of Man, of all things, kind of spearheaded that. Not just in visuals, but multiplayer as well. That was where competitive online gaming started for me.

resistance.jpg


Oh, and let's not forget...

04-620x.jpg
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
When I first saw Mario Land 2 pictures on a magazine. Couldn't believe the Game Boy was that powerful. These gorgeous, enormous spirites, a massive jump in quality from the first SML


when i first saw, then played DKC. It was absolutely unbelievable at the time


when I saw Batman on the Atari Lynx. Too bad the game and handheld were arse


theres a lot more but those are the first popping out of my mind atm
 

SJS

Member
Sonic Adventure 2.

Sonic was on Nintendo. And in 3D. And speaking. I don't know if people nowadays really understand how amazing that was back in the day. Criticize the game all you want, but you're a fool if you don't think the game was beloved.
 

Cody_D165

Banned
The climax of 999's true ending remains to this day the most jaw-dropping and mindblowing experience I've ever had in a video game. For those who've played the game, I'm sure you all know what particular moment I'm talking about.
 
Hideo had a way of doing this in metal gear solid. Feeling Snakes heartbeat through the controller or tricking a boss by switching controller ports, shit like that.

Guitar Hero too, the way it made you feel like you were actually playing the riffs of the songs especially on Expert.

Visually I think Freelancer was the first game that utterly and completely had me mind blown immersed in the world at hand.
 
The only game to ever blow me away, was Heavy Rain when I first saw it.

Let me remind everyone that I'm speaking graphics wise. The game looked amazing when first playing it. Uncharted 2 is up there as well.

Mario 64 didn't wow me as much as everyone else because the N64 was my first gaming console. I thought those graphics were the norm until I learned of the older consoles.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
The intro to MGS2 was just plain ridiculous. I became less and less interested in gaming, but my brother rented this one, and lo and behold I've been gaming anew ever since that 2001.

Washington DC on fire/under attack in Modern Warfare 2.

That part gave me chills, especially with the music, but the ultimate wow moment was back in CoD4 when you see Price light his cigar. The lighting was like O_O to me at the time.

The jump from PS2 to PS3 blew me away. Resistance: Fall of Man, of all things, kind of spearheaded that. Not just in visuals, but multiplayer as well. That was where competitive online gaming started for me.

Resistance was my first PS3 game. At first the first level didn't impress me but there's a part in it where tons of these little spider things come crawling down a building and I was like holy shit I haven't seen it done like this before.
 

taybul

Member
Playing gta4 a few years after it came out. Had not played games since ps2/dreamcast.

I was freaking out. The graphics, the animations Holy crap he elbowed the window and reached in to unlock the car!

Vshdudjdgeueyeudurr!

Mind was blown.


Now I'm jaded to everything....

GTA4 for me as well. At one point in the game it was night and "Flashing Lights" was playing on the radio. I stopped the car and watched headlights moving in the distance. I also marveled at the cityscape while thinking, "I can actually go there if I wanted, but no I just want to sit here, watch the lights and enjoy this moment".
 

survivor

Banned
The real ending of 999. I stayed up till 3 AM just playing it and was completely blown away by how a game can utilize the video games medium and hardware to tell a story. Pretty cool and stuff and was constantly thinking about it for the next few days.

Outside of that playing Red Alert 2 when I was a kid blew me since I have only played platformers till that point and seeing that new way of playing and controlling your character was pretty amazing at the time to me. Also their cutscenes were a huge step up from what I have seen from previous games which always wowed me.
 

Wurdfurd

Member
Halo CE coming out of the crashed ship and stepping onto Halo for the first time, looking around it was insane.

Also, COD 4 when you are dragging your useless body around in the nuke aftermath was mindblowing, then when the camera pulls out to a sat view and your status turns to KIA i literally dropped the controller and sat there stunned.
 
Fucking Kessler

Kessler-Attacking-Cole.png


I guess Mario 64 'blew my mind' but back then I was just getting into gaming so learning to play in a 3D world kind of just felt as natural as learning to play in 2D worlds. Was certainly far more captivating though. I don't think I've ever spent so much time just dicking around with a game idly

Yea, that blew my fucking mind what I played the game.

Does The Last of Us count? The whole game made left me speechless,
especially at the end of summer.
 
When I played Croc (my first game) on PS1 and Grand Theft Auto III on PS2. I was blown away by how amazing The Shadow of Colossus was as well.
 

HardRojo

Member
Piecing things together in 999 was mind blowingly brilliant as well as finding out who a certain someone was in VLR though I kind of saw it coming.

As a kid I guess I'd have to say Crash Bandicoot with its simplicity and the Dreamcast with its pletora of games and arcade perfect ports.

The last part of Ghost Trick was amazing.

Talking about recent games I'd have to say Rising and its OST but to be precise I'll mention the RAY fight, when the lyrics kicked in there was this amazing feeling of just tearing it down like a badass.
The Last of Us also impressed me in many ways, I don't think I have to mention them, there are too many.
 
Seeing the beauty of Halo PC multiplayer on my friends computer so many years ago. I had no idea at that time that PC games could look and play that well.

After that I eventually evolved into a PC gamer
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
More of a spectactular mind blow than a surprise. Its was the planet in Mass Effect 1 with the binary star system skybox. Dennis probably has like 15 screenshots of it.
 

dreamfall

Member
Sniping a driver in GTA IV for the first time.

I watched the bullet go through the windshield, the blood splatter, and the driver's head landed on the wheel as the car careened forward into the side of the street.

Goodness, Euphoria!

The Village in Resident Evil 4 also left me pretty speechless. It just felt so right!
 

Regiruler

Member
I think my mind might have been blown in stage seven of S&P Star Successor. More likely I was incredibly frustrated at dying so that probably diminished my awe.
 

Harpuea

Member
When I first played Battletoads, I was completely mind blown at how creative the finishing moves was. I was 6 at the times. It was hysterically funny to me.
 
Ending sequence of MGS3

The game had been good but steady up to that point. Then it kicked it into overdrive. When I got to that point it was already pretty late, but like a great book ending I couldn't put the game down until it ended and once it did the rush of adrenalin, excitement, sadness, etc all were lingering after it was done. What an absolute amazing ride

Starting sequence of Uncharted 2

I liked Uncharted one, but when this game booted up and it wasn't a cutscene but playable? wow.. what a great way to kick into high gear an amazing game
 
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