Yep... this basically made me lose my mind and shit my pants all at once.
Some other notable moments:
- Bullet time in the first Max Payne
- The specialists mod for HL bullet time (I still cant understand how this worked)
- God of War 3 Intro
- Battlefield 1942 when it first came out
- Uncharted 2
Just last night, playing OOT3D again and I talked to one of the NPCs in the back alley who says "What's wrong with loitering around all day?" I decided to talk to him again wearing one of the masks and this time he said "Don't be like me kid." Then for the first time in my several dozen playthroughs of this game (maybe because they weren't there in the N64 version or weren't as noticeable) I saw that he was standing by a bunch of what I assumed were bottles of booze. Completely caught me off guard.
Never been blown away by story stuff in games, more so graphics or the introduction of new experiences
The Whirlpool in Ultima III
Playing F/A18 on an Amiga hooked to excellent stereo system with huge speakers. Dat afterburner. Opened my ears to the possibility of movie quality sound (eventually) in games.
Mode 7 - Pilotwings
Doom - First room where they played with sound and flickering lights
Swimming underwater in Jolly Roger Bay for the first time
Hard Drivin' force feedback
Dark Souls:
The Painted World
and
Seeing Ash Lake from Tomb of the Giants
My first few days with Left 4 Dead 1, Minecraft, and early DayZ.
Goldeneye - First level came out of nowhere whacked me on the head with its surprising sophistication. Never expected anything like it on a console
Starflight (and I guess SC2) - Once I realized the size of the universe my idea of what was possible in games expanded.
Cruising around the city for the first time in GTA III
Battlefield 1942 - The B17 and the game in general
When Jackies Girlfriend was killed. One of the very few times in a video game I actually had an emotional binding to a character that dies. Never have I been so angry towards a videogame character.
Oblivion.. leaving the sewers for the first time. Was blown away.
More recently. Remote Play. At times when my girlfriend has asked to watch shitty soaps as ive been mid session I now just have to switch to my vita and not be bored witless for an hour or so.
It's been posted before, but the "press the seal to the map" puzzle in Phantom Hourglass will also stand out to me as a truly mind blowing moment once I (accidentally) figured it out.
More recently. Remote Play. At times when my girlfriend has asked to watch shitty soaps as ive been mid session I now just have to switch to my vita and not be bored witless for an hour or so.
This. I still can't fathom it all, if I'm perfectly honest. Being able to continue playing Super Mario 3D World while my daughter or her mother watches TV, with no interruption to my play whatsoever, is completely mind blowing.
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.
+1 to this, especially since my first experience with it was having that huge motherfucker run right over me. In my first BF match no less. To say my mind was blown would be an understatement. I was speechless (a slight squeak from shock might have come out).
I didn't even know what the hell happened at first - just that the entire world had exploded. Then I checked the mini-map and saw that it had been fundamentally altered and I was sure as fuck in the wrong neighborhood when it happened.
I haven't seen this "levelution" for this map yet. Does this only happen for Conquest mode and does it happen on the main island? Also I assume this one isn't payer triggered and is triggered by the storm instead?
Just last night, playing OOT3D again and I talked to one of the NPCs in the back alley who says "What's wrong with loitering around all day?" I decided to talk to him again wearing one of the masks and this time he said "Don't be like me kid." Then for the first time in my several dozen playthroughs of this game (maybe because they weren't there in the N64 version or weren't as noticeable) I saw that he was standing by a bunch of what I assumed were bottles of booze. Completely caught me off guard.
The endings of MGS3 and 4
The slow-mo reload spin in Max Payne 2
The first match I played in BF2
Riding into Mexico in Red Dead Redemption
Ending of BioShock 1 and Infinite
The Scale of GTA San Andreas
The first Trailer for GTA4
The ending of Assassin's Creed 1
It's odd that I found that amazing considering I played games that had voice acting on the computer, but hearing voices in a console rpg cutscene genuinely blew my mind.
Virtua Fighter 3 arcade had me floored, then price of a dollar at my arcade made me say nope nope nope, j/k, i played it a few times, then waited for 50cents and played the living hell out of it...
When I first heard Wolfeinstein 3D with a soundblaster, instead of a pc speaker.
When I saw Indycar Racing on TV in a computer magazine.
Seeing full motion video on a PC in the rolling demo of Wing Commander III
Rain effects on the windscreen in Hard Truck 1.
The (almost) 50km long stage in Network Q RAC Rally Championship
When I loaded up the first Glide compatible game after getting my 3DFX Voodoo 1
Soft body vehicle simulation terep2
Deus Ex the best game ever made to date.
Rigs of Rods (soft body physics based on node/beam structure)
These are only highlights there were many other things, especially in the late nineties.
It took me like five minutes to notice them, lol. I couldn't figure out what Ellie and Joel were going on about. I think I looked out the wrong window, and then I had to wait for them to loop around and walk by again.
PS1: Driver, Need for Speed: High Stakes
PS2: Grand Theft Auto, Earth Defense Force, Red Faction, Gran Turismo 3
XBOX 360: Red Faction: Guerrilla, GTA:V
- Checking out the included map for The Legend of Zelda
- Galaxy Force II -- The parallax and cabinet combo!
- When I first learned how to play Civilization
- TMNT the Arcade Game -- looked *exactly* like the cartoon!
- Exploring the levels of Dark Forces
- Discovering how awesome Daytona USA was to play (on Saturn)
- The first time I saw footage of Mario 64
- Halo co-op
- The Burnout 3 experience with custom soundtracks
- GTA V's world
Multiple points of 999 and VLR, and some stuff in the Ace Attorney seires too. Can't go into detail for any of them without spoilers though. But if you've played the games, you can probably imagine what parts I could be talking about.
About 10 different things during my first playthrough of OoT (the Deku Tree, first steps into Hyrule Field, the first time night falls as you are approach Hyrule Castle, the Forest Temple, the final fight with Ganon, etc, etc, etc)
Phendrana Drifts in Metroid Prime
Good Egg Galaxy
Crossing into Mexico in Red Dead Redemption
"Sorry to Keep you Waiting" in Kid Icarus: Uprising
The Prisons of the Maw stage in Rogue Squadron II. I got my Gamecube at midnight and came home to play this game. When I got to this stage and saw all of the individual asteroids on the screen at once my jaw hit the floor.
I have only been wowed once and that was when the camera zooms out on Drake while he is hanging from the train at the start of Uncharted 2. When I think back it really wasn't that amazing. I hope the Oculus Rift will blow my mind.
My whole experience with Journey. I was lucky enough to have met a fellow traveler early on in the game and that person was with me until the very end.
Also, the opening scenes of The Last of Us. In every aspect, it blew my mind; visuals, pacing, story. I was shocked with how ND made me instantly care for the characters within the opening minutes. And how genuinely scared I was
playing as Sarah and navigating through the empty house looking for Joel.
Super Mario 64: First time seeing 3D graphics, it was glorious
Rome: Total War: I literally couldn't believe how many units were on the screen at the same time
BioShock: The twist, didn't see it coming at all
Spec Ops: The Line: Everything from the halfway point onwards
What moment are you guys talking about? Because I can't think of one. I thought the ending was pretty poorly done in comparison to other media that have dabbled in the multiverse theory.