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[Iriscomeback]

The 3D effect in Sonic the hedgehog (background)

 

[Yautja_Warrior]

Getting the original PlayStation at Christmas all those years ago, booting up Ridge Racer for the first time and playing an actual arcade game at home, that was a great moment.

 

[dark10x]

One of the moments that I remember most clearly is this...

Consider when this was released - the first half of 1998. The first level takes place indoors on a ruined ship but when you finally make it outside and see this massive world before you...it was incredible. I can almost remember the tears of joy and thinking there's just no way it gets better than this.

 

[texhnolyze]

Don't really remember which one is actually the first, but maybe FF VII and VIII.
I remember restarting my PS console just to repeat the opening scenes of both games.

 

[Brutal Deluxe]

Seeing Shadow of the Beast and Barbarian 2 on the Amiga when I only had a C64 blew me away. Saved all my paper round money knowing I had to have one.
SF2 on SNES was pretty amazing back in the day as well

 

[StoneSarge89]

Playing Wolfenstein, Doom 1&2, Quake 1, Duke Nukem an other shooter fossils in the late 90s (PCs were everything in this corner of Europe at the time) and seeing a pre/review of Final Fantasy VIII in a foreign magazine.
The design, the CGI (99,99% of games here at that time were bootlegs with CGI and music ripped out to be able to fit on multiple floppy disks), the bosses, characters.
It was just a magazine and many years passed before I could actually play it, but damn... it took me into the wonderful world of RPGs.

Diablo II, Act III, feeling ever closer to Mephisto, the dark scenery, the canals, abandoned temples, everything was immersing me like nothing else before.

World of Warcraft! That map, those places, the music! Truly a monster of gaming, I sometimes recall on all the adventures and all the people I met and exchanged words with and whom I will never ever get in touch again. Also a bit of a stab is how some area changed during Cataclysm and I wish I could see them again. I found some beaches in the former version of Azshara to be very serene.

Metal Gear Solid IV, Solid vs Liquid fight... the memories it brought up.

I know I dragged on and didn't talk only about the first, but gaming gave me so many good memories

 

[SuperAngelo64]

Seeing the intro cutscene for Smash Melee. Being an N64 owner I was always a little jealous of the Playstation's cutscenes.

I remember one of my friends watching the cutscene and the gameplay and saying "this can't be a Nintendo game..."

 

[Scoot M16]

First encountering the Flood in Halo 1 and, of course, giving the Covenant back their bomb in H2. Still brings goosebumps...

 

[El_Chino]

I have a lot but this one was my most favorite.

Bioshock's opening.

At the time, I thought it was pre rendered then I realized it was playable.

 

[Backfoggen]

Seeing Quake 2 and Half-Life run at high frame rates
Physics in HL2
Light and shadows in Doom 3
Large scale map rendering in Far Cry. (2004-205 were good years for this kind of stuff btw)
Zombies in Dead Rising
The bump in detail to everything in Gears of War
Shading in Crysis
Animations and scripted sequences in Uncharted 2
Visual Design in Bloodborne

Ok these ended up as all my whoa moments

 

[Vetro]

Ocarina of Time

Going 3D was simply awesome back then.

 

[00ich]

More or less accidentally buying the shareware version of Doom with a magazine and installing it on my dad's computer. I had heard nothing about the game before.

Also F-Zero and Pilotwings on the SNES and F/A-18 Interceptor on the original Amiga.

 

[buenoblue]

Tekken on ps1. The animation was so fluid and lifelike. I distinctly remember thinking it was so realistic that graphics would not get any better. Lol.

 

[gaugebozo]

Super Mario world:

You can climb? You can go behind the fence? The background is moving!?

 

[Lemonte]

Not really gaming moment but on PS1 Demo disc 1 those t-rex and manta ray tech demos.

MGS2 whole tanker level was mind blowing.

 

[Darth Karja]

Playing Runescape for the first time. I think I was 13 and I stayed up all night playing with some random girl I met in the starting area. I had never played a game like that.

 

[OnFire331]

I saw my cousin playing Super Mario 64 and he was fighting Bowser in the Fire Sea. The moment Bowser jumped and tilted the platform was incredibly impactful for me and will be forever ingrained in my mind.

 

[Browarr]

The first thought coming to my mind is the day I got a LCD screen for my PC.
I was playing Prey at that time on a 17" CRT screen, and my parents got me a no-name 19" LCD screen. Once plugged up, I was like "Jeez, this is huge".
I still remember I couldn't believe what I was watching. This "huge and flat" screen !

Others "wow" moments were maybe when I played Stalker for the first time and Oblivion.
The first one for its atmospheric impact (it was raining outside and inside the game) and Oblivion for the sens of wonder and of exploration.

Oh, and WoW. I was so happy to play it, I cried. "Oh my, I'm playing Warcraft 3 but online and with one character, and I can go whatever I want !"

 

[00ich]

One of the moments that I remember most clearly is this...

Consider when this was released - the first half of 1998. The first level takes place indoors on a ruined ship but when you finally make it outside and see this massive world before you...it was incredible. I can almost remember the tears of joy and thinking there's just no way it gets better than this.

Unreal was absolutely astonishing, too. Quake 2 rose the bar for visuals in 1st person shooters a few month earlier and out of nowhere it was risen again. The detail textures on indoor walls, the animated water in the temples and reflections on (suspiciously well) polished floors.

 

[Equanimity]

The first time I saw Rayman on Playstation.

At first I thought it was an actual cartoon. Coming from a Sega Mega Drive, I couldn't believe my eyes.

 

[Fadobo]

Defeating Skullrus Rex in Mystic Quest Legend (that is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for our American friends) with a life spell.

 

[cyba89]

Pokémon Gold

 

[Raylan]

Can't remember my first "woah" moment, but my last one:

Uncharted 2: Building Collapse / Helicopter Fight

SoGood.gif

 

[WITHE1982]

I closely followed the development of Flashback on the Amiga but was still blown away by the character animations. Even to this day I absolutely love it.

Following that it was my first glimpse of the Playstation 1 in the form of Rascal. The game was complete trash but the first time I saw it my jaw dropped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3G2rTbTleo

 

[EuanThePooan]

My first battle in Rome: Total War, I had only played age of empires up to that point which was at most maybe 100 guys in an army but suddenly I was controlling 2000 soldiers, I couldn't quite believe that game existed (and that my PC could run it).

 

[KAL2006]

Street Fighter II
Button mashing then pulling out a Hadoken. Hearing Ryu say "Hadoken!" And seeing a projectile.

Super Mario 64
From the very fist moment pulling Mario's 3D face and papering outside of the castle in the sandbox 3D World.

Suikoden
My first RPG excluding Pokemon. The moment you defeat a dragon and realise this is your home base.

 

[The Bookerman]

This blew my frickin' mind back when I first saw video of that scene in my comic book store.

 

[Justinh]

Can't possibly remember my first, but I remember these:

First time seeing Ninja Gaiden NES cutscene(s) and Street Fighter 2 in an arcade.

Ahh the memories. And now I feel old :/

Yeah, SF2 was mindblowing to me. I remember thinking Guile was so cool.

Also remember I had to stand on a chair to play it. The chair fell away and I slammed my chin on the machine and bit through my lip. Worth it for SF2...

Star Wars: Rogue Leader for the GameCube on launch day. My brother's friend brought his brand-new Cube over and I was blown away after having only played N64.

Seeing those tiny videos on IGN (I even paid for Insider for the 640x480 size) of Rogue Leader and the Death Star level intro video thing had me so freaking hyped. I even was able to get the game before launch. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the console at launch but I lucked out at a Toys'R'Us a few days later. I think it was Black Friday.

One really stupid one was I was playing Ocarina of Time in a Wal-Mart and I remember running around Hyrule and I saw something in the distance I wanted to go check out but thought "Oh man, I gotta run all the way around this fence back to that opening. I got a little closer than I meant to and he just jumped over it and I flipped my shit.

Edit: oh yeah, definitely Genesis. I got one for my birthday and I hadn't even heard of it. I think I was disappointed at first because I wanted Nintendo games but then when we turned it on at my birthday party all of our faced melted off (we got better).

 

[MekaDragon]

Landing here. Looking up and seeing the raindrops fall on the visor.

Godlike.

Yes.

Fucking YES.

 

[Sephimoth]

First two I remember vividly:

1) Spotting Mario 64 on a demo in a store back in 96. First proper 3D environment I'd seen...

2) Playing Tomb Raider that same year on my Sega Saturn. Standing on top of high points (eg. St Francis Folly) and feeling vertigo looking down.

 

[mark_79]

Getting my NES and Ninja Turtles package back in the very early 90's. This was my first taste of 'real' gaming having had to endure an Atari VCS for the previous few years.

Same as above but replace a Magadrive for an NES and Sonic The Hedgehog for Ninja Turtles. The graphics literally blew me away.

Cobra Command on the Mega CD. What sorcery is this I pondered?

Mario 64. No further comment necessary.

My first taste of pc gaming. Doom & Quake combo pack.

Getting my Dreamcast and seeing the killer whale smash up the first level on Sonic Adventure.

And then it all ended. I've since become jaded.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

PS1: Gran Turismo because of how realistic the cars were (lol), Metal Gear Solid because of how movie-like it was

PS2: Devil May Cry because it was so fluid and unlike anything I'd ever played

 

[CaptainGyro]

Seeing Super Mario Brothers for the first time. Seeing Donkey Kong Country for the first time. Experiencing Mario 64 for the first time.

Playing NES Mario on my own TV for the first time.

Blew my mind at the time.

Surprised SMB was only mentioned twice. It was definitely my first moment where my mind was blown. I was coming off the Colecovision where a whole game's entirety could often be seen in 10 minutes or less. Back in Colecovision days, if a game had 4 levels ( which were really just single screens ) it was considered big. The fact that SMBs levels were not only much bigger than a colecovision level was cool enough, but then throw in the fact that the game had not 4 levels but 8 worlds with 4 levels each and the game had perfect arcade like graphics at the time and holy shit it was amazing. Even the bricks getting smashed and coins getting knocked from blocks looked crazy

 

[florin3k3]

MIne was around '91-92. Was at a friend's house who had just gotten a brand new PC. He bought this game with mechs. I cant remember what it was called But i was blown away by the graphics.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Metropolis Zone having a 3rd Act on Sonic 2 was crazy for me.
It was such a hard level, and then you reach the end of Act 2 and there's just a signpost.

 

[Trickster]

Didn't really have "woah" moments when I was young.

Getting my hands on vanilla WoW and logging in for the first though, that was some woah inducing shit.

 

[JoeNut]

Sephiroth in the fire, definitely.

 

[Greg_le_Casual]

First time I saw an Out Run arcade cabinet (1986).
It was a stand up type, I literally put my nose on the screen to see the sprites zooming (I was 11yo so I had no idea how it worked then). It just looked like magic. Oh the level with the clouds ceiling...

When I came back home, my Colecovision was looking like a very sad piece of black plastic. Got a Master System just after and I kept arguing at school that the Out Run port on the Master System was "almost looking the same as the arcade". Yep.

Years later I felt the same first time I saw a Virtua Racing cabinet for the first time.

And the same again when I saw a Daytona USA cabinet.

Oh SEGA, you were so great. *looks at retro game shelf and breathes loudly.

 

[...Scatter...]

Remember those cut aways in double dribble?

 

[rhophiehalul78]

Super Mario Bros 3
All the secrets within the game like:
- Getting 100 lives from Koopa Troopa and the angry jumping fishes
- Getting behind the stage's background
- Secret pipes reachable only when you go way up out of reach of the screens

FF8
- Quistis Intro
- All GF sequences. I was spamming Quezacotl and Shiva the firt time I got them.
- The Dollet mission scene

 

[McMoneyman]

I was brought up on the original Playstation, playing a lot of the classics on that. But getting a Playstation 2 and Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was a mindblowing moment for me. No load times(cleverly disguised sometimes!) and all the areas are connected into a huge world. It was impressive for me.

 

[abstract alien]

Remember those cut aways in double dribble?

Holy shit you just brought me back

 

[OBias]

Playing Doom and Quake for the first time in an internet cafe. Before that I had only seen 2D games.

Getting on the train in Half-Life and exploring Black Mesa.

Making a hole in a cliff in Red Faction with the remote charge and later shooting enemies through walls with the rail gun.

Throwing cans at metropolice dudes in Half-Life 2.

 

[grmlin]

I was young and easily impressed

 

[im_dany]

Going to Kanto in Pokemon Gold

 

[BrassDragon]

1993: playing DOOM over LAN and the first time seeing another player move around in real-time 3D.

It's hard to convey how mind-blowing that was to the current generation.

 

[PaBing'ah]

watching Chrono Cross Opening FMV.

 

[Aztechnology]

Honestly I played through Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega, 64, ps1, PS2. I doubt I really rememer my first. But I think the biggest"Whoa" experiences I had was oing to my local Bestbuy where they had a gaming desktop setup, I was blown away by Call of Duty 2 and it wasn't even on that high end of a machine. It was my biggest Whoa moment. I built a gaming PC after that and haven't looked back since.

Battlefield 2 closely after that blew me away two. Funny that two of the games that helped me get into PC gaming are now series I find barely tolerable.

 

[Insert Coin]

Taking down a camel for the first time in Attack of the Mutant Camels for the VIC-20. Young me thought I was a god.

 

[Castef]

Very first one: loading Impossible Mission and Wonder Boy on my Commodore 64.