Halo 1 LAN parties

Man, I was playing Borderlands (1) on PC, playing as Roland with the support gunner class mod. I had a couple of Tediore legendaries, I believe it was the revolver and the combat rifle, and I just reached this zen state near the end of the game, shooting at these seemingly endless waves of enemies just coming from everywhere. thanks to the guns and class mod I never had to worry about picking up ammo, it was just constantly spitting lead in every direction, and it just clicked, it was golden and beautiful.

FF IX. I’ll never get that again.

My Arma 3 Antistasi server. it was so fucking dope

Psycho Mantis

Rhythm Doctor boss stages. Each one is an amazing showcase of visuals on a rhythm game with the simplest control scheme ever. And the game’s final stage, the full release is in December 10.

With each stage exceeding my expectations by a long shot, I can’t wait to see what they’ll do this time.

The result of waking the Wind Fish in Link’s Awakening broke something in me at such a young age that I don’t think I’ve since experienced as profoundly.

TFC “Sillyzone” server. so many fun mods and oddities like the dj/lightshow nights.

When I was a young kid, I didn’t understand that the NPCs and game world were essentially fixed. I genuinely believed they were just as alive as I was, and was participating in their world.

I would go around following NPCs, try talking to them and felt like I was really helping someone when I would do quests and such. The games I remember that feeling the best was Zelda OOT & Majora’s Mask. Doing the couples mask quest line all on my own* and my little notebook I kept track of what people needed was wild. Man I wish I didn’t lose that book so I could look at it again.

*Edit: My much older cousin would help me if I got really stuck. But he didn’t pop my bubble.

I have a few from childhood, but the gaming high I am chasing now is whatever Outer wilds was. A beautiful story told through exploration and discovery. I just want to go back and experience for the first time again.

The awe and grandeur of Occarina Of Time… at the time.

Disco Elysium is the best literature I’ve ever played.

I still feel like used to live in Skyrim. It was a place where I wanted to be and explore.

TF2/Halo CE multilayer mix of copetitive adrenaline and funny shenanigans

Those are the game experiences which stuck with me.

Finishing street fighter 3 on one coin in the arcade. Still play street fighter 6 daily but I’m not as good as an adult as I was back then.

I worked waiting tables so got lots of change. Some I would spend or cash in. Some was kept purely for arcade time.

Planetside 2.

Was pretty new to the game and just wsndering around as a sniper when a guy in a transport pulled up and told me to get in.

Boarded the transport and drove around for a bit when we crossed a hill that sat above an enemy camp.

I jumped out as he drove on and started scouting the camp from the hill. Felt a bit lonely and asking myself if jumping out here was a good idea at all.

After a while, I chose to shoot and see where it lands to see how high I need to aim to adjust for bullet drop.

Suddenly I hear a loud ‘boom’ and an explosion roughly where I was shooting at. Then another ‘boom’ and another explosion.

Turned around to be surprised by 5 friendly tanks in one line behind me unloading at the enemy camp.

After about 20 more seconds, my hill was swarmed with all kinds of friendly tanks and personell, just blasting away at the camp.

It was as if I went from a lonely scout newb to somehow spearheading the attack, which felt really cool.

Arma 3 Exile

I know what you mean about Gold and Silver. Everything you mentioned, plus events that happened on specific days of the week, “mystery gift” functionality via IR, and more stuff I’m forgetting. There were also radio stations you could “listen” to (read text) that made the world feel alive.

Even in gen 1, trading/battling revived link-cable culture, which I’d only ever seen people use for Tetris, years before.

The first game I ever sat down and played for extended periods of time and the first game I ever completed was Majora’s Mask on the N64. It was and still is such a weird game from the town and the people living in it, to the masks, the Moon, and Skull Kid. I loved every little piece of this world, but the constant counting down to the end of the world and the reactions of all the characters when the end was near scared me. It made me anxious, stressed, and fucking terrified, but I would always go back to it. I honestly don’t remember how long it took me to finish it, maybe a couple months, maybe the better part of a year, but eventually I did finish it. And it literally felt like the weight of the Moon was lifted from my shoulders, I was excited and relieved and… I literally cannot explain the mix of emotions lil 6 year old me felt in that moment, but it’s what really made me interested in video games.

A couple of years later, a cousin gifted me a copy of Halo CE. Instantly became obsessed with it. My parents’ computer at the time was absolute dogshit (we didn’t really have much use for a computer anyway) and we only had dial up internet for maybe 2 years (we didn’t have much use for the internet either lol) but that didn’t stop me from playing both the single player and multiplayer as much as I could. Fast forward about 2 decades, and in college one of my friends starts playing Halo CE out of nowhere. It was also a cracked copy of the game so it very quickly got floated around to everyone in our friend group. We would have little lan parties to play games and in Halo we would play 3v4 or 3v3 matches, but everyone quickly started to see a pattern. Whoever played on a team with me would win, and I would always be on the top of the scoreboard by like 10 kills. Everybody decided to do me a favor (gang up on me) and humble me (wipe the smug look off my face) by tricking me into a 5v1 match. I won. We played two more games like that, cuz the first one had to be a fluke. I won those as well. I don’t know if I held onto those Halo skills and muscle memory for that 2 fucking decades, but at the time I was also feeding a pretty bad CSGO addiction, but ya know. It’s what it’s. And that’s why I can’t play fps games against my friends, because I was playing at a completely different skill level and it felt like I was bullying them 💜

Total Annihilation on a LAN

Red Alert cut-scenes

Halo on a LAN

Battlefield online with voice comms

Couch co-op gears of war, and Army of 2

Finishing Mass Effect

Worms, hot-seat

Instagib. Oh fuck, instagib is pure adrenaline

Just one more turn

Last 5 in Battle Royale, never yet finished last!

You have died of dysentery

Hitting that last alien

I still chase after the first playthrough experience of Okami. It was a time before novel ways of interacting with the game world were the norm. Everyone I knew at the time was playing CoD (some even just played Zombies mode and nothing else), Battlefield, Halo, GTA, Pokémon, Mario, Zelda… all titles that “everyone” played at the time.

When I saw Okami on a commercial, I knew I had to own it. There was nothing like it at the time and the way it pulled from Japanese culture was such a new concept to me. The way you can stop time at any point and paint shapes on the screen was just too cool to pass up. Not to mention, the almost hand-drawn aesthetic was still one of very few at the time.

I will admit, I can’t stand the experience on Wii. I can only enjoy it on controller because of how awkward painting with a 6-foot brush is.

Metal Gear Solid V: Mission 16.

Saints Row Co-op over systemlink with a monitor each up on the sofa table (also a bong each on the sofa table).

Star Wars Galaxies before the horrible updates and Jedi inflation.

The early days of Asheron’s Call. One of the earliest MMORPGs with a 3d game world. It was cool being in a giant world with thousands of other people who were all trying to figure out the game and explore the world. There were monthly updates that were adding all kinds of new stuff all the time. I don’t really care for MMOs any more but it was a cool experience at the time.

Not retro at all, but Destiny 2 Forsaken. I’ve always loved the Bungie game feel and gunplay, and I finally kicked my D2 habit right after Edge of Salvation week one. I’ve tried many single player shooters since and have yet to find something that comes close to scratching the itch.

Mech Assault 1 & 2, particularly 2. The two most memorable boss fights for me was the mid game one where you fight some giant robot bull thing in a tiny exosuit while Getting Away with Murder by Papa Roach Plays, and the final fight where you fight a half built giant mech again in the exosuit while Right Now by Korn plays.

Also I really liked Halo 2 for the banshee dogfight with Follow by Incubus in the background and the big Mausoleum fight at the end of Gravemind with Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin plays; the part where the doors open and the bell starts to toll chefs kiss. Oh and the whole level where you drive a tank up the bridge chasing down a Scarab too.

Also, why has there been no remake of Crimson Skies yet? That game was so much damn fun. I miss the dog fighting and crazy guns.

13 All Clear

The immersive world of Oblivion (Elder Scrolls IV). Morrowind had been great, but the high-fantasy realism of Oblivion blew Morrowind away. Skyrim wasn’t as immersive for me, mostly because the guilds and other side-stories weren’t as deeply developed. Oblivion remains THE high water mark for open world RPGs.

When Myst first came out and then me and all my friends carrying our controllers around with us for spontaneous (but constant) quake 3 arena battles on the Dreamcast. Those were the days I’ll always remember but never be able to relive.

Playing Wing Commander very late at night, hit a large glass water bottle off the table with my elbow, and catch it with the same arm/hand before it reaches the floor to shatter and wake up the whole family.

Peak reaction times induced by VideoGame adrenaline never reached again.

Sitting on a couch in the basement, table thing in front of it, little CRT on top, PS2 plugged in, playing Star Wars Battlefront ( either 1 or 2 ).

Either that, or being on a different couch in the same basement and playing Sonic Mega Collection, the game that turned me into the big Sonic fan I am today. That game, specifically if there is a marathon of one of my all time favorite shows on TV that I can switch from game to cable and back. Well, we had a weird CRT with radio, so press the button twice for game or whatever else you had plugged in, but that was a very minor thing. Happened once during a pokemon marathon middle of the day middle of summer vacation and never again since.

Definitely a tie between those for me. I don’t necessarily try to reach that high because I know I’ll never be able to recreate it unless I can find those exact couches, design wise, those exact TV models, and buy my childhood house and remodel it to make the basement look exactly like I remember it. That, or get a replica that is uncannily close to my memories.

I dunno if it was a high per se, but I used to love playing Dreamcast with my friends at lunch every day in high school. I dunno if I long to do it again, but the memories are nice.

Being in the zone, utterly focused at defeating glock Sword Saint Isshin. Doing it so many times that trouncing Genichirou pre-Ishin was a given, a warm up even, before going for the main dude.

Nine balls and more nine balls and more nine balls in Armoured Core Q_Q.

Penetrator from Demon Souls.

Malenia.

As a '90s kid, I was a little old for Pokemon, so I did need the explanation.

I guess for me it would be finally beating The Legend of Zelda, mostly because you had to start over again so many times after your saved game got wiped.

Two different things:

I was infatuated with Halflife and unable to function in life for a certain amount of time. I would say it did a number on my first run at college, but there was a lot going on there.

As a teen, I was the annoying kid that didn’t have their own games at home, or at least any of the good ones. I would go over my friend’s house and they would be stuck on a boss level only for me to win when the controller is passed over to me.

The absolute peak of gaming for me was the first time I got stoned out of my mind and played Minecraft. Probably like... circa 2012. I've never been able to get back to that place ever since lmao the colors were so vibrant, each pixel was absolutely perfectly placed. The light grey ui elements in your inventory... everything just tied together so perfect. It was like seeing a new color for the first time, but then every time after that is just, eh...

DOOM II. Sinking the final rocket into the demon’s brain on L30 Icon of Sin. I did it before Z-axis engines like ZDoom. 30 years ago? Something like that.
<img alt="" src="https://eviltoast.org/pictrs/image/23e252d9-2e66-47c5-a13a-6f73d9202400.png">
The very last level is worthy. You must train in order to finish it. I could not do it today without a month or two of practice.
These days if I want that rush, I boot up DOOM 2016 and play the first level on Ultra-Nightmare Arcade.

I did enjoy killing every last Brotherhood of Steel member in the airbase and then blowing up the Institute in FO4. That wasn’t a rush, it was a culmination of about 800 hours. I was done. Kill em all now.

More recently, the first time I killed the final boss in Risk of Rain 2 was quite satisfying. Took about 3 months.

In Cookie Clicker when you manage to stack 3 fortune cookie modifiers. Numbers going up so fucking hard.

Gael from Darksouls 3 and Orphan from Bloodborne were really cool and intense fights, those probably gave me the greatest rushes in Fromsoft games but I havent played Eldenring yet.

Getting a crit with Paladin in DnD is always amazing. I dont know if the updated 5e rules ended up removing the crit on Divine Smite but I’d elect to ignore that

The only console I had exposure to as a young child was the Gameboy.

At a birthday sleepover with some friends, we all stayed up late into the night playing the original Nazi Zombies map from COD: WAW. Nothing has ever beat the sheer joy and fun I had with that initial playthrough.

Chrono Trigger, and finishing the games first full arc. What would normally be the end literally showed me that this game had so much more, which expanded the more I played it.

Probably Halo Reach Forge mode, couch co-op with a friend of mine. We’d spend countless hours building bases, doing races, all sorts of stuff in Forge. We played other stuff in Reach too but Forge was always my favourite.

We haven’t spoken in years. We used to be super close, I hope he’s doing alright.

Learning I only beat half of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and then playing the rest. And then playing it again and again, and finding new crazy weapons I’d never seen before. Learning that some weapons (like Sword of Dawn) do something other than just slash. Later reading GameFaqs .txt guides to learn about even more stuff I had no idea about, so end up playing it even more.

And playing Final Fantasy 7 right before all of that. When the demo disc of Final Fantasy 7 came out (inside a Playstation Underground magazine), I lost my shit. I had loved, loved, loved FF4 and 6 (2 and 3 in the US), and 7 was just insane. The graphics, the music, everything. Absolutely revolutionary. That game was a reason to buy a PS1. I remember maxing out the playtime at 99 hours in my first playthrough.

The physics in Half Life 2 blew me away, I would stop every few meters pushing stuff around and then in the water bike part and the gravity gun my jaws would drop. No we just have shinier graphics but still waiting for sor something like that to blow my mind again.

Also the slowmo on Max Payne 2, can’t count the times I’ve replayed it because of that.

After dragging my long suffering mum around every shop that might possibly still have a copy of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and finally getting what must have been the last one anywhere.

We then have to go and do a whole load of other things all afternoon while I read the manual from back to front about a dozen times in the back of the car, getting more and more excited.

Then we finally got home but I had to help with dinner first and then eat all the while jabbering incessantly about how amazing it was going to be while I’m sure she just rolled her eyes and said “yes dear” and then I was finally allowed to put the N64 on and I then sat glued to it for hours in a state of wonder and amazement.

Truly the best experience I’ve ever had gaming.

Katamari Damacy

EDIT: I could add a few more–

The original Legend of Zelda

Final Fantasy IV and VI; I was one of those people who bounced off of VII because of battle load times (I tried twice and both times that was what drove me from it)

A now-obscure Atari arcade game called Rampart

Another arcade game, an action RPG from Taito called Cadash, which could be played by four players on two linked cabinets (no emulation, even official ones, currently support this mode)

Halo 3 Multiplayer before system party calls were a thing

Not sure which one I would pick. Pokemon Blue, Oblivion, Star Wars KOTOR, Warcraft 3 or Super Mario 64 maybe. All of them were amazing and had a lasting impact on me.

More recently I played Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire and Return to the Obra Dinn

LAN party 2012ish. Playing Farcry 2 team Deathmatch multiplayer on the Clear Cut map. First team to 100 kills win. I got 60 of the 100 kills to win and from that point forward I was no longer permitted to use the 50cal sniper rifle.

Grand Theft Auto 3.

Going into that for the first time was mind blowing. A true generational leap over everything before. Now you just get slightly nicer reflections and loading times and pay £500+ for the privilege.

So just shy of 10 years ago me and the dudes were playing a lot of Dota 2, we had played since early Beta. At this point in time the game was still young and hip so the ratio of casuals to sweaty mlg was much more forgiving, which was great because it put me and the dudes in the upper bracket especially when combined with shenanigans, nowadays we’d probably only be in the top 60 percentile at best.

Very few people knew about this or utilized it but you could put your level into stats instead of an ability, so I would find weird builds to focus on only 1 skill and stats. We discovered this build called Sand King Jesus where you could use a character called Sand King to sit, invisible, in sand storm AoE DoT effect on the lane and just never leave but the tradeoff was the inability to move without cancelling, items focusing on regen and armor items as well as utilizing another little known mechanic where you buy 2 stout shields: they used to have a 50% chance to reduce damage by 20 (almost all damage a creep can do) and it would run that 50% check for each individual shield. At the time there was an exploit where if you move, cancelling the Sandstorm ability, but recast it before the particle effect dissipated… Uh Oh! The particle stays put but the Sand King and the AoE radius both moved. That made him not immune to non-targeted stuns or hooks but it did make him extremely hard to hit with them. It also made it difficult to avoid the DoT if you couldn’t see where it was. Now there is an immortal, invisible, constantly damaging enemy on the lane, but sure you can still buy wards or keep firing shots in the dark until something hits: but Sand King has another ability called Burrowstrike. Burrowstrike is suppose to be used to instantly travel in a straight line towards enemies and stun them momentarily. But instead, you can burrowstrike away from enemies and then cast Sand Storm as soon as it comes off cooldown, and this ability allows travel up and down ledges and past trees. All of this culminates in “Sand King Jesus” because much like the mythical Jesus it would take forever to try and kill him and often still fail.

Now this is silly at best but the true greatest gamer high for me was this one match where I used this strategy to dominate middle lane, cutting off the creep waves with a well placed sandstorm to both take out an early tower as my creeps poured in damaging either the enemy mid or the tower, chipping away, and I get all of the last hits uncontested, started roaming and ganking with the boys, and buying up hearts, assault cuirrass, vladmir’s offering, refresher orb and for added AoE DoT a Radiance, and I became so tankie and my team had me covered on healing and providing DPS that I was able to enter the enemy fountain, where players respawn, and sandstorm in there for another 10 or 15 minutes before we had even taken down any towers before barracks. We were all laughing so hard at these real human beings on the enemy team reduced to NPCs unable to leave their own fountain and unable to do anything about it.

Awhile later they completely reworked the character.

For me it’s probably playing online games like BF2, Day of Defeat Source, TF2 and Live for Speed in about 2005-07. Communities and community servers back then were different and now sorely missed.

Ragnarok Online. Before the third jobs, and without donation items and high rates. I played on the kRO server for a while and afterwards for many years on a 5/5/3 private server. I still remember how it felt, the first time I played it. Never found anything like it again.

Now, I’ve played a lot of amazing games and some of them really hit me in the feels, but this was the first MMORPG I played, ever. I was like what, 15? when I started playing and I played this game with the same people, for years. In the same guild, over Ventrilo, I knew these people. From all over the world, we’d even set alarms and such to make sure people were there when WoE started and half of us were sleeping due to time zones, or to make sure we could keep the MVP boss schedules. Some of us even met in real life, we talked off-game as well. We grew up together, quite literally, from teenager to adult. It’s not surprising it left such a mark, I guess. Nowadays… well I’ve tried MMO’s but it just isn’t like that anymore.

I only have to listen to the soundtrack, music from Prontera or Amatsu, and boom, nostalgia!

The last time must have been when Valheim released. That shit got me hooked. Now I am waiting for the Deep North biome to finish development before I play it again.

Now that I think about it the last time was when Schedule 1 released.

I’ve had a few over the years. In high school I got all stars in Mario 64 and I beat Quake 2 without getting shot for the lulz.

In college I went through and beat all of the Adventures of Lolo games. I played hundreds of hours of FFXI but the real gem was later on when I could solo almost anything, including legendary Pokémon that normally take a party of six.

Portal and portal 2 are great experiences I’ve been through a few times.

I was obsessed over Pokémon Y. It was the first time I got into breeding perfect Pokémon with egg moves, hidden abilities, and perfect or zero IVs. I also tried for weeks to get 100 consecutive victories in Battle Maison but the third time I failed at 99 because the game cheats I threw in the towel.

In Pokémon Scarlet I really got into shiny hunting and have 200+ now. I also tried Masuda method for the first time but dang is that slow.

the very first Call of Duty and Tribes 2 on PC way back in the early 00s.

I used to be fairly “known” on the old “Planets” websites (PlanetQuake, PlanetTribes, etc) that were hosted via gamespy. I was popular, on a few of their camportals that were invite only and I worked on a couple of the gaming news sites providing art, writing reviews, and doing web dev stuff. I was friends with some very early internet celebs which really just consisted of guys that made webcomics or had their own websites. Friends with Mike and Jerry at Penny-Arcade, etc.

So anyways about once a week we’d all get together, Jerry from PA, myself, couple of gamespy guys, and a few other close mutual online friends and we’d play CoD, Tribes 2, etc. We started playing CoD fairly frequently. One guy on our team, Porkfry, had a thing about not playing as the Nazi’s so if we got into a game that put is on the Nazi side we’d always have to leave and find another server until we were Americans.

It was funny, we joked about it. just one of his many quirks.

Now on one map in CoD there was this german truck that had a raised flatbed. there was NO WAY to normally get in it but Porkfry had figured out that if you jumped at the rear of the truck at a certain angle you could get inside, duck down, and you’d essentially be hidden. So we did that. We would hide in the back of this truck and while the enemy team was frantically searching for us we would stop crouching and just blast them when they got nearby. We’d do this constantly and just howl with laughter over vent or teamspeak or whatever we were using. That’s what we did, just silly stuff like that. Or we’d be playing Tribes 2 and one of us would act like a disgruntled bus driver when flying the troop transport. We’d just do dumb shit in the games we’d play to keep us all entertained and make each other laugh.

I really miss those pure early internet days.

Someone else’s comment about LAN parties jogged my memory. I only ever attended one (big one in a university auditorium), and for the most part, it was kind of meh. Until late in the night, a game of Savage got going, something myself and my friends had never played before. After a few other people hopping in and out of the commander role, I decided to give it a go. Before long, the game just clicked. I had four of my friends at the table around me designated as squad leaders and was barking orders to them as they moved across the map, I beefing them up with spells, poi ting out enemies, etc. We handedly shut down everything the opposing team could offer. It’s the only time that I can recall getting into a real tactical squad-based flow.

I didn’t chase that experience much, though, because nothing recreated the physical space I was in. I went on to play Savage 2, which I loved for a time, but I almost always eschewed the commander role.

Aerial dueling in Starsiege Tribes was a high for me that I will always chase. Any game that offers that freedom of movement + timing of shots always piques my interest. Wall running and leaping as the Alien in AVP 2 did much the same.

Alundra for PS1 perfected the Zelda genre and I haven’t quite ever played anything like it.

Playing Skate 2 for the first time on PS3 whilst blasting Fall Out Boy on my CD player.

Hearing that we were missing half the game in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

This one IS a bit of a spoiler… but not much. For one, everyone knows it. Two, the game came out in the 1990s. That’s why everyone knows it. So anyway.

So you play this game. It’s like a Super NES game, but it’s on the PlayStation. It has CD quality music and voice acting (actually pretty shitty voice acting, but, I mean, it’s CD quality audio). Actually, let’s qualify that with a 45 second video. Aside from Dracula’s final line in the exchange, the lines are poorly read from a poorly written script and it shows. And yet, it’s still awesome.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tV33Ewf_hw

Anyway, it’s a fairly long game as far as Super NES games go. You go through the entire castle, you eventually confront the bad guy (who isn’t Dracula — he’s dead, and has been dead, you kill some other guy) and the credits roll. You won. Fine game. However, shortly after the game came out — it didn’t really take that long, but we weren’t all on the Internet then, so it took longer to get to some people — that if you did a few very specific things, you would instead see this ball above the last boss. Attack that instead, and the last boss is revealed to be a puppet, and he lets you pass… into the inverted castle. It’s the whole ass castle, but it’s upside down and has harder monsters. And take a wild guess who you fight at the end?

Its Game Boy Advance sequel, Aria of Sorrow, attempted a similar thing. Beat the last boss and you win, but do it with three souls equipped and… well, I’m actually not gonna spoil that. A cool thing happens. And you can go to this final area, it’s not a long area. If you win, you win the game harder… but if you lose in that final battle, you get this awesome cut scene that calls back to the video I posted above. So while they reused the gimmick, they did it in the best possible way.

None of the Castlevania games have captured that magic since. Bloodstained, the spinoff by the creator of Symphony of the Night, kind of does a similar thing in a couple spots, and it does have the false final boss, but I think it’s more clearly called out and I think you’re meant to know it’s not the end of the game. And I feel like it’s not a win if you take it, the game kinda laughs at you. Another game that poked fun at this was Shadow Complex, the shameless ripoff of Super Metroid on Xbox 360/Live Arcade. (Great game though!) After losing your girlfriend to paramilitary thugs in the Pacific Northwest and exploring a bit of their compound, you eventually get back to your car (Jeep?) and you have the option to leave. Credits roll and you pop an achievement called “Plenty of Fish in the Sea.” They knew you’d try it and rewarded you for doing so, but it’s clearly not the real ending (it’s too soon).

Two that come to mind:

• One that I still remember from high school. It was just a simple Counter Strike match. But it was down to me and one other guy. I switched to knife, turned the corner, there he was, going the other way. He didn’t see me. So I followed him, riiight behind him, around several corners, while chat spectated. Still never noticed. I finally knifed him in the back, chat erupted, I felt like a god even though I sucked at Counter Strike.

• Winning my first Rocket League tournament after years. It really felt like I’d done something that mattered.

Not really a thing I’ve been chasing but I did really enjoy the time I was home sick from work and spent all day playing Super Mario Odyssey back when it first came out. I really felt like I was a kid again and hadn’t felt that before or since.

Middle of the road millennial for age context.

In Division 2 before NY expansion:

So, for some reason they have set their maintenance 30minutes after reset time( so if reset is at 10am, maint was at 10:30). So, in their discord we gathered a random group and decided to challenge ourselves to complete it before maint hit. During the run we were all talking how somebody will get the unique AR right before the servers go down… Lo and behold it happened to me(sad the clip is gone after gfycat went down and I fried my old HDD) but we laughed for good 5 minutes and thinking if the AR will be there or not after maint… It was.

The experience of a brand new game with a new computer build that upped the standards. Particularly from the ‘90s to ~2010. Games pushed ahead with more expansive levels, better graphics, better sound, larger worlds. All more incredible than what you’d ever played before. It was a joy just to see it and experience it on top of whatever storyline and toys were in the game itself. Every year there was a leap in some facet of gaming.

I haven’t really experienced that since. PC builds are just way more expensive for minimal gain, franchises are just rehashes of old games, and it’s hard to find storylines and worlds that are fleshed out enough to make me want to invest the time.

On an individual game level, Battlefield’s Gunmaster mode is a real rush. Success can be ripped away instantly, you’re on your own skill, PvAll, and it’s a race to the top. Intense AF to win, got my heart rate up.

Finishing Ultima IV on my C64. Yep I’m old.

Also most all my friends and co workers getting on Vent to play WoW regularly and leveling up characters shortly after Burning Crusade released. Gaming hasn’t been the same since.

Next best would be COVID era playing Red Dead Online and drinking IRL and fishing in game until IRL dawn with a friend. Sunrise in that game is such a good representation of a sleepy sunrise.

Playing the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time.

Sure the ending was a bit disappointing, but the ride was absolutely phenomenal.

Morrowind. Playing it, modding it, breaking it, trying to fix mods, writing new mods, all of it. Morrowind was so fun, for some time it convinced me that Bethesda might be a competent company

The first two weeks of Pokemon go were like peace on earth. Everyone was friendly, excited, and walking around outside together, chatting with perfect strangers was actually a blast for once. We shared tips and locations, exchanged numbers, metup after work, cops were largely unmotivated to do anything about it because of how many of us and how wholesome it really was. Honestly best 2 weeks of my life

Being a 90s kid I feel that there were many mind blowing moments seeing the games evolve.

My first one was playing Shining Force 2 on the Sega Genesis with my dad.

Next was gen 1&2 Pokémon, I’m with you.

Next one was probably FF7 on the ps1. Remember having to switch disks while the game was running? 🤯

Next one was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Kinda burnt out on games now. Adulting sucks

edit: The gb

Accomplishment-wise playing in a few ProAm counterstrike tourneys, beating any of the dark souls/elden ring/Bloodborne was great, beating a couple of the xwing missions felt like an accomplishment too, topping the score board in online shooters like TF2, tribes 2, quake arena etc

Just overall hitting max level in wow and raid level in EverQuest back in the day, and a couple rpgs Chrono trigger, phantasy star 4, pillars of eternity 1/2 for the story and characters. Monster sanctuary ng+ randomizer is a lot of fun too

I think it’s a pretty easy call for me - World of Warcraft raiding was some of the most fun I’ve ever had gaming. The pinnacle was probably when my guild got Realm First! Fall of the Lich King (25-man heroic). We spent MONTHS grinding away at it - we had the 10-man realm first achievement as well and could clear heroic with a variety of group comps, 2 or 3 groups per week would run on off-raid nights. But for 25-man heroic, we could clear the rest of the raid in 2-3 hours as I recall, so we’d take some swings at him on night 1 and then we’d spend 2 full raid nights on The Lich King - the final boss of Ice Crown Citadel raid and in fact the final boss of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

For SEVEN months we did this. He was tough af. He had a number of abilities where a single person fucks up and either the whole raid wipes immediately, or it rapidly snowballs out of control otherwise. So after a month’s long uphill fight, and with competing guilds just as close as we were, it was an INSANE moment when we got our realm first kill. It was such a ridiculous high, everyone screaming with relief and excitement. The realm second kill happened that same night, too - so we just narrowly managed to earn our server first kill.

We continued with realm firsts in the Cataclsym expansion on Sinestra, Ragnaros, and Deathwing. I got my first and only legendary weapon - Dragonwrath this expansion. And finally the Mists of Pandaria expansion was the beginning of the end for our guild as a lot of long time players like myself started falling off, so after earning #1 for the first raid tier, things slipped from there. I had a ton of personal victories in game too - after earning Dragonwrath, the most esteemed of all was earning the achievement Insane in the Membrane.

And yet - none of those other victories remotely compared to that first kill of the Lich King. It was truly a special moment.

The first time I beat the final boss of Sekiro. It was a culmination of everything you learned in that game and perfectly paced. Felt like being part of a well choreographed dance and like everything you had gone through to get to this point of the game was paying off.

Gaming my consciousness with shrooms and ket.

Probably winter 91 or spring 92. Not sure when, but I saw the ads on TV and I needed to get Metroid II: Return of Samus.

I was 7.

I asked. I begged. And for Christmas or a birthday it came.

Every day when I came home from school, I played. Sometimes I took it with me and played at lunch.

Nobody else played that game. Nobody knew what I was talking about. I took the booklet with me and tried to draw the creatures.

I was stuck at one point. It lasted weeks. Maybe longer. One night before dinner I made some progress. My mother actually let me keep playing until I got to a save point.

Whatever feeling I had at that moment, I’m not sure I’ll find it again, but my expression must have been enough. I made it to the save point.

Eventually I beat the game but I’d look forward to getting home to try and speedrun it 100% And eventually I could consistantly beat it under 3 hours with 100% items. I haven’t had a game since that I’ve enjoyed as much except maybe a few shmups.

From 5-13 I had a PS1 and PS2, fantastic games were made. But that one night in maybe 2010, I was maybe 14, had a new computer I’d saved up for and built, I looked at piratebay and saw “Fallout 3” lots of seeders, cool, let’s try it. Must be good if so many are seeding.

It was leagues above anything I’d ever played before. The graphics were stunning! The open world was breathtaking. I get to choose my own dialog!? I don’t think anything will ever manage to compare to the day I played Fallout 3 for the first time.

Siralim Ultimate

You like Pokémon but could leave the anime? You like building decks in Magic or some such tinkering?

This might be the last game you need to buy for years, and it’s like $20ish.

Xenogears. It was a life-changing game for me. The concepts and philosophy it introduced to my teenage brain tangibly altered my world view over time. It broke me out of a mold I didn’t even know I was in. Nothing compares to it for me. As a game, it’s well made, but has it’s share of sticking points. But it did for me something no other game has.

I’ve had similar feelings of wonder and awe in other games but not the same life altering impact to my world view.

In a more light-hearted “omg such game, much amazing, very nostalgia” category though, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 1, HL1, Stalker, Morrowind, and Oblivion all hold special places in my memories.

Three more modern games that really brought a sense of wonder to me are Nier Automata, Mirror’s Edge 1, and Outer Wilds.

Vampire the masquerade bloodlines (god, what a mouthful of a title) is still the best rpg ive played to date. Troika games created a masterpiece here, even if it needed an unofficial community patch to be playable. The story is engaging and it is very easy to get immersed into the game world. It is a shame it does not get mentioned more often.

As for a more mainstream fantasy rpg, yeah I am with everybody on Oblivion. The first time you exit the dungeon, with the whole world right there for you to explore, was truly magical.

Halo : CE was the first game I split screened with my dad, and we spent hundreds of hours on it together. I remember the first time we beat the game on legendary, that final car ride was really something. Only wish I can someday share that feeling with my offspring.

Edit: typo, must have been thinking of Requiem as bloodlines 1.

In the dorms, we had around 8 players all play AOE2 all at the same time. It was glorious. One Korean guy came in, beat the shit out of us in a FFA. Its was so much fun.

I know its a stereotype but he was so good at the game it wasn’t a content.

I also used to play smash brothers melee. And I was good enough to go to tournaments (but only locally). We rigged the game up to our projector in the university music theatre room (think huge on a wall) and had us all playing brackets. It was crazy having 100+ people watching cheering (or jeering) at the same time.

Dragon Quest Builders 2. I’m not entirely sure why, but that game was crack to me from start to finish. I pretty much never bother platinum-ing games, and I went out of my way to for that one. It’s especially funny since I’m not a fan of Minecraft at all. The game just had all the right ingredients to inject dopamine straight into my brain for the duration. The lack of a 3 sucks (and I tried the first one but didn’t really like it that much).

Nothing has ever topped Ultima Online for me. The right amount of complexity, with the right amount of players who actually immersed themselves in the game and acted like their character made it a true alternative world.

I want to feel that time again when we ran a mod-packed Minecraft server with friends and we built a whole city with really creative and elaborate structures and cool tech. Everyone had their speciality and it all came together perfectly.

Nowadays none of us have the time anymore to get lost in games for weeks and months like that. Also it’s hard to get back into it after such a long pause. Everything has changed so much.

But going more retro, it would probably be starting up my new N64 and jumping around with Mario in this crazy 3D environment. Holy shit that was amazing!

I’m forever looking for a game that’ll affect me emotionally as much as Arthur’s last ride in RDR2. I still can’t hear that Daniel Lanois track without feeling all of the feelings, and it’s been a good few years since I played it.

Absolutely remarkable experience.

I lived and breathed Morrowind.

But I’ve got optimistic insane news for you all

IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN

I’m playing a game called Kenshi and it feels like it’s 2003!

I’m at the verge of tears. Chase that gaming high, YOU’LL FIND IT!!!

seeing the world of DOOM Eternal. It’s just so detailed and SO DAMN FUN!!

The first time I made it through Winter in Rimworld.

I (horribly inefficiently) figured out a puzzle in Prime Mover last night that took me four hours over two days. It was a real hallelujah moment.

Man a lot of recent games have been amazing. God of War 2018. The return of Kratos in a whole new setting and gameplay style.

Elden Ring as my first souls game. Being an absolute souls noob, my build was shit. Every boss defeated truly felt amazing. The journey was long and hard to become Elden Lord. The environments, enemy design, it is truly and outstanding game.

Kingdome Come Deliverance 2. Has to be one of the best RPGs. It commits to what it is, and I have probably learned more about Bohemian history from the game than in school.

Baldur’s Gate 3 as my first Baldur’s Gate game. Nothing needs to be said about this absolute master piece. Except Laezel > Karlach > Shadowheart.

The Bayonetta franchise. What an amazing over the top experience. Especially Bayo 1 has this early playstation 1-2 vibes that tickles my monkey brain.

So many more games that I wish I could erase out of my mind to experience again for the first time.

black and white, and HSGSS, SINCE i never had a PC to own until late 2000s, then it was WC3/SC1 BROOD war, then off and on rs.

Great thread! My moment comes from Deus Ex. There was a mission near versalife in Hong Kong, and I took the wrong door at some point and veered off path. I did not have to do it, but I got lost and I did, i cleaned all security from the entire building. After I got out, i read on one of those news screens… it had an article about a terrorist attack massacre on the versalife offices 97 dead… I realized they wrote about me - clever bit of cause-effect-scripting there!

1. Super mario galaxy, portal and mass effect 1. Rip that feeling i will never again exeperience

Ark Survival Evolved.

Waking up on the beach, getting insta-murdered by a raptor.

Managing to meet up with your mates, building a hut, thinking you are doing ok and carno eats you and your hut in the night.

Taming your first T rex, stomping about monching everything, thinking you are doing ok, then suddenly giga eats you and everything you love.

Wish I could recapture that feeling.

Beating halo final level with wife in co-op

Sonic 2 all emeralds, no deaths Metal Slug in the arcade

Any clutch ending

For me, Baldurs Gate 2. So much story to immerse yourself in, companions to learn about. And on top of that really fun fighting; a good amount of tactical thinking needed, but not too much.

Bioshock, the first one at the end. “Would you kindly”. I lost my mind.

Not the greatest of all time I don’t think, but the greatest in recent memory

At the end of Chapter 12 of the Entropy Centre I really felt like I was saving the world against all odds. And Chapter 13 immediately after was a trip in a good way. If you’re curious, having a good setup (TV, speakers) helps a lot.

Ah, I also got Blue then Silver eh

I just finished Stray, which is a masterpiece. So it’s not been that long, honestly.

It’s a recent one, but the boss fight in chapter 6 of Celeste is the best gaming experience I have ever had. Highly recommend. The story, mechanics, and music are top tier.

There was a period of about 2 years where every single one of my friends played Destiny religiously. Every day I could log on and just have 2 friends ready to run strikes or get a ragtag team of 6 and run raids (yes, plural).)

15 to 20 members in the clan, just loving this flawed game, having laughs, bantering, even getting deep and serious about relationships, politics, religion, and more.

Even the fights that meant we kicked out 2 racist pieces of garbage from the clan are such precious memories to me.

We have lives now, partners and jobs. I still play, but I raid with strangers or not at all. Sometimes we log on and do an old activity together or run trials, we laugh and have fun, bit never again will we be carefree, and whimsical.

A lot of gaming highs from time to time that engulfed me into gaming completely.

The very first high was the OG Half Life. Before that I didn’t know that Games could have a story like that.

Then Max Payne 1&2, it was like playing a Noir Matrix movie.

Then GTA Vice City (and its soundtrack) hooked me up for a long time.

Then Far Cry 3 which has made me buy every subsequent Far Cry game ever since (yet to feel that again).

And the last one was “Assassin’s Creed Origins”, which being a fan of ancient Egypt, was a dream come true.

Probably not everyone’s type of game but the first time I got into orbit in KSP. Doing it manually was a huge challenge and the first time I got into orbit not to mention later when they added the mun and I landed and returned to kerbin was a awesome feeling . When they added other planets and later when they added asteroids it was still a great feeling to do it without mechjeb. Of course that was in 2011. I have more hours in that game than any other and I still play it for few week one or two times a year.

Beating Battletoads on the SNES. So much time invested

Wing commander 2. Full voice acted dialog running on a sound blaster at 16 bits and midi soundtrack, pre-rendered 3d graphics, in box loot, printed manuals, and a full on dramatic storyline. In terms of impact, nothing even came/ comes close. Truly the golden age. Now it’s a game of diminishing returns. And $99 plus gacha and microtx, really? Really?

Getting called out by my name in the literature club, or being told about how I could have used my superpower better in that other game. Two get-up-and-take-a-walk moments for me.

On a different tack, the introverted but social Unreal Tournament clan nights, Instagib with Relics. Played that to absolute death, clan nights with pizza and beers. Worms, too, with four people sharing a keyboard.

Lands Of Lore, Eye of the Beholder, BG1 and 2, etc. when solving a puzzle or finding a secret after being lost for hours.