For Love of The Game 243
A feature from Gamespot this week is an interesting look at gaming moments that moved you as a player. Emotional moments for several of the editors are explored. From the article: "This isn't an article about violence in video games. It's a chance for us to consider some of the moments in our lives as game players that made us feel strongly about something that, in the grand scheme of things, is probably pretty trivial. These are cases in which games drove us to relative emotional extremes. This is both how and why we play." What would be a gaming moment that drove you to an emotional extreme?
Final Fanasty VII (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Final Fanasty VII (Score:2, Insightful)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Score:5, Funny)
After doing this for a while, I noticed certain thought patterns while out driving...like veering toward pedestrians, unconsciously judging the distance to the nearest self-serve car wash, and reflecting how easy it would be for me to just jump out of the car, run to the crotch-rocket idiling a few lanes away, giving the rider a smart rap in the face with my elbow, and jump on...the cop three cars back will never catch me...
Re:Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Score:2)
A game that I really got addicted to for no known reason , Was San fransisco rush on the Nintendo 64 , it had poor controls , poor collison detection and naff graphics , but there was just somethi
Re:Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Score:2)
I must admit, once upon a time when I was a Doom addict, I once drove home immediately after an intense evening session at the office (Argonaut). Trouble is, what with relying on walls to guide you, I drove like I could bounce off the kerbs instead of bothering to steer carefully. Blowing out a tyre on a kerb is a bit of a pain. So after that I made damn sure I allowed a fair bit of rest for the game dynamics to dissipate before driving.
Re:Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Score:2)
Or the time i walked across campus after a marathon Half Life multiplayer session and tried to "zoom in" on a friend across the quad.
Infocom Sorcerer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Infocom Sorcerer (Score:2)
Or in Planetfall...when Floyd...
What they made me do in Stationfall was awful.
For an *awesome* non infocom text game puzzle solution. Check out Spider and Web [wurb.com]. Oh man, it's such a beautiful moment. You'll know it when you see it.
Zelda (Score:2, Interesting)
Then, of course, Tetris, I STILL HAVE TETRIS (DAY)DREAMS!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Final Fantasy is Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Yasunori Mitsuda's overworld music in Chrono Cross made my eyes water one late night playing it just from the sheer emotion behind the strings. As long as he's not doing battle music the man is a god.
Though another favorite is the joys of screwing around in GTA. Nothing more cathartic than throwing grenades at strangers in the subway.
Re:Why Final Fantasy is Great (Score:3, Interesting)
But if you really want "connection" then play Xenogears... Holy ****! That was a game where you had to sort of feel sorry for Fei and Elly(main chars). Plus it has the most beautiful intricate story of all.
Re:Why Final Fantasy is Great (Score:2)
Re:Why Final Fantasy is Great (Score:2)
Speak for yourself. There are cures for that now.
Bork!
Why Castlevania SOTN is Great (Score:2)
I was shocked to find out the castle flips over and become a whole new game.
I was extremely shocked to find out the castle is playable as the whip guy.
I was beyond shocked to find out the castle flipped is playable as the whip guy.
Half Life 2 beginning (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Half Life 2 beginning (Score:2)
Re:Half Life 2 beginning (Score:2)
I have friends (Score:3, Funny)
Commodore 64 and Thief (Score:4, Interesting)
More recently, getting totally freaked out by the top-notch ambience in Thief: The Dark Project and its sequels.
Re:Commodore 64 and Thief (Score:3, Informative)
Metroid...NES (Score:5, Interesting)
And to this day, Metroids scare me. Metroid Prime / Echoes, when I see a Metroid I get the heeby-jeebies/willies/shivers whatever your dialect calls it.
And I'm almost 30 years old. Sad, huh.
Re:Metroid...NES (Score:2, Interesting)
Not the very first ones, where you just have to step toward and away from the wall to draw them out. I mean the ones from 3 on, that drop on you, and the ones in Ocarina that crawl after you like spiders.
I scream like a little girl. Every goddamned time.
Re:Metroid...NES (Score:2)
Re:Metroid...NES (Score:3, Interesting)
pong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pong (Score:2, Funny)
The End of Ico (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted, it may have something to do with the fact that it was 2AM and I was somewhat sleep-deprived, but when I made it back to the starting room of Ico and had to fend off all the little shadows I was...mildly annoyed.
Then I noticed that all of them had tiny horns, just like me, and I put that together with the fact that they were coming out of the caskets I had escaped, and...I didn't want to fight them any more. I wanted to put the controller down and let them take out their ghostly despair on my hide. I felt a profound sadness, pity, but to save us all I had to first beat them down.
That moment will stick with me a long time.
Re:The End of Ico (Score:2)
Yes, that and when Yorda puts you in a boat and sends you out of harm's way. I felt really heartsick about that, like I'd helped this little girl out of so many dangers, and now she's making a selfless act to save me.
Then you wake up on the beach, and Yorda is there. I'm not too manly to admit that I got a little misty-eyed at the ending. :-)
Damn, now I have to go out and find a used copy of ICO!
Re:The End of Ico (Score:2)
And even before that, there's the small period when Yorda is weakened, but you're right there at the now opened castle gates, and you feel terrible having to drag her along, and then the bridge starts receding and she tries to save you, and you really don't know what's going on after that.
I have
"Great" in Stroker (Score:2, Funny)
Reversal (Score:5, Interesting)
For me it's an opposite experience, but still applicable to the article's request, I think
I was playing UO, which is an MMORPG, set in a 2d top-down view of the world. I was in a town called Bucaneer's Den, fighting evil players around the town, and having a good time. Sometimes it can be frustrating fighting people, though; frustration and cursing are trademarks of the town.
Anyway, I was mounted on my horse, standing by a bridge, when suddenly more than three people starting casting damage spells at me! I ran, of course - northeast, toward a cluster of buildings I thought I could hide behind.
I ran behind one of the buildings (in 2d,) and two of my pursuers gave up the chase. But one kept following me, ripping around the building's corners toward me. I ran to the other side of the building.
For *45 minutes* this guy and I dodged around the building, me staying on the far side of it away from him whenever he moved toward me. We were both really determined; he could have given up, and I could have run away, but the chase was too fun. Every few minutes he would get a crossbow shot off on me, but I'd be gone around that building's corner before it really hurt much, and healed up by the next time he could shoot.
It was so hilarious that we both spent so much time playing around that silly building, that I was giggling after 30 minutes, and at 45 minutes I said "LOL" with my character and came out in to the open. He started to kill me, then stopped before I died, and said "lol" too
We both thought it was great, funny and fun, and became friends - what an experience! What I took from it was that while I'm a hardcore gamer who takes games pretty seriously, sometimes interacting with people in a sketchy virtual world can show how trivial the whole thing is-
-Sahrs (Sonoma UO)
Sports... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sports... (Score:2)
Re:Sports... (Score:3, Funny)
GT2 (Score:2, Funny)
Half-Life (Score:2)
Anyway, I was at the end of the game, playing on the most difficult level, trying to kill the giant big-head-floating baby thing...I was pretty messed up...and found myself completely out of ammo. For a while I ran around trying to dodge all the shit giant space-baby was throwing at me, when I got caught by that green teleporting attack and found myself in that chimney-like structure. After fighting off the hordes of little floating space-babies and making it to the
Frontier Elite 2... (Score:2, Interesting)
I was in a Eagle mark 2 (The starting ship) with a 5mw laser if i remember correctly and had foolishly saved just after being attacked by an Imperial cruiser (The beast of a ship from the starting credits) maxed out with shields and plasma accelerators. It took the destruction of my atmospheric shielding, hyperlight engine, scanner, targeting computer and automatic pilot and all my thrusters except the ones for reverse - but I won.
I then managed to pilot to a space station backwards MANUALLY taking about
Re:Frontier Elite 2... (Score:2, Funny)
My personal moments would be:
1) Making Star Commander Rank 1 in Star Raiders
2) Getting that @#%$^%!! Amulet of Yendor above ground. The nice thing about the latter is that by the time you're badass enough to pull it off, you're badass enough to slaughter all those annoying shop-keepers on the way back up.
"I got yer potion of healing right HERE!"
Looking Glass was very good with emotional moments (Score:5, Insightful)
In Thief, when your client for whom you endured legions of undead morphs into the Trickster, and snatches your eye out of your socket and leaves you to die, bleeding. I was absolutely stunned that a game could have such an unpredictable turn of events.
In System Shock 2-- the initial glimpse of a zombie chasing down a Von Braun crewmember behind the fogged, reinforced glass window. Later, cowering and sweating behind collapsed file cabinets, out of ammo with a broken gun and no other weapon-- all the while listening to them call to me "join us... join us... the Many sings to us..."
Emotional games, those.
MGS2 (Score:2)
Metal Gear Solid 3 (Score:2, Interesting)
Final Fantasy 8 (Score:2)
For me it was... (Score:3, Interesting)
Adventure games (Score:2)
In "Grim Fandango", when Many is trying to get an incriminating picture from Lola, who is dying. He is obsessed with getting the picture to the point of ignoring her suffering. His motivations are understandable: the picture will allow him to blackmail somebody who will let him go rescue his true love, yet I can't help but flinch
Tales of Symphonia. (Score:2)
It was not a great plot twist, but it was so shocking and, yet, in-character, that it really impressed me.
Re:Tales of Symphonia. (Score:2)
Other notables are Skies of Arcadia (after the Crescent Isle base gets destroyed), Beyond Good and Evil (with all the protestors) and FFIII's Opera scene.
when i killed god (Score:2)
at 13 years old on hour 9 of a long roadtrip, i fought and killed final fantasy II (for gameboy)'s final boss: creator (god). that was memorably freaky.
Re:when i killed god (Score:2)
i mix 1 & 2 in my memories, but i think that was #1. wasn't that the one that had the floating island you could control on the second level of the giant tower?
Rescue on Fractalus. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rescue on Fractalus is a 3D flight simulator, in which one lands on fractally-generated terrain to rescue downed pilots from hostile territory. They run up to your ship, knock on the door, and you open the airlock and let them in. As the levels advance, the defenses become stronger.
At a certain stage, you find that the astronauts you're rescuing start to have green skin. If you let them in, they start sabotaging your ship. because they're aliens. The ideal way to deal with them is to turn your ship's systems back on before they reach the airlock, as the shields will kill them.
If, however, you don't open the airlock for them, instead of knocking politely, they jump in front of the windshield in brilliant full-size animation, scream at you, and scare the bejeepers out of you if you're seven years old.
Or, as it turns out, fifteen years old.
Jedi Knight II (Score:3, Interesting)
moment 2: toward the end of the game, i came across a lone dark-side user standing guard in a tunnel, one of the tough ones with the black Cortosis armor, cloak shield, and force crystal. i approached with my saber off, he turned to face me and just stood there, i remembered from the movies that the Jedi never draw first. I thought about how a real samurai sword fight would typically end in one single cut, right from the scabbard, none of this hollywood 30 minute-long fight stuff. I switched to "heavy" technique and took a single step toward him. His saber flashed to life so i ran and pressed attack, as my blade ignited it swept up in one motion and cut him right in half. I yelled out in triumph as my computer snapped back to reality around me. I don't think i ever felt more drawn in to a game than that moment.
I was down and out... (Score:3, Interesting)
I joined an online game where we were all tiny, blasting away in a living room, and I got REALLY into it. I wasn't very good, but I DID NOT LET UP. I just kept after the guy that was doing the best,(he was unbelievably good!), getting destroyed time and time again, but I did not quit, for like four hours.
Everyone else had left the game, and in the end it was just me and him, bounding around this crazy living room, four inches tall. After a while, he started giving me tips, training me on how to kill him better. (Anticipate where he'd land, shoot the ground in that spot, etc..) Simple stuff, but I improved a lot. We had a really great time, bounding over the sofa and coffee table, firing rockets and lasers from the staircase...
Here was a guy, hundreds of miles away, at four in the morning, teaching me how to kill his tiny avatar more proficiently, for no reason other than his respect for my tenacity.
I was touched. I still think of it as one of the best experiences of my life, and man, I've had some great times in the meat world!
I shall wait for you in death's halls, my love... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that no game, nor any character, has managed to so deeply touch me as the character of Deionarra in Planescape: Torment.
I was therefore pleased, recently, to read an article on the site Gamer's With Jobs [gamerswithjobs.com] expounding on the virtues of the same character and game.
The episode "Longing," particularly, discussed in that article, and ultimately the character herself are kept just far enough from total exposition to be maintained as a tragic mystery whose explanation will be kept eternally just out of reach.
There's nothing quite so tragic as the loss of memory. You need only ask someone who has had a very dear loved one succumb to Alzheimer's disease to know this is the truth. And though it may seem a strange connection to draw, Planescape: Torment evoked for me the very real tragic quality of memory loss better than anything else I have experienced. And so yes, I do believe that games can speak to profound realities in our every day life.
Re:I shall wait for you in death's halls, my love. (Score:4, Interesting)
But yeah, there are so many moments in Torment that are incredibly memorable. One of my favorites is from right when you are about to enter the Fortress of Regrets, and Morte tells you that he had been there before, and knew all along that the portal was right where you started the game:
Morte: The other YOU, he... he didn't care very much for anybody. For anyone. We could have ALL died in the Fortress, and he wouldn't have blinked. So... I just want you to hold on to your differences, because... well, I like this *you* better. A LOT better.
The Nameless One: But that's not all you want to say, is it?
Morte: No...There's one other thing - I may not have liked that *other* you very much, but he was one smart basher - the smartest basher I've ever known; he always had every angle covered. If he died at the Fortress, that means... well...
TNO: You don't think I can succeed, do you?
Morte: No...It's not that, chief. Because it's not always who's smartest, or who's the most powerful, or who's the toughest... sometimes it comes down to who you are and what you *really* want. I mean, once you wanted to become immortal - but in the end, is that *really* what you wanted? Just be sure of what you want this time, is all I'm saying.
Paintball-net (Score:3, Insightful)
It was humbling, and left me feeling a little hollow.
Wasteland (Score:5, Interesting)
The NPC sits up and says, "Let's go kick some ass!"
I remember thinking, "Yeah, it's about time for that, isn't it?"
That's one of those moments that really changed me: tenacity and humor after near-total defeat.
Re:Wasteland (Score:3, Interesting)
I like to think everyone has these moments of empathy with fictional characters, or anyone with half a brain in their head. Good story.
Re:Wasteland (Score:3, Interesting)
The other guy was 'Mad Dog Fargo' =), presumably named after Brian Fargo [mobygames.com], chief programmer and designer of Wasteland and The Bard's Tale series.
The Only Atari Jaguar Post (Score:2)
Alpiner (Score:2)
There were 5 mountains of increasing difficulty. I never got past mountain 3. One day i was playing at a friends house, and felt a bit on the relaxed/bored side. As I was playing through the game with little excitement, I realized I was on mountain #5!(everest).
I got far enough in the game to see the snowman go by, on skis.
That was the only time that a feeling relaxation let me Zen my way further in a video game. Never could do that
Descent (Score:3, Insightful)
Gaming moments (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll start with the generic sadness/surprise/exultation feeling that I think, looking at the other comments here, are what most of the other readers are thinking of. These kind of emotions are generally most commonly evoked by RPGs, as these have the time to establish characters and make you care for them. However, it's not exclusive to the genre.
Final Fantasy VI: I suspect I'm fairly unusual among the people posting comments here in that this is *not* my favorite installment in the Final Fantasy series. However, it's undeniable that it has a good plot with some pretty emotional moments, particularly given the technology it had to use. For me, the most powerful moment comes in the World of Ruin, when Terra decides to fight again.
Final Fantasy VII: Ok, "that" moment in this game has been mentioned by quite a few of the people posting above this and it certainly deserves to be. Plenty of other good moments in this game, though; personally, I liked Barrett's back-story.
Final Fantasy VIII: A slightly odd inclusion here, as this game's plot is really quite weak and a lot of the moments that Square clearly intended to be emotional just fall flat (eg. the bit where the main characters regain their memories of their childhood). However, the scene where Seiffer's side-kicks basically give up following him and ask Squall to beat some sense into him struck me as pretty powerful and well-done.
Final Fantasy X: Two real scenes stand out here; Yuna's "I can fly" moment in the wedding scene and the scene where Auron confronts Yunalesca.
Final Fantasy XI: Yes, the MMORPG. The cutscene you get when you enter Norg for the first time after beating the Shadowlord is actually incredibly well done and sets a hell of a tone given the limited tools available. Of course, the fact that getting this far is the culmination of months of effort also helps.
Wing Commander III: While cheesy, the cutscenes you get after the Kilrathi blow up the big Death Star alike and you see the full version of Angel's death scene made quite an impression on me at the time.
Wing Commander IV: The final section of this game, where you confront Tolwyn in the debating chamber is superb. Not only is it a rare moment of decent acting in these games, but it's an incredibly brave way to do the final obstacle in a space-shooter - not through a big space battle, but through a debate.
Knights of the Old Republic: The scene where the main character's past is revealed is utterly superb. I'd suspected there was a big plot twist coming, but this just took my breath away. In the course of one cutscene, the entire game-world is turned upside-down. The parallels to the famous "Luke, I am your father" scene in ESB are undeniable, but in many ways this is even more shocking. Further proof that Bioware can write much better Star Wars than George Lucas can these days.
Ok, now I'm going to move on to perhaps the second most common emotional reactions that games seek to inspire; fear.
Doom 3: A flawed game in many ways, but the first few hours of this, until I worked out the tricks the game used, scared the crap out of me.
Silent Hill 2: The first three installments in this series were all great (although the fourth is a big let-down). However, I think that on balance it was 2 that did the best job of scaring me. There's no one scene I can really point to; the whole game is just plain creepy.
Darkseed: an old adventure game, which in many ways is utterly forgettable. In most respects, this was a distinctly average game; the gameplay and the quality of the puzzles were far inferior to what Lucasarts were doing at the time. However, the location and creature designs, by H. R. Geiger (think Alien) were creepy as hell.
Kingdom Hearts: Ok, I admit this is an odd choice for this section. It's a Disney game
Unreal Tournament 2004 (Score:2)
At the end of the Convoy level there's the button on the final crawler which has the missile, whilst the other team try
On topic (Score:4, Interesting)
Planescape: Torment (Score:5, Interesting)
Stage 1: The aformentioned realization, and a desire to write my own Planescape stories.
Stage 2: The realization that I suck as a writer, and can't come close to Torment.
Stage 3: The final realization that the game more or less bombed, and that they'll probably never be a game with that much effort put into writing again.
It's the kind of game I wish I'd never played so I could go back and play it again.
Ultima series moments (Score:3, Insightful)
I knew people would start posting about Final Fantasy stuff. So, to keep proper balance in the world, here's some from Ultima series.
Wayyyyyyy back when I was kid. My very own Commodore 64. Watching Ultima V's intro scene and such (since that was pretty much everything that worked properly in the warezed copy =) I didn't know English very much at the time, so I was just looking at the pretty pictures. Then I realized something very very odd: This game thing actually has a story. You know, video games were supposed to be about shooting things and stuff. (And this was in the C64 era. You couldn't really fit a very long story in 64 kb =)
Wayyyy later (but while I was still quite young) I got a legit copy of the PC Ultima V. I had realized that you can simply press enter to end dialogue instead of saying "bye". Heee! I was going to become a Metagaming Teenager! But then I ran into this one guy in the game that just told me that it was impolite to run away like that! Hrrrm... so much for becoming a Metagaming Teenager then.
Fast forward to last year...
In Ultima VII, one beautiful day, I had throughoutly wasted time in the mines of Minoc. No apparent clues could have been found, let alone anything that could have possibly helped me financially (how un-Avatarlike for me to think of such matters, but hey, this is Ultima VII part 1, no so Everlasting Goblet yet and money buys food). I stepped out of the mines, back to the bright daylike. And my eyes actually hurt. I noticed that the immersion was actually working really well. I was actually filling Avatar's part of the dialogues in my head. (that's what makes this role-playing game, see?) I felt the need to shout at fools who blocked my horse cart's way.
And of course, here's the obligatory EA-bashing bit - note, spoilers for Ultima IX. In the end of the first dungeon, I talked with a Wyrmguard who claimed that he was Iolo, and said that I could easily note that he was who he said since his bow and lute were in the other room. That sounded like the most dumb set-up ever. The guy must be holding Iolo up somewhere, I guessed. Besides, Iolo uses a crossbow! An obvious imposter, and a dumb one at that. So I killed him. ... Too bad the setup actually was that dumb. That was Iolo. I killed Avatar's best friend due to a colossally stupid set-up and a factual error in weaponry. I was very, very angry at myself and really hated EA for rushing this travestry to the market.
Civilization (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember one particular moment...it was the middle ages, and I was on the move around the world. There was one other, very aggressive, group that kept trying to take over a section of my main land. I managed to drive them out, but instead of going back to their own land they regrouped on a medium size peninsula at the far end of my domain.
I had to get rid
Another World (Score:2)
Oh, I absolutely remember that! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh you just brought back some serious memories.
I played it on the Amiga wayy back in the day, and you are right, that game (and ending) was awesome.
Funny story about that game. Do you recall the part where you befriend the alien (after breaking out of the jail), and he pats you on the shoulder and says something alien like, 'Mien tru-blaa'.
Well, when my friends and I graduated in 1993 from High School, sure enough, one of my friends upon receiving his diploma patted the principle on the shoulder
Mike Tyson's Punch Out (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Total Immersion (Score:2)
Not an extremely extreme emotion, but this was the first game in which I really _felt_ I was the character in the dank, gloomy caves. The sounds, visuals, adaptive music, physics, and environment rendering/interaction all fused in my mind to form a whole experience.
The emotion: I was frightened for my character as I crept through the abyss. A sound startled me and I (er, my character) ran back down a hall to hide around the corner. (Also, the demo
Deus Ex (Score:3, Interesting)
My finest moment with the game came while trying to play through the game without killing any enemies.
Spoilers: Although if you haven't played the game by now, who even cares.....
I was trying to sneak out of the UNATCO base after turning rogue, and had cleared the basement of hostile threats. Alex Jacobsen, the UNATCO tech guy, wouldn't give me the key to leave unless I kill Anna Navarre. Anna Navarre is a mechanically-augmented agent for UNATCO, which compounded with her ruthless-bitch-ness means that if I escaped Alex would be in a world of pain.
Well, I'm not a fan of killing, but Anna is pretty evil so I guess it's OK. But, she's flanked by two normal fleshy UNATCO MPs. I kind of feel bad for them; we've had some good conversations in the past. So, I need a way to seperate them...
I charge up the stairs to Anna and the two guards and fire my pistol in the air to get their attention. "What the..?" "Kill him!" Tracers whizz past my head. I turn on my ballistic shields and turbo-legs and leap down three flights of stairs. Anna and her two lackeys are no match for my nanoaugmentations, plus they're computer AIs and don't know how to jump, so they take the stairs one at a time.
By the time they even reach the stairwell, I'm already in the basement. A couch blocks the entrance to the stairwell, and I'm carefully hidden behind a potted plant for cover. I hear the chirping of one of my proximity grenades go off, and then an explosion. Coughing. The tear gas has the two guards wracked with pain, but they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Navarre, on the other hand, literally has iron lungs; no gas is going to stop her.
However, she blithely runs into my EMP grenade on the stairs. A blue glow washes over the stairwell as her energy for her augmentations (like her own ballistic shield) is dissipated. Now for the coup de grace! Navarre reaches the bottom of the stairwell, smacks into the couch, and smirks as she sees me behind my obvious cover. I smirk because she doesn't realize there's an explosive proximity mine on the ceiling just over that couch!
The smirk quickly disappears. Instead of the chirping of the proximity detector, I only hear the ricochet of the bullets from Anna's assault rifle. The leaves on my potted plant start shredding. Gack! The EMP blast disabled my explosive mine! I'm a sitting duck!
I take out my 9mm pistol. I've never used the damned thing, much less put experience into it. My hand quakes as I steady my aim on the stairwell. The plant has disintegrated by now, but Anna has to reload.
BANG
BANG
Two misses. Make this one count.
BANG-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
I manage to nick the explosive mine with a bullet, setting it off. Anna and the couch disintegrate, leaving only tattered upholstry and a motor oil stain on the floor.
I head upstairs, tranquilize the two coughing guards, and quickly make my exit with Alex's key.
Deus Ex is amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Me, I also used leg augmentations and shields. I remember running as an alarm went off in one level, and I had to
As someone who makes games for fun. (Score:5, Interesting)
- A woman who was severely ill from cancer thanked me for making her husband laugh. Those moments were few and far between for her family.
- I had several people professing their love, not for me but for one of the NPCs.
- There's a moment in the game where the player experiences a deep loss. A few people reported they were actually moved to tears.
I've decided that the best measure of success for a game is seeing how far I can emotionally draw players into the story. Emotions such as hate, joy, greed, and love are things core to the human experience. Even after all these centuries, the things that Shakespeare wrote can still move us.I have to admit that I'm not immune to that sort of thing. I remember playing GTA and then driving around afterwards. Things like curbs and stoplights seemed so unnecessary.
my picks. (Score:2)
list of games described with suitable {{SPOILER WARNING}} Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Adventure, Space Channel 5, Fallout, and Omega Boost.
if you haven't played them, and intend to, you may wish to avoid reading my reasons, but they're mostly old anyway, so....
chrono trigger, with the really triumphant theme. the first time y
Well since you asked.... (Score:2)
Someone's already mentioned this. I kind of look down on it now (as most Final Fantasy games) as being shamelessly melodramatic, but it did have an effect on me. But there's a better example in the same game....
I always thought, since I found out about it anyway, that Shadow was a well-done character in that game. He's not just mysterious, he's *minimalist*. There are just not that many words expended on his behalf. He's the only character who can di
Actraiser, and Homeworld haven't been mentioned (Score:3, Interesting)
Both the backstory and the opening chapters in Homeworld were really well done, and turned a space combat came into an epic. The backstory was just a
While the last scene in Halo has been mentioned already, I think it would have been 3202382 times better if they had licensed "The Touch" by Stan Bush to play, for the final driving sequence.
YOU SPOONY BARD! (Score:2)
probably more for the fact that he was able to cast some pretty heavy spells, and i missed having, say Fire 3, than that I really liked him. ;-)
i always wondered what would happen if you managed to level him up to 99 BEFORE that scene... would he be able to cast Meteo without DYING!??! i'm guessing no
Re:YOU SPOONY BARD! (Score:2)
Playing StreetFighter 2 with my feet (Score:2)
trivial moving moments not trivial (Score:2)
Sometimes, it is the inability to articulate what we are reexperiencing that causes us to expect other people to fail to empathize with us.
If you find a person that can connect with you emotionally about comic books or video games or some other form that is often derided in our society, consider yourself lucky. Someone that condescends to you may enjoy their feelings of superiority t
Alternate Reality, Planetfall, Deus Ex, MUDs (Score:5, Interesting)
#3 - Deus Ex -- The death of Paul Denton. (If you're not careful.)
#2 - While playing in an RP-heavy text MUD. Take any of dozens of moments when the GMs or other players pulled at the heartstrings, as rarely happens in a modern MMORPG.
#1 - And weighing in at #1, the death of Floyd in Planetfall:
Steve Meretzky's like a tiny god. (To paraphrase Penny Arcade.) His game is one of the reasons I entered the industry.
Sigh (Score:2)
Deus Ex (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, the most emotion I've felt while playing a video game was playing the first 'Deus Ex'. I'd been playing the entire game with some kind of moral sense - I tried not to kill people (even if they were "bad" ... I only killed less than a dozen people the entire game), I chose "sneakiness" over blazing guns, and I tried to do the "Right Thing" (including not stepping on those damn alley cats.)
I remember the end of the game - you're presented with 3 mutually-exclusive options for the mission that will end the game. After I uncovered the 3rd option and I realized the choice I had to make, I actually stopped playing the game for about a week while I made my decision. It really was that hard for me. How to best benefit "society", and is the cost worth it?
In the end, I decided it was best to destroy the communications hub and plunge the world into a 2nd Dark Age. Man, what a decision! But I figured I couldn't trust the HELIOS AI or Morgan Everett.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Score:2)
Wing Commander! (Score:2)
Or in WC1 when you are on the mission to take out the Dralthi ace (he must have been really good to be an ace in that flying deathtrap). You in a raptor, them in two waves of nine dralthi. Send your wingman home and take em all out.
Or near the end of WC1 (or was it one of the secret missions?) taking out the kilrathi strike force in your *hornet* when
So many...(potential spoilers) (Score:2, Informative)
--Metroid Fusion: there's this one spot a little more than halfway through where the power in the statio
Most emotional gaming moments... (Score:2)
So I started along my way, zoned east into (western karana?) and was sneaking along down the road when I heard a kind of creaking sound. I turned and saw a 20' treant crossing the road just in front of me.
Final Level of Operation Flashpoint (pc) (Score:4, Interesting)
The missions take place on 4 large islands. There are no levels. The whole island is accessable at any time, and different missions just happen at different locations on the island.
In the last level, you fly your Cesnaback to the islands 10 years after the events. You get in a civilian car and drive around the island to meet up at a pub with your friends.
As you drive around, you're going through the same battlefields that you fought on. It was the coolest feeling to remember the hard battles fought and the experiences you had.
I'm not a veteran, but I can't help but imagine that they nailed the exact feeling you'd have if you actually did tour your old battlefields.
I'd testify on the witness stand that the whole game was worth playing simply to be able to have that feeling on the last level.
In KotOR I (Score:2)
A note (Score:3)
I'll have to agree with the Final Fantasy 6 opera scene, no matter how sappy that was. It's actually the only scene in a Final Fantasy that I can think of that really moved me in any way (I couldn't care less about Aeris, for example).
I also remember playing games like Resident Evil and Half-Life for the first time, before I got somewhat used to their penchant for suddenly throwing monsters in your path, thus scaring the hell out of you. In Half-Life's case, I'm thinking specifically of those ceiling creatures with the long tongues that try to eat you. You'll be walking along, not notice the black "rope" in front of you and snap! there you go towards the abomination's gullet.
Oh wait, I remembered a good one: Dogmeat in Fallout. Those of you who've played through the game know exactly what I'm talking about; those of you who haven't should go ahead and do so.
There might be others, but I can't think of them right now (unless you count screaming at the screen because you're losing, which I don't. Count, that is). I tend to get strong reactions more often from movies and books. Whether this is because of the relative maturity of the media, because of their relative quantity and variety, or what, I can't say.
Rob
Eternal Darkness (Score:3, Interesting)
I had lots of fun walking into rooms and seeing the obvious hallucinations - walking on celings, walls bleeding, one-time effects such as seeing myself in the bathtub dead with my wrists slit.
But that pales in comparison to the really good tricks they pulled. Once I KNEW I had cleared all the enemies in an area, then I went into a room, and freaked out when this maid approached from behind with a weapon...then my character woke up. There was also the fun time I was reloading a flintlock pistol, and blew my own head off in the process. I actually thought I would have to restart from a save after I saw that one.
Oh yeah, my favorite: one time I was playing late at night, lights out, when suddenly my TV muted. I looked around thinking I had sat on the remote, then freaked out when I saw it was on the table. Then my character in the game suddenly screamed "WHAT IS GOING ON, AHHHHHH!". Really well executed, that scare. Of course, they rendered a MUTE graphic on the TV, cut the sound, and I was so absorbed in the game I couldn't tell the difference.
The fun part is that they warmed you up with the obvious hallucinations that you laughed at...just so they could solidly freak you out with the good ones
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good times, good times... (Score:2)
That game deserves a replay.
Re:Myth - Bagrada (Score:2)
My best Myth story also involves a Trow. I was in the pregame chat before a game of Capture The Flag, on either If I Had A Trow or Desert Between Your Ears (I can't remember which was which any
Re:Gaming moments... (Score:2)
I remember finding my wingmen to be a bunch of useless ninnies by and large, to the point that I'd save myself the aggravation and just blow them up myself as soon as we cleared the launch bay. That way I could concentrate on killing the kitties.
Alas, the sequals didn't let you get away with this eutenasia.
Re:twinsen (LBA 2) (Score:2)
Re:Mindfsck (Score:2, Funny)