What is the best gaming experience you have had? Not necessarily the best game you’ve ever played, but that scene or moment in a game that was awesome/moving. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
Spec Ops: The Line
First off, this game may have one of the best overall story lines I’ve ever played. Basically a modern day Apocalypse: Now based in Dubai.
EDIT; I took the video down, but search Spec Ops the Line White Phosphorus on youtube
Dropping White Phosphorous mortar rounds on what you think are enemy positions, but you end up killing civilians.
Yeah, the storyline and atmosphere are very well done in that Hard not to get involved.
Some of the best cut scenes and environments ever IMO are in COD 4. The sp campaign isn’t really compelling, but the individual missions are good. I also like the fact that you look through the Aimpoint with both eyes open.
For games I played in recent years, the end of “Brothers: a tale of two sons” comes to mind.
Really memorable.
Back in the 1990s it was a few missions of Wing Commander 3, one of my favourite games ever. Losing the Behemoth (scripted, but I played the mission several times, I just couldn’t believe I wasn’t able to save that ship) and the final mission and ending cutscenes as well. They were… intense.
Another favourite of mine was entering the first Oblivion Gate in “Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion”.
The graphics had made a nice leap there, and I felt like I had really stepped through a portal to hell. It was nicely done and felt pretty threatening.
First time I tried the demo of classic IL-2:Sturmovik. I had a dogfight in La-5. My plane was damaged and had a smoking engine. I ditched in a field and hit the bail-out command. My pilot jumped on the ground, ran from the plane. At the end of his run he leap forward and at the same moment the plane exploded. I was stoked. It was only later that I understood he didn’t do this everytime.
The library in Thief 2 where I ran into a ghost. Wasn’t expecting it, as there hadn’t been any in the game so far, but the sound was SO well done it had shivers running down your spine well before the first one suddenly appeared. No cheap jump scare, it was the epitome of creepy.
In Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, you start in an aqueduct and make your way into a small town and through a market where you find a hidden passage. You come out of it to see the biggest freakin’ tower ever seen in an FPS to that point (1997) at the center of a massve Imperial base. This video doesn’t quite do it justice, but it’s at the 5 minute mark.
Countless little things over the years, online and off.
One of the best online was the Jedi Academy MP scene in 2004 or so, when servers had these large levels where people would just hang out, challenge each other to occasional duels, show off moves and emotes they’d figured out how to summon from the console, and so on. It was almost like an MMO but without leveling, grinding, or NPCs. It didn’t last, though, as the community evolved to do things differently, but for a few months it rocked for me.
F4 Allied Force: Night, coming off target at an airfield, looking over my shoulder just income to see my wingman hit the runway…I could have sworn I was really in the jet.
System Shock 2: Any time I heard one of those creepy “Nurse Maids” asking a “Where’s the children?” I still get goosebumps.
Not really an in the game experience but…Medal of Honor (I think), the D-Day British glider landing to capture the the Bénouville Bridge (now called Pegasus Bridge).
In 2009 I visited Pegasus Bridge. It was amazing how accurate they got it all. It was like I knew the area like the back of my hand. An instant of de ja vu has nothing on what I was feeling during the hours I spent there, walking all over the place and the bridge*…being perfectly familiar in a place that you have never been to… it was cool.
’ * the original bridge was replaced with early an identical bridge. The original is outside the adjacent Pegasus Bridge museum (a little bit from where that guard post bunker is in the game). You can walk on it, or run, or reenact how you got across without worrying about traffic.
I love that Jedi Knight level!
In fact I re-played the whole series of games just last year so the memory is quite fresh.
Edit:
Oh and another of my moments:
When my raid group finally beat the Lich King for the first time in World of Warcraft. I have some real nice memories of that game.
F.E.A.R. whenever you’d come across Alma… Creepy! And then the final levels as well as the final reveal. F.E.A.R.2 was much the same way for me, especially the elementary school level.
The Cradle level from Thief 3, I almost didn’t complete the game because of that level. If anyone remembers the dead mental patients…
Operation Flashpoint, trying to evacuate from Everon with what remains of your squad while the Soviets scour the island with Hinds, only to get captured then freed by the resistance, followed by the guerilla missions with them.
Bioshock 2, the Persephone levels and the golden ending really stuck with me. All the panic and desperation coming together to give others hope, even if the protagonist had none.
IL2FB, before the Ace Expansion Pack, Pacific Fighters, and '46. I remember playing on the red side in a locked pit server with a P-47D-22 and how I bagged 10 enemy aircraft in a single sortie. This was also during the great .50cal debate and how much everything but Russian aircraft sucked in the game!
Being part of the brief resurgence of Longbow 2 in 2005-2007 and getting in on a full 8 player multiplayer mission. I don’t remember the mission results but it was great! I also remember doing a UH-60 troop insertion with a friend on NTC and how he flew so high to trigger enemy fighters, getting shot down by a Fulcrum and leaving me alone. I dropped my troops off and hid next to a hill, then manned one of the door guns and shot down that fulcrum!
Deus Ex and running around doing wacky stuff. Throw vases at people and get reactions. Then using the flamethrower to set people on fire and getting inane responses from others. Like, I just set this dude on fire and your first words to me are “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”?!
Same vein, the microwave in Half-Life and subsequent “My god, what are you doing?!”
How about worst moment…STALKER Open Sky…when you go through that door to find Fang (or whoever) and the booby trap goes off and they steal all your stuff…I don’t think have ever been that mad at a game.
Oh! I was reminded of that OFP mission where you have to escape with no equipment, no compass, nothing but constellations and a general idea of where friendly lines are.
It was frustrating evading all those troops and not having any real idea of where you were going, but it was also very atmospheric and felt satisfying when finally accomplished.
B-17: The Mighty 8th - starting up, taking off, actually hitting the target with my bombload, and landing back at base, after taking hits from flak, fighting off German fighters, dealing with a fire onboard the plane, injured crew, panicking crew, and an engine that caught on fire and had to be feathered on the flight home. The sense of relief of making it down and seeing that we’d actually accomplished the mission.
