[General Discussion] Your most memorable moments in gaming.

Hmm... a lot of my most memorable moments in gaming were to do with Nintendo, but I'll just select the most memorable of those with ones from other consoles...

1) Getting a SNES and Mario All-Stars: My first, real introduction to console gaming. Of course, by then the SNES was at its peak but I was captivated by all the games in Mario All-Stars. All of them had so many secrets (I remember shouting in excitement finding that first warp pipe that lead to the room with coins) and back then was a great challenge, prompting me to play it day and night. Long live nostalgia!

2) Wonderboy and Sonic Series (Genesis/Mega-Drive): Wonderboy (not Zelda) was my first "fantasy" game and although Zelda would later become part of my most memorable moment in gaming, Wonderboy's ability to take me away from the mucky-muck that is reality (Tenacious D reference here) made an impact. Also making an impact was the Sonic Series (1, 2, 3 and Knuckles). Although I loved the Mario games, I was never into the whole "Sega VS. Nintendo" thang, which allowed me to enjoy the fastest (for its time), coolest and secrets-to-the-wazoo-est game for the Genesis. The ability to use Tails for co-op and the add-on function of Sonic 3 and Knuckles blew my mind away.

3) Tetris made my Parents Play: The greatest thing about Tetris is that no matter who you are, anyone can play it. One of my most memorable moments in gaming was watching my parents play Tetris. I loved Tetris and that game was bloody addictive (and thanks to Tetris DS, my life shall be taken forever!) but for adults to play what was perceived as children's toys in those days was a crazy idea. Well, it happened and I don't think I'll ever see my parents play another videogame again (not even Wii Sports)! Classic.

4) Playing the PS1 for the First Time: Now, I was born too late and was too young too collect magazines, so I knew nothing of the plans for the CD-based consoles Nintendo and Sega were trying to make. Suddenly, a thing called the Playstation came out, and it was cool. It was hip. It had 3D graphics and a kickass game called WipEout. It also had a kickass fighting game called Tekken. The music wasn't all bleeps and phony violins. It had TECHNO!!! And it had a cool name: the Play-Station. Playing in this station of cool. Yeh... It was then I said "now this is the future of gaming!". I had this same reaction when playing the PS2, but the PS1 had a bigger impact.

5) Zelda Ocarina of Time (Ninteod 64): Okay, by now you may have gathered that I'm recounting my memories chronologically (like jujubee), so why have I left out Mario 64? Mario 64 made me go "wow" like many other people, but the feeling of wanting to explore and being overwhelmed by a 3D adventure came from Zelda. No other game (apart from the next memory) has impressed me, affected me and involved me emotionally as Zelda OoT had. I would spend hours on the field finding secrets, defeating Poes and traveling on Epona just to watch the realistic (back then) sunset. The dungeons were genius and perfectedly adjusted (in terms of difficulty) and the minigames (especially fishing) never got old. If this list were by which moment was THE most memorable, ZELDA OOT is number 1.

6) Perfect Dark multiplayer: Long before (or after depending on your view) online multiplayer was mainstream, Perfect Dark was THE ultimate game between my friends. Forget Goldeneye (although the single player was more exciting), Perfect Dark's multiplayer introduced me to 3am and hallucinations (as well as coffee) due to the ridiculous amounts of time me and my friends would spend fragging each other. The options were limitless and we would create every scenario we could think of, then frag away. I recently pulled this out of the grave of old conoles and now that my cousins have grown up, the time has come for the frag-fest to rise once again!

7) Playstation 2: Although I am primarily a Nintendo guy (due to it being the reason why I play games), I have always had a secret love affair with Playstation. As soon as the PS2 was out, my breath was taken. Powerful machine, realistic graphics (some of which still impress today) and all the bells and whistles of a high-tech device (a DVD player? What the hell was a "VDV" player?). Some of the most memorable games came on the PS2, such as Metal Gear, Final Fantasy just to name a few. The hype before the PS2 came out was crazy as well, with one news story sensationalizing, "This, could start World War 3 (PS2 control shown)." Good times.

Good times indeed ^_^.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by RABicle

Pokemon Battle

LOL my brother went to the Pokemon Tour this year and used his "haxed" Magikarp (nicknamed Tyrannosaurus). Because it was the last day in Victoria, he decided to used hacked, shitty Pokemon like Bidoof and whatnot. Hilarity ensued when after splashing a few turns, my brother accidentally used Hyper Beam. KRUNCH!

Promising his opponent that he'd throw the match though, my brother used Explosion and sacrificed his place for a few laughs. Priceless.



Oh, and I've only listed past memories. More recent memorable moments for me are mostly Nintendo related (lol *cough* fanboy fag *cough* XD rofl), but anyways they are:

1) Playing Ico (PS2): After Zelda, games had never filled me with a fantastical feeling. Ico brought that all back with atmosphere, subtle/dreamlike graphics and ingenius gameplay. It was then I decided to break away from being a "Nintendo consoles only" guy and, with the help of my girlfriend, brought a PS2. I played all the great games I missed out on, but jumped to get Ico when the opportunity came.

2) Nintendo DS "clicked" into my mind: I blame the Gamecube for my slow falling-out with Nintendo. So when the DS first came out I never got the concept. What were Nintendo thinking? Luckily, my girlfriend brought it for me (so I couldn't say no) and although I was initially unimpressed, Nintendogs changed my perception of Nintendo's new strategy. Alright, there are a HEAP of games out there that utilise and show the DS's strengths better than Nintendogs, but it was while playing that game when I though, "Y'know what? Nintendo's BAAAACK". DS Rocks.

3) Announcements of Super Smash Brothers Brawl: Ooo... I was originally going to put the announcement of Zelda Twilight Princess but my hype for that ended up in disaster, so I'll put the equally as effective SSBB announcements as a great memory. The trailer rocked my world: all the characters were getting an upgrade and the new characters seemed awesome (PIT!!!). The biggest punch came not from Captain Falcon (cause he's unconfirmed as of this post), but the inclusion of Snake. I thought that Nintendo decided to show a separate Wii Metal Gear game at the same time, but as soon as the box was shown in a bit of gameplay, I creamed.

And dojo has made me go crazy with a few announcements. Online, Sonic and stage editor are the more memorable posts and will most likely stay in my mind for now and in the future (when the SonyWii60 zaps our brains with hyper-reality machine thingies... oh my!)

There's nowhere I can't reach.