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What were your (now retro, but not at the time) gaming wow moments?

I remember a few from various stages of my life (born 1984).

Seeing the demo footage of Sonic 2 in Woolworths and thinking the leaves falling down in Aquatic Ruin zone was so cool and advanced.

The original Sega arcade of Virtua Racing with the moving cars completely blew me away.

I remember my uncle loading up Cannon Fodder on his Amiga, and a REAL song with REAL music came out, along with REAL photos. I was amazed haha.

A few years on I remember a PlayStation demo disc having promo footage of the first Gran Turismo and it looked so real to me, I watched it over and over. The first Driver on PS1 looked absolutely amazing to me also.

kratoz29 ,

Playing Mario Kart DS with people I did not know.

The DS was my entry to the beautiful world of online gaming (it was free, can you believe it?).

And now I see this world kinda meh, perhaps I play (or not) the wrong games, but nothing can beat a perfect 1 player game.

falk1856 ,

Born in 1980. Seeing the original Mortal Kombat arcade for the first time at a smoke-filled bowling alley that when I was in 7th grade was pretty awe inspiring.

Aside from that playing Wolfenstein 3d for the first time was really trippy.

QuarterSwede , (edited )
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

Oh boy I have a few:

PC
Another Lifeless Planet (and me with no beer) was fantastic for a text adventure.
Testdrive pushed graphics hard
Wolfenstein 3D was incredible at the time being surpassed by Doom then Quake.
Day of the Tentacle for its high quality cartoon animation opening sequence.
Unreal on a Voodoo graphics card was something else.
HL2 of course with its physics (ragdoll) engine and jump in polygons.
Doom 3 for its advance in polygon count again.

NES
Super Mario 3 was a leap believe it or not. Blew people away back then.
Battletoads had huge sprites which wasn’t a NES thing until they did it.

SNES
Fzero and Mode-7 graphics
Donkey Kong Country, its CG was nuts at the time
FFVI’s snowfield theatrics
Starfox

Sega
Earthworm Jim had a great art style and pushed edgy games
Another World/Out of this World for that opening and style was amazing and still holds up!

N64
Super Mario 64 Japanese demo at Babbages in a mall before the US demos came out. That was mind blowingly smooth.
Waverace 64 for its water effects.
Ocarina of Time for its cinematic 3D story telling and fun gameplay.

Neogeo
Metal Slug was incredible in the arcade for all the sprites moving on screen and action. So much fun still to this day.

PlayStation
Resident Evil was incredible for the atmosphere.
Tomb Raider for more detailed 3D environments.
Warhawk also stood out for its great use of the analog dual joysticks.
FFVII for its cinematic story telling and FMVs.
Wipeout for its fast paced racing and great OST.
Grand Turismo for its photo realism simulation and physics.

Dreamcast
Seeing the demo of Sonic Adventure blew my mind since it was so fast and colorful. The whale jumping after Sonic as you raced away was burned into my brain.

Gamecube
Wind Waker, still love that art style and loved the exploration that was enabled by sailing the sea. Didn’t feel that again till BoTW.

Wii
Super Mario Galaxy for its outstanding OST and gameplay.

Playstation 2
Grand Turismo 3
Little Big Planet had incredible art direction and unique play style

Wii U/Switch
Breath of the Wild. What an intro to a new world! They absolutely pushed the hardware to the limits on the Wii U.

geekwithsoul ,

Final boss fight of Portal 2 - one of my favorite and most satisfying gaming moments.

MajorHavoc ,

I still remember the headache from trying out the Nintendo Virtual boy at Toys R Us for just a few minutes.

Sonic the Hedgehog’s impossibly sparkly invincibility, with the show-off music that sped up to show off that there wasn’t any lag at all from the particle effect graphic. Really everything about Sonic when he first arrived. That’s the best 16 bits ever looked and sounded… Except…

Star Fox. See the other post about Star Fox 64. Star Fox (original) felt the same. Nothing before it looked or played that way. (No offense to Stellar 7’s many previous attempts.)

9point6 ,

But of an odd one, but who remembers the dos installer for the original command & conquer?

DoctorButts ,

When you could walk up to the strippers in Duke Nukem 3D and they would flash their titties at you.

Artemis ,

Beating the first Baldur’s Gate after numerous (hundreds?) attempts over the years when I was 19-ish (ca. 2009). I recall actually tearing up quite heavily 😂. Even after all these years, still my absolute favourite game for replay (when I get the chance!).

You_are_dust ,

I remember being in like a GameStop or whatever the store was prior to that in my area. The tvs in the store were playing a teaser for the new Zelda game that was going to be coming out. I think this might have been like very early concept of windwaker before they went with the cartoon cell shaded style. I remember there was a sword fight between I think Link and Ganon. I remember thinking that games had peaked at that point. Of course we didn’t end up getting exactly that, but the memory remains.

zcd ,

Final Fantasy 6, the three mechs marching through the snow in 3d… followed by the emotional impact of the game elevated gaming to another level I had never before seen

Ashtear ,

Yes. One of my moments is a certain event late in the game where the world map music changes after pounding the player with an oppressive atmosphere and some very low lows for a couple of hours. It’s amazing how well a 16-bit game was able to make it so cathartic.

Skua ,

The moment when you see the first colossus in Shadow of the Colossus. You've watched a contemplative intro movie that sets the stage, been faced with a desolate land that you're seemingly completely alone in, and charged headlong with only the light shining off your sword to guide you. You've seen nothing but you and your horse moving in this place in the half hour or so you've been playing so far. You've done just enough platforming to know that you're a very normal human with no magical abilities, and if you've swung your sword at all you've seen that you have no real skill with it. You just know that you've got to kill these unseen colossi to hold up your end of the deal with the voice in the sky. And then a building shaped like a gorilla walks past you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ckn0mdFyEU

baldingpudenda ,

Playing side scrollers my whole life and seeing Mario64 at a Walmart. Being able to play in actual 3D and thinking at no way they can surpass this.

Rhynoplaz ,

Playing the Mario 64 Demo at Walmart.

My brain had a hard time trying to navigate in 3D.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Starfox 64. I played it at Toys R Us…oh, uh, kids Toys R Us was a toy store that had been around for like 80 years. And everybody knew it was never going to close, because there was always going to be more kids…and then it closed.

Anyways, they had a demo unit you could play. It reset every 10 minutes. Then Mario would pop up and say “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING NINTENDO 64, WHO’S NEXT???”

And like a stupid teenager, I yelled “I AM!!!” as if it were voice activated. It wasn’t. I was just a dumb teenager telling at a CRT tv.

One time I got so invested in it, that I didn’t even notice a kid was behind me for like 20 minutes. And eventually he said “Excuse me…you went 3 times in a row. Can I try please?”

Man I felt like an ass. He probably felt like I was bullying him out of playing. I was twice his age, twice his size, and even compared to other kids my own age I was always a kid who was at the top of the food chain. I genuinely didn’t see him, and thought I was alone. I let him play all the turns until his family made him leave.

But those visuals…THE RUMBLE PACK!!! OH MY GOD!!! THE CONTROLLER SHAKES WHEN YOUR SHIP GETS DAMAGED!!! And it had 3D space ship flying and voice acting, and oh my god…

It was all very overwelming. I’m not saying Mario 64 is a bad game. I loved it. But Starfox 64 was the game that made me buy a game for a console I didn’t even own. I was THAT sure that I’d have to have an N64 one day…that day was like 6 months later.

kindenough ,

I come from the ZX 81, Spectrum, C64 and Amiga days….I made a lot of music on C64 and Amiga, but for gaming?

Borderlands 2 with 3 friends battling Vermivorous the Invincible, everyone on life support and hanging on to their teeth and after a long struggle defeating it. Once in a lifetime.

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