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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.

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.

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.

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!).

DoctorButts ,

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

9point6 ,

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

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.)

geekwithsoul ,

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

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.

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.

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.

Subtracty ,

Playing Call of Duty World at War for the first time, if that counts as retro. I had always played co-op games with my brother, and when he was gone for a weekend, I decided to try and play for myself. Spent countless hours replaying missions until I finally beat the campaign. And if I remember correctly, it drops you straight into zombies with no warning. I remember it being way past my bedtime, sitting alone in the dark. I was absolutely terrified because I was genuinely shocked by the premise and maybe too young for something so scary. Didn’t sleep at all that night.

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

There are some very memorable games.

No game has ever matched the freedom of Morrowind. You are only limited by yourself. Even Oblivion and Skyrim feel restricted by the game itself.

Half-Life 2 interacting with the environment. I must have played with the can for hours the first time.

Final Fantasy VIII though was the single most impressive game for the hardware it came out on. The character models being actual human proportion, the summons looking like actual monsters, and the FMVs where people look like damn people in a movie.

In the same vein, FFX being described as looking like FFVIII’s FMVs but all the time. And then living up to the hype.

RightHandOfIkaros , (edited )

Morrowind mentioned, based comment.

numberfour002 ,

For me it was the original Resident Evil on the Playstation.

It was the first time I saw live-action digitized full-motion video on a gaming system. I know there were a lot of FMV (Full Motion Video) games in that era on other systems, but I didn’t own those other systems and I didn’t know anybody who did. So, it was all new to me once I played a Playstation.

Resident Evil was also the first time a video game had ever given me a jump scare. Early in the game a zombie doberman bursts through a window unexpectedly and I was hooked! I loved introducing my friends to the game, specifically so I could see their reaction when the dog shows up. So much fun.

Honestly seeing and hearing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo was kind of wow, too. The graphics boost compared to the 8-bit systems I was used to was incredible. And the sound quality compared to the other 16-bit systems I’d played (Genesis and TG-16) was a leap above. The experience probably pales in comparison to modern games, but back then there was wow factor to it.

To young me, Street Fighter 2 Turbo was pretty wow as well. It was “literally” the same as the arcade version to child me. I could not believe the home version was so close to the real thing, because prior generations of game systems like the NES couldn’t come close to that level of performance.

andrew_bidlaw ,
@andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works avatar

Art direction in Comix Zone for Sega Genesis. After static cartoonish games it’s unbeliveable you can pull it off on the same hardware. The animated intro, the hand painting enemies as you go and these transitions between scenes were very impressive.

MisterMoo ,

Playing Air Warrior II on Windows 95 in 1997. My dad and uncle lived in another state and we’d hop on AOL at a specified time and join a game. It was my first ever online game experience. I was 13. I hope kids today can still feel that total world-changing excitement that I did back then.

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