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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.

deuleb_biezelbob ,
@deuleb_biezelbob@programming.dev avatar

UT2004

towamo7603 ,

Boomer take, but going from NES to the SNES and seeing the advances in sprites and animations in Nintendo games like Donkey Kong Country, Link to the Past, Yoshi’s Island, and Super Metroid was really mind blowing.

Also seeing the early days of more cinematic approaches to storytelling in SquareSoft games like FF IV, VI, and Chrono Trigger. Those really forshadowed how games would mature into a serious storytelling medium for me. FF IV’s opening scene on the airship and the music is still burned into my brain.

The transition to 3D the following generation was also insanely impressive obviously, but none of those games have aged half as well as the 32 bit era.

swordgeek ,

So many…

  • loading (from ¥) and playing Adventure on a PET 4004. It was breathtaking!
  • Wolf 3D on my first x86 machine.
  • DOOM! I spent all bloody day trying to download the shareware levels on the University campus, and ultimately, it was worth it.
  • Crying at the end of Grim Fandango
  • Mass Effect. All of it"
giddy ,
@giddy@aussie.zone avatar

Impossible Mission on the Commodore 64. The running animation was mind blowing for the time

APassenger ,

Pitfall on Atari 2600

Becaise I’m old, I guess. Pacman, too, but pitfall seemed more advanced.

the16bitgamer ,
@the16bitgamer@lemmy.world avatar

Booting up Mario Kart DS and seeing 3D on a portable game system. For years it was 2d portables, 3D consoles. But now both had 3D. My mind would have exploded if I ever saw the steam deck or switch.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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