What is your strongest gaming memory?

[Mr Azar]

Another strong memory of mine is watching Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the first time in the same cousin's basement I once played Mega Man 2 in. We were all blown away by the amazing graphics and spent at least two hours wandering around the Kokiri village, then Deku Tree.

[Devyn]

Leveling up all of my characters to level 99 (excluding the shitty ones) on Final Fantasy 3 (or VI) while repeatedly listening to Sponge's Rotting Pinata (of course every character has to know Ultima).

I also beat Mario 64 while listening to NOFX recordings.

This doesn't mean that I didn't like the original recordings, nor are these my strongest gaming memories, but to me, this thread reads "Hey, spout out your random gaming memories." So far, I'm enjoying it.

[Toadofsky]

Another one.

Almost, if not more than 9 years ago, I remember going to Cincinnati for a friends wedding. We stayed at my cousin's house for the weekend for it. They had pretty much all consoles at the time, N64, Playstation, P.C., etc. But I remember playing WWF vs. NWO with them, then Goldeneye. But it was that night I discovered Metal Gear Solid for the first time. I didn't necessarily play it. But I watched the cutscenes of the game. I was glued to it. I never found a game with such a great action packed story.

But then, he had Parasite Eve. I played that one the most. He hated it because he got stuck in the beginning, but I persevered, and got him through it. He got WAAAY further after I had showed him how to unlock the door to the dressing room (the very beginning), and it was just such a cool game. The science in the story, the cutscenes (especially the one where they're evacuating New York), just awesome.

[Flare4War]

Another one. Goldeneye.

Ahhh, yes. Sneaking up on the enemy and shooting them in the ass never got old.

I played this game way too much.

[Gollgagh]

playing the demo of Tyrian over and over and over again with friends. Me on the keyboard and partner on the joystick.

god those were such good times

[JadeAuto]

Ahh, this one should make everyone laugh a little.

Back when I was 14 or 15, me and my group of friends were crazy over FF7. FF8 was coming out in a few days, so one of my friends and I decide to ride our bikes down to the local game shop and pick it up.

My friend was so excited to have FF8 that he sped off without me, and by the time I caught back up with him at his house, he had watched the opening movie twice.

He still teases me about not keeping up that day! Heh.

Prior to that, I think playing the original SNES harvest moon over the summer, and having all of my friends at the time marvel at how unique and different that game was. I remember the songs so well from that - If I ever get around to working on a remix, that'll be the first game I pull a tune from.

[The Coop]

Another story. This one's a bit shorter than the last two.

Back before I got my Genesis, while my Atari XEGS was still my main gaming system, I had a small, three-drawered night stand that I used to keep stuff in... including the games for my XEGS.

At the time, one of the games I played a lot was Choplifter for the XEGS. It wasn't the best port to be sure, as it only had a single level, and the goal was to rescue as many of the 64 hostages as you could. After that, the game ended. Still, it got a lot of use, until it disappeared one day.

I spent a week looking all over my room for it, but it never turned up. I knew I hadn't taken it to anyone's house (only one person I knew also had an XEGS), so it had to be in my room. Despite that, it was gone. I sulked a bit, and eventually got over its loss for the most part.

Then one day, over a year after it vanished, my Mom wanted to use that small nightstand, so I had to clean it out. I took out out each drawer so I could empty them, and that's when something in the back of of the nightstand's insides caught my eye. Pressed up against the interior back side, sitting on a small ledge guide that kept the top drawer in place, was a small, gray shape. I reached in, pulled it out, turned it over, and found myself staring at the Choplifter artwork on the front of the cartridge. I ran out into the living room, holding the game like a trophy, and proclaimed "I found it!" like a little kid. Needless to say, I was stupidly happy, and I played it for like two hours straight, over and over again.

I have no idea how it fell behind the drawer, let alone how it stayed up against the back of the nightstand's interior like that. I mean, it was there for over a year. Regardless of the hows and whys, it's a memory that's stuck with me for a while, simply because I was so happy to find it.

[Mr Azar]

Speaking of lost treasure, my first Game Boy (the original gray brick) was stolen at the airport when I flew back to the U.S. as a kid.

[Maco70]

I remember waking up early on saturday mornings to play Dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine with my brother. We played with the volume on mute, because we didn't want to wake our parents.

[Mr Azar]

I remember waking up early on saturday mornings to play Dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine with my brother. We played with the volume on mute, because we didn't want to wake our parents.

Off topic for a second: that game is a part of my Sonic Anniversary Collection for Gamecube. I've never played it though. Is it any fun?

[Maco70]

Off topic for a second: that game is a part of my Sonic Anniversary Collection for Gamecube. I've never played it though. Is it any fun?

It's on pretty much every sega compilation I've seen.

It's puyo pop with a different name. If you don't like puzzle games, then you wouldn't like it. I find it extremely addictive, especially multiplayer.

Give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen?

[Mr Azar]

Give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen?

A pile of Mountain Dew cans, Cheeto bags and pizza boxes .

Just kidding . I'll be sure to give it a try the next time I hook the Gamecube up.

[Audity]

Some more obscure famous memories:

Atari 2600

----------

Some game that was only one screen, and if you got hit it would start slowly and then rapidly being filled with rainbow lines (maybe it was just one color). WTF was that game.

NES

---

Mega Man 2 - Sleeping over at cousin's house, getting to Air Man late at night after he'd gone to bed, and becoming scared. Ever since, I was never comfortable with people falling asleep before I did at parties or whatever.

Game Genie - Getting it at said cousin's house with Link to the Past.

Link to the Past - Playing it with Game Genie until I had enough plays to fill up the ending credits. (Oddly I don't even remember what exactly was in the credits that filled up.)

SNES

----

Darius Twin - Playing it a hundred (million) times.

Lagoon - Getting stuck on the Cloud level and finally figuring it out on my own.

FF6 - Playing it a ton.

Chrono Trigger - Trying to max stats with all my characters. More plays than FF6.

...

Maybe I'll think of more if I go through some more SNES SPCs out of the huge Zophar collection that I personally completely downloaded, all that time ago.

[Flare4War]

Off topic for a second: that game is a part of my Sonic Anniversary Collection for Gamecube. I've never played it though. Is it any fun?

It's tons of fun. Especially when you're playing multi-player just crushing your opponent. You can't help but laugh hysterically as their column avalanches with bubbles.

[Red Hammer 4]

I think it was called Alien Soldier, you're like some white bird-looking dude blasting all these aliens, on Sega Genesis I think. I didn't actually play it on the Genesis, a family member just had it on his computer and introduced me to emulated stuff.

So I'm sitting there playing the whole night, 13 years old, listening to a loop of Baby Got Back for 8 hours till I beat the game. It was awesome.

That, and playing Battlefield 2: Modern Combat + Ace Combat 4 with my nephews for the week I was at their house. Never knew a game could have such epic music like Ace Combat, sure do love that stuff I do. Favorite track of all time has got to be Liberation of Gracemeria from Ace Combat 6.

Kinda went off on a tangent there..

[ZealPath]

listening to a loop of Baby Got Back

man this made me laugh, definitely listened to a lot of that song over at a friend's house while playing earlier snes games like SMW and Mario Kart .

[DJ Mighty]

2 more video game moments for me were:

1: finally giving in to my friends and playing WoW and falling in love with the environments.

2: Realizing how much pointless time i was wasting in a game that has no real meaning or ending. (note: i HATE raiding sooo boring and i was known as what WoWers call a "casual" player who just did it for PvP) Sold my account to a friend of a friend and stuck with console games. I felt so free!!!

Though i admit i recently started playing again, im alot more casual about it. But after playing a BG last night with 100 Death Knights Slaughtering me before i got a heal off (Priest) i think im going to cancel my account today.

[Drugbird]

Here are some of mine:

playing through Secret of Mana together with my brother. We even got up at around 7 am in the weekends just to get a couple hours of SoM in before breakfast.

More recently, I've been blown away by Persona 3 (currently playing part 4) and Kingdom Hearts (part 2 was rather a dissapointment for me). These are both games I really connected with, and which sucked me in; as such, I've strong memories of them.

[Mr Azar]

1: finally giving in to my friends and playing WoW and falling in love with the environments.

While i'm glad you enjoyed the experience, i'm thankful I never got into any MMORPGs. I have enough addiction issues with normal games .

[Mr Azar]

Silent Hill.

It's a great game. I'm actually upset I lost both copies I purchased.

I remember the second purchase well though - I was downtown with a cousin, and we roamed most of the major stores on foot. The day ended with me stopping at an Electronics Boutique in Pioneer Square, and coming across an unopened copy of Silent Hill. I got it, and kept staring at it through our meal at the bento joint.

[Kaliai]

I have a happy memory for every game I've played. But this one is special, coz it just put the maniac in me on the center stage.

I am from india. We had no arcades. Instead we had game parlors. Some guy would buy a pirated console ( NES, SNES, Genesis, PS, PS2, Dreamcast...... you name it ) and start a game parlor. You pay by the minutes. I started with 50 paise for 10 minutes on nes, Ended it with 4 Rs. for 10 minutes on ps2. All My life, untill I got a pc, I've been paying in parlours. Me and my brother played together. We had a maniac tendency to put the initials "Ryu" and "Ken" in high scores. If the parlor was in our area, it has to bear our name. I bunked school a lot, Twice a week. Saturday were half days and Sunday a full day at game parlor.

Ok, the story. This guy got a N64, First one in our area. I didn't know that we could save games. Not our fault, the owner forgot to mention it. In fact, he didn't buy a single rpg for snes, bcoz it would mean no repeat value for him. Who will play a game from start if he can begin it from, say one hour from beginning? He would lose money and time is money, as the saying goes. I played chrono trigger only on snes9x. Sad, very sad.

I started playing Donkey kong. Hard game. School starts by 10, ends by 4. Curfew starts at our home by 7, you've to be there in the evening b4 dad comes.

I paid the owner to keep the 64 on while I was gone. Go back home, change and eat, if forced, and come back. Most of the time, owner would say,"There was a blackout....". I couldn't finish it b4 6:30, my time to go back.

Now, my brother asked me what is the problem, why are you coming late, parents would ask, you will get caught. He hasn't played Donkey kong yet. I told him,"I'm stuck in this game." He said that's impossible. I said this one is really long and hard.

B4 this my brother had turned model, between genesis and snes. No bunking classes, no games, just studies. Miraculously, he said he'd help.

From next week, we started playing. I will miss two days in school, he will miss alternate two days. We will find all the shortcuts, make a log who found what and exchange tips. Saturdays and Sundays, two hours each, when one goes home and another plays. Whole parlor was egging us on,"Finished it yet?"

After two week, on sunday, by 5'o clock, we were this close. We were playing from the morning 9 or 10, full co op, if one couldn't finish the level, we changed the controller between us. The parlour had 7 tv's, two nes, two snes, two genesis and one 64. By 5:30, nobody else is playing. Tension was paramount, everybody was scrampering for places to watch our game. The owner was going nuts, telling other kids to get out if you are not here to play. Nobody was listening, some were booing, lots of noise, total silence at the beginning and end of every level. Guys going outside were coming back with more guys when they told others that we were trying for a long time to beat this game.

It looked like we couldn't finish it, by 6. but by 6:20, we did. Lots of cheering.

And the owner shut the 64. Total bummer, Total silence. And then a lot of cursing. He didn't let us watch the credits. We are cursing him, he is cursing us and the rest of the guys are going totally nuts. We vowed to never return to the parlor.

Some other owner bought a PS. And we didn't return to 64 guy until he bought mario on 64 AND memory cards for it.

My brother resumed the bad ways, until ps2 Residential Evil : Code veronica. His last game. Again no more games.

The funny part is, I don't even remember how the game ended. I think there was a podium finish or something. I don't remember.

Oh, and another one. I got blisters on both my hands by playing guilty gear on PS. Music was for maniacs.

[Mr Azar]

That sounds very involving, Kaliai. The things we do for games...

[Kenobio]

I have a happy memory for every game I've played. But this one is special, coz it just put the maniac in me on the center stage.

I am from india. We had no arcades. Instead we had game parlors. Some guy would buy a pirated console ( NES, SNES, Genesis, PS, PS2, Dreamcast...... you name it ) and start a game parlor. You pay by the minutes. I started with 50 paise for 10 minutes on nes, Ended it with 4 Rs. for 10 minutes on ps2. All My life, untill I got a pc, I've been paying in parlours. Me and my brother played together. We had a maniac tendency to put the initials "Ryu" and "Ken" in high scores. If the parlor was in our area, it has to bear our name. I bunked school a lot, Twice a week. Saturday were half days and Sunday a full day at game parlor.

Ok, the story. This guy got a N64, First one in our area. I didn't know that we could save games. Not our fault, the owner forgot to mention it. In fact, he didn't buy a single rpg for snes, bcoz it would mean no repeat value for him. Who will play a game from start if he can begin it from, say one hour from beginning? He would lose money and time is money, as the saying goes. I played chrono trigger only on snes9x. Sad, very sad.

I started playing Donkey kong. Hard game. School starts by 10, ends by 4. Curfew starts at our home by 7, you've to be there in the evening b4 dad comes.

I paid the owner to keep the 64 on while I was gone. Go back home, change and eat, if forced, and come back. Most of the time, owner would say,"There was a blackout....". I couldn't finish it b4 6:30, my time to go back.

Now, my brother asked me what is the problem, why are you coming late, parents would ask, you will get caught. He hasn't played Donkey kong yet. I told him,"I'm stuck in this game." He said that's impossible. I said this one is really long and hard.

B4 this my brother had turned model, between genesis and snes. No bunking classes, no games, just studies. Miraculously, he said he'd help.

From next week, we started playing. I will miss two days in school, he will miss alternate two days. We will find all the shortcuts, make a log who found what and exchange tips. Saturdays and Sundays, two hours each, when one goes home and another plays. Whole parlor was egging us on,"Finished it yet?"

After two week, on sunday, by 5'o clock, we were this close. We were playing from the morning 9 or 10, full co op, if one couldn't finish the level, we changed the controller between us. The parlour had 7 tv's, two nes, two snes, two genesis and one 64. By 5:30, nobody else is playing. Tension was paramount, everybody was scrampering for places to watch our game. The owner was going nuts, telling other kids to get out if you are not here to play. Nobody was listening, some were booing, lots of noise, total silence at the beginning and end of every level. Guys going outside were coming back with more guys when they told others that we were trying for a long time to beat this game.

It looked like we couldn't finish it, by 6. but by 6:20, we did. Lots of cheering.

And the owner shut the 64. Total bummer, Total silence. And then a lot of cursing. He didn't let us watch the credits. We are cursing him, he is cursing us and the rest of the guys are going totally nuts. We vowed to never return to the parlor.

Some other owner bought a PS. And we didn't return to 64 guy until he bought mario on 64 AND memory cards for it.

My brother resumed the bad ways, until ps2 Residential Evil : Code veronica. His last game. Again no more games.

The funny part is, I don't even remember how the game ended. I think there was a podium finish or something. I don't remember.

Oh, and another one. I got blisters on both my hands by playing guilty gear on PS. Music was for maniacs.

haha that is a pretty awesome story

[Flare4War]

Incredible story. I was more fortunate in my childhood it sounds like. Consoles have always been an arms length away for me.

[TheSnowStorm]

Just playing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles. A kid can have on fun afternoon with that game on the Genesis. This gmae has one of the biggest impact on my childhood beause of how great it was and how much I enjoyed it.