What is your strongest gaming memory?

[Elex Synn]

I have two that I can recall.

First was when I was playing Friday the 13th on the NES.. In a dark room with my cousin... At night... And the first time we went through a house looking for Jason and not finding him after some odd minutes. We decided to try and leave the house and the bastard shows up right inf ront of the door. Scared the hell out of the both of us. We damn near flipped the table the TV was sitting on. Think this was when I was... Early teens I guess.

Second was when I first got Super Sonic in Sonic 2 for the Genesis. I believe I had got the SS code from a gaming magazine (4,1,2,6 in sound test if I remember right). I got the fifty rings and stood around wonder when it was going to happen. ended up jumping out of boredom and the transformation hit. I remember my jaw dropping to the floor and just screaming really loud. Believe I was in 5th grade at that time.. 10 or 11 years old?

[Hector]

I've decided to go more for a list of memorable moments than memorable games.

Playing Mario Brothers when I was three/four and repeatedly being killed by the first goomba.

Swinging over a pit of fire in Bionic Commando (before first grade).

Mega Man 2: beating Wind Man; then beating the other Robot Masters; pounding my way through Wily's Fortress. (either this or Bionic Commando was the first game I ever beat).

Going out to search for secrets in Zelda (throughout childhood).

Figuring out the Forest of Illusion (Oh look, I found a secret exit...oh, it brings me back to where I started).

In A Link to the Past, beating the first dark-world boss using bombs instead of the hammer because I was too stupid to try the hammer.

Fighting Magus in Chrono Trigger for the first time. And then arriving at Zeal.

Trying to make my way through the ghost floor in Lands of Lore. The song wasn't creepy at first, but after getting drubbed by enemies that sneak about, walk through walls, are highly resistant to most attacks and offer no chances of rest: it becomes very creepy.

Discovering Warcraft and RTS.

Playing the "Survive for 30 minutes" level in Starcraft, having my base get overrun in the last minute and the rescue come as my SCVs were starting to battle.

Seeing the walls bleed in Eternal Darkness and fleeing the room in terror.

Edit:

Might not count because I almost forgot it. But spending an hour taking down Fafnir after getting thoroughly thrashed in the first minute of the fight in FFXII. And a similar battle against Zodiac where I had to shift to a two-person party to slow down how fast he killed me.

[stry]

Aeris's untimely demise in Final Fantasy VII

[The Damned]

Aeris's untimely demise in Final Fantasy VII

OH MY GOD, SPOILERS MUCH!?

...

In case no one gets it -->

[Korzinski]

After Beating Solo-Wing Pixy in Ace Combat Zero and watching the final cutscenes of the narrator, the journalist, with his final interviews of all the ace squadron commanders you shot down during the war. I was crying pretty hard, that and the credits. Never cried harder in my life........I've even a few tears filling up right now just thinking about it.

That and defeating Loki at the special ending of Valkyrie Profile 1 and watching her rebirth the world.

[The Coop]

1987 and still playing an Atari?

LOOOOOOOOOOSER.

Goddamn right I was still playing Atari, and I continued doing so virtually daily up until 1989 when I got my Genesis

For tale #2, I'll talk about a game that took me 13 years to finally get to play... Curse.

See, back in 1990, INTV was supposed to release a shmup by the name of Curse. The EBs around where I lived had it on their computers, and I was looking forward to getting it. That's when the journey began.

Bit by bit, the release date kept getting pushed back. No reasons were given, and according to EGM, the game was either out, or about to be out when they reviewed it. 1990 became 1991, and delay after delay kept showing up... sometimes just a week before the game was supposed to arrive. 1991 drifted in 1992, and by the summer of that year, I moved... Curse-less.

The town I moved to didn't have a real game store; just a K-mart and a Wal-mart. Needless to say, they didn't always get things in a timely manner, let alone have release dates to give you. I kept checking for Curse in the display areas of both stores as the months rolled on, but eventually the game began slipping from my mind. After a while, I figured I had missed out on the game, and just stopped looking.

Years went by, and around 1998 we moved again. I discovered a company named Funcoland, which as we've all learned, dealt with used games... a lot of used games. I checked out one of their stores a while after learning of them, and picked up one of the price guides they used to print like a newspaper. Going down the list, I saw a familiar title for seven dollars. I asked the guy at the store if they had it, but it wasn't in stock. I later saw the title on-line on their website, but I saw no way to find out if anyone had it. After a few months, the title vanished from the website and the newspaper, leaving me Curse-less again, with seemingly no way to find out where it was.

In 2001, I got my first PC. By this time, the game had again slipped from my memory, and later that same year, I discovered eBay. However, it wasn't until 2002 that Curse popped into my head again as I was browsing eBay one night. I typed in the title, and POOF!... there it was. Curse. I got to see the box and cartridge for the first time. I tried to bid on it, but lost to what I later learned was someone and their proxy bid. This happened again a few months later that same year, leaving me bummed and tweaked at the same time. However, when 2003 rolled around, I had learned more about eBay. And when I had to the funds to try again, I was determined not to loose.

I found a copy of the game, still sealed. I wanted it, and I was going to have it. I won't say when my proxy bid was, but let's just say that anyone who might have outbid me would have had to REALLY want it. The auction eventually came to its final day a week later, with me sitting there, refreshing the screen every few seconds for the final minute or so. The auction ended, the screen refreshed, and I was the winner for a lot less than what my proxy bid was (thank God).

About a week later, the game arrived at my doorstep. I opened the box, pulled out the game, and stood there... holding what I'd been after for 13 years. I took off the wrapping, and flipped through the Japanese manual. I stood there with a child-like grin, ready to play... until I heard a clap of thunder. Yes, at the end of my quest, a thunderstorm was drawing near. For an hour I sat, listening to the rain and thunder. I kept flipping through the manual, looking at the box, all with a smile that could only be surgically removed. When at last the storm moved far enough away, I fired up my Genesis, plugged Curse into my Game Genie, and entered a little piece of gaming heaven for a while. Was it the best game I'd ever played? No. But I sure as hell enjoyed it after being teased with it all those years.

I later learned that INTV, the folks who were going to publish the game, went under just as they were about to release the game. The problem was, no one informed any retailers. As a result, stores were stringing people like myself along for who knows how long before the game title was taken out of the databases. Not a lot of fun, but that's how things were back then... just keep checking the stores, and hope for the best.

[Jenz Drake]

I remember getting to Mike Tyson on the original Mike Tyson's Punch Out, and actually getting on a roll and staying alive (which in itself was tough at that young age). Then the rest of the family comes home; they had picked up Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home from wherever and it was dinner time.

"Time to eat!" comes the call.

"Hold on, I'm beating Mike Tyson!" I replied.

And then the pressure was on. The entire family sat down and watched me play. With sweaty palms and my heart beating 200 beats a minute, I played.

And I won. First time ever I beat Mike Tyson, and I beat the game.

... and then we ate chicken.

DUDE, that was awesome! Jordan and I laughed a lot. hahaha Rock on!

[Salluz]

Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Castlevania, and both Mario/Sonic before 2002. Edit: Marvel vs Capcom, Spiderman, some other stuff.

[TSori]

to pick just one

I was playing through link to the past for the first time at the ripe old age of, oh about 5 years old. I got to the armos knight at the end of the first real dungeon. Shot my arrows into the first five of them, only to have the last one turn red and start chasing me. You want to give a fiv eyear old an anxiety attack...thats how.

Still that was nothing compared to the realization that I was out of arrows and down to my last heart. Being a little kid and pretty much petrified of the last knight it never occured to me to get close enough to use my sword. No no no. instead I spent what felt like hours running around the little room chucking the level one boomerang at it trying not to get hit. Eventually it finished him off though. Definately one of the most stressful and as a result rewarding early game experiences I had.

[LuckyXIII]

I spent what felt like hours running around the little room chucking the level one boomerang at it trying not to get hit. Eventually it finished him off though. Definately one of the most stressful and as a result rewarding early game experiences I had.

THAT is awesome. I mean, how many of us have had experiences like that?

Well shoot, now that I'm thinking about it I can't recall a specific instance - ah, except maybe in Resident Evil 2 - the arms that reach through the windows of the police station...

But perhaps a stronger memory is working through FF3(6) on the SNES when I moved to Georgia for six months (not knowing it would be six months). My family had just moved back to the town I grew up in two years before and I was coming into my own and didn't want to leave. Well, we did, and it was tough getting to know people so every night if I wasn't calling people back home I was immersing myself in the battle against Kefka. To date, it's the only RPG I've ever beaten.

[SoulinEther]

Another one, though this is a lot more general.

I played Diablo 2 (and expansion) for about 4-5 years, and almost solely in hardcore mode. In hardcore mode, once you die, your character can no longer be used, so the challenge is to never die.

In the time that I was still playing it, and even for about a year or so after, if I was anywhere, and I just closed my eyes and imagined the D2 game screen, and imagined my health bar rapidly dropping, my heart would race.

Sad. But true.

[Native Jovian]

Harvest Moon 64. I played this so much that I swear some of the area maps are engraved into my brain. The sound of the text advancing (especially in the events with no music) with the cheesy, badly transliterated, but still somehow effective dialogue makes me feel like I'm back in 4th or 5th grade.

Hell yes. Harvest Moon 64 is awesome. I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power. The first time I just skimmed the article and moved on, but for some reason I kept coming back to it. There was something about it that just drew me in, though I couldn't have told you what it was (to this day I can't really explain why I like the Harvest Moon series....). It took me a while, but I got my hands on it eventually, and enjoyed it immensely.

Despite it's obvious flaws, HM64 is still my favorite Harvest Moon game. I've played everything from Friends of Mineral Town for the GBA to Save the Homeland for the PS2, and the only one that even comes close to the entertainment value I got out of HM64 is Magical Melody for the Gamecube. How the hell can a series of games about doing farm chores be so damn entertaining?

[Mr Azar]

Another one, though this is a lot more general.

I played Diablo 2 (and expansion) for about 4-5 years, and almost solely in hardcore mode. In hardcore mode, once you die, your character can no longer be used, so the challenge is to never die.

Which reminds me, I used to play Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction as well, and I vividly recall the time me and some friends killed Uber Diablo.

I got his soulstone .

[DJ Mighty]

Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Castlevania, and both Mario/Sonic before 2002. Edit: Marvel vs Capcom, Spiderman, some other stuff.

That actually reminds me of a moment i almost forgot. As i was waiting for my friend to get out of the locker room (i went to watch his ice hockey game) There was Marvel Vs Street Fighter. I was playing and these 2 kids came by snickering and commenting on me playing. I had another friend by me and we were both lost. Finally one kid joined and i won using Ken and Spiderman. I think i ended it with spiderman which apparently is insulting. (i guess spiderman is known as a cheap or gay character, IDK) Anyway, i fought his friend next who i caught in a combo that ends with a web throw, which resulted in his friend screaming and teasing his friend saying "Wow, you got caught in the web throw". To make it worse i caught him maybe 3 more times with it. So i won again and they left. Seconds later a group of like 10 kids came by. I fought three more and won. The last kid i barely beat the first time and he beat me the 2nd. I didnt have any more quarters and on top of that i feel like i made my point and felt it would be better to leave. It was a big geek moment for me. They all said good job as i left and my friend went up to me amazed saying he has never seen anything like that before. I never have experienced anything like that either, and never did again but it was def something else. Ill never forget the feeling of having 10 kids ganging up on me to beat me in MvsS. it think it was more because i was using spiderman. The OOhh's and OOoOOooO's made it more intense during the matches. I was a Jr. In HS when that happened.

[MajLink]

Beating FFMQ before I learned how to read.

Thank god for the super cheep way to beat the boss at the end!

[Gollgagh]

Beating FFMQ before I learned how to read.

...how?

I was operating command line OSes at three and a half so this is totally baffling to me.

[linkspast]

Arcades.

10char

[LuketheXjesse]

Beating FFMQ before I learned how to read.

Thank god for the super cheep way to beat the boss at the end!

Super cheep way? Explain.

[PlastikBag]

Walking into Hyrule field for the first time in Ocarina of Time. It absolutely took my breath away. I also just finished MGS4, and I was pretty floored throughout both of the last chapters.

[Deathtank]

I know someone who can answer that question pretty well.

OK I think this one is more sincere...kinda...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kd1RerP2k&NR=1

[ZealPath]

I'm going to have to go way off the map on this one. Don't take this the wrong way but reading some of these posts about people playing snes games at like age 4 is making me feel very old, and I'm "only" 26.

But anyway, back in the day, it took my parents a really really long time to come around to the idea that my brother and I weren't going to be happy until we had an nes, so we had to find something to do in the meantime. What we did have, was computer games, only problem was, we wouldn't always have a computer, my dad would often bring his home from work over the weekend, or sometimes (and this is the more vivid memory) he would ask if we wanted to come with him into work on the weekends, so that we could spend virtually an entire day playing our games on some random person at his office's computer. One time I can even recall that I was playing something on a guy's computer and the guy actually ended up coming in to work on that saturday as well, and my dad had to come over and explain why some 6-8 year old was playing video games in his cubicle.

Another thing I can remember is that my dad showed me how to change directories and execute programs in DOS at a VERY young age (around 3-4) so that I could switch between the games I was playing without having to bug him every time I wanted to switch. This no doubt was part of the start of my career path, as I am now a computer support person/systems adminstrator/whatever the hell you want to call it kind of guy.

As far as what games, well, basically ancient pc games, Castle, 3-Demon, Centipede, Packman, EGABomb, EGATrek, Othello, Breakout, some weird ass fishing game called Basstour that we didn't even remotely understand was about fishing and instead pretended was some sort of boating adventure game, and probably the most memorable, Captain Comic. I actaully completed a speedrun of Captain Comic over DOSBox recently just for fun (and yes I will get it up on Youtube!), and it sure was funny to finish a game that I used to spend hours with in a whole 20 minutes.

Course I am still an avid PC gamer now, with games like the Quest for Glory series, Wolfenstein 3-D, and Doom all high on the list of old influences, but if you want to talk about memorable moments, I don't think you can beat the older days at my dad's office.

Eventually we would finally get our nes, just a year or so before the snes came out, but it was certainly better late than never, definitely one of the best christmases I can remember. The system had been out for so long that we already knew what games we needed, SMB1-3, Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid... you get the idea. Course it wouldn't be long before we'd be exposed to the snes, and I will always remember wanting to tag along with my mom to Costco to play the snes that they left set up for people to demo, for pretty much the entire duration of the shopping trip. I knew we had to get Super Mario World, it was so amazing on so many levels at the time, but having only recently gotten the nes, it was going to be a difficult road.

After that, my mom (as you might guess) had no intention of getting us an snes, but my brother and I took it upon ourselves to do whatever it took to get one asap, which in this case, was getting a paper route so that we could afford to buy it ourselves. Another great day when we finally got that, I think SMW was the only game we had for several months, but it was enough. After that we'd get into the truly epic games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and of course, Final Fantasy "II" and "III" which I wouldn't dare to refer to as anything other than FF4 and 6 now, but hey, back then, who knew. I don't think any gaming series will have more influence on me than Final Fantasy, and FF4 was the starting point for me as I never got into the original on the nes.

Anyway I guess the moral of the story is that I always seem to get these things late, never had a PSX, eventually finally got a PS2 (thank god for backward compatibility) so I was able to fill in the blanks, and as you might guess, don't have a PS3 yet but will most likely look into getting one sometime before FFXIII comes out.

Well, Wall-o-text, but I certainly enjoyed reading some of the other stories on here so I hope this doesn't scare too many people off .

[Platonist]

i played Zelda 1 on NES @ 4 (almost 5 i think) 1989 and that was indeed a great moment ^^

but I'm not sure it's the -strongest- moment of my gaming days.

i don't think i could ever decide on that actually - there's so much in there - about 100 loved NES games, Epic RPG moments, slash-hacking stress syndromes or just watching when people play games like Shadow of the Colossus & Final Fantasy 6

hard question .. no real answer

[Gollgagh]

Packman, EGABomb, EGATrek, Othello, Breakout, and probably the most memorable, Captain Comic.

holy crap, I've played all of those

Course I am still an avid PC gamer now, with games like the Quest for Glory series, Wolfenstein 3-D, and Doom all high on the list of old influences

oh god that sounds like me

my first console was actually the PSX and I've upgraded up to the PS3 progressively, so I'm even later to the party than you, but I just bought a SNES and plan to work my way backwards to catch all the good stuff that I missed way before

[SoulinEther]

reading some of these posts about people playing snes games at like age 4 is making me feel very old

Heh, if you're referring to my post on the front page (might not be), Ultima Exodus was an NES game. Though your story reminds me a bit of my brother who is your age.. me being his younger brother meant I've gotten some exposure younger.

Hell, all I've had left is a Gamecube and a Dreamcast since he's left, but I sort of became addicted to lineage 2 (+ Diablo 2) on the PC so... console were not needed, heh.

i played Zelda 1 on NES @ 4 (almost 5 i think) 1989 and that was indeed a great moment ^^

Same, but 1994 for me.

[Mr Azar]

Games that transcend pure entertainment and become a part of who we were, which makes us what we are now .