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For Love of The Game
A feature from Gamespot this week is an interesting look at gaming moments that moved you as a player. Emotional moments for several of the editors are explored. From the article: "This isn't an article about violence in video games. It's a chance for us to consider some of the moments in our lives as game players that made us feel strongly about something that, in the grand scheme of things, is probably pretty trivial. These are cases in which games drove us to relative emotional extremes. This is both how and why we play." What would be a gaming moment that drove you to an emotional extreme?
When I slide down the shaft in Sorcerer and came face to face with myself in the time travel puzzle. That just blew me away and I had to stop and contemplate the whole thing for a bit. I still remember my time with that game fondly.
the first Legend of Zelda... I was in like 6th grade, and I remember how amazing that game was, how I would dream about it... up 2 screens, left 1 up 2... etc... great game.
Then, of course, Tetris, I STILL HAVE TETRIS (DAY)DREAMS!
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
One I can think of recently is the very beginning of Half Life 2. The woman waiting for her husband. In 15 seconds of interaction, you understand her entire life and feel terrible for her because you know that her husband is never going to arrive, but she'll probably wait for him until they remove her. I'm sad just thinking about it, and she's not even real.
I could name several examples of memorable gaming moments back on my Commodore 64, usually involving the Ultima series. But the most memorable was hacking games with hex editors, and seeing my name "inside" the game ;-)
More recently, getting totally freaked out by the top-notch ambience in Thief: The Dark Project and its sequels.
Finally beating Mother Brain in Metroid, feeling like a god, and then realizing I have a time limit to escape before the whole place explodes, and the rush of getting out in time and winning after so many months of playing was joyous.
And to this day, Metroids scare me. Metroid Prime / Echoes, when I see a Metroid I get the heeby-jeebies/willies/shivers whatever your dialect calls it.
And I'm almost 30 years old. Sad, huh.
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But if you really want "connection" then play Xenogears... Holy ****! That was a game where you had to sort of feel sorry for Fei and Elly(main chars). Plus it has the most beautiful intricate story of all.
Granted, it may have something to do with the fact that it was 2AM and I was somewhat sleep-deprived, but when I made it back to the starting room of Ico and had to fend off all the little shadows I was...mildly annoyed.
Then I noticed that all of them had tiny horns, just like me, and I put that together with the fact that they were coming out of the caskets I had escaped, and...I didn't want to fight them any more. I wanted to put the controller down and let them take out their ghostly despair on my hide. I felt a profound sadness, pity, but to save us all I had to first beat them down.
That moment will stick with me a long time.
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
"It's a chance for us to consider some of the moments in our lives as game players that made us feel strongly about something that, in the grand scheme of things, is probably pretty trivial."
:)
:-P
For me it's an opposite experience, but still applicable to the article's request, I think
I was playing UO, which is an MMORPG, set in a 2d top-down view of the world. I was in a town called Bucaneer's Den, fighting evil players around the town, and having a good time. Sometimes it can be frustrating fighting people, though; frustration and cursing are trademarks of the town.
Anyway, I was mounted on my horse, standing by a bridge, when suddenly more than three people starting casting damage spells at me! I ran, of course - northeast, toward a cluster of buildings I thought I could hide behind.
I ran behind one of the buildings (in 2d,) and two of my pursuers gave up the chase. But one kept following me, ripping around the building's corners toward me. I ran to the other side of the building.
For *45 minutes* this guy and I dodged around the building, me staying on the far side of it away from him whenever he moved toward me. We were both really determined; he could have given up, and I could have run away, but the chase was too fun. Every few minutes he would get a crossbow shot off on me, but I'd be gone around that building's corner before it really hurt much, and healed up by the next time he could shoot.
It was so hilarious that we both spent so much time playing around that silly building, that I was giggling after 30 minutes, and at 45 minutes I said "LOL" with my character and came out in to the open. He started to kill me, then stopped before I died, and said "lol" too
We both thought it was great, funny and fun, and became friends - what an experience! What I took from it was that while I'm a hardcore gamer who takes games pretty seriously, sometimes interacting with people in a sketchy virtual world can show how trivial the whole thing is-
-Sahrs (Sonoma UO)
I was in a Eagle mark 2 (The starting ship) with a 5mw laser if i remember correctly and had foolishly saved just after being attacked by an Imperial cruiser (The beast of a ship from the starting credits) maxed out with shields and plasma accelerators. It took the destruction of my atmospheric shielding, hyperlight engine, scanner, targeting computer and automatic pilot and all my thrusters except the ones for reverse - but I won.
I then managed to pilot to a space station backwards MANUALLY taking about a month of game time for repairs.
I think I pretty much felt every emotion there is that day
The ending sequence of events kept me up late one weekday night. The sequence with Eva driving and Snake gunning actually had me laughing out loud due to how much fun I was having. The actual non-interactive ending (not going to give it away) with its twists had me caught up in it. A game hasn't had me that engrossed for quite awhile.
I graduated high school in 1994. I didn't come from a wealthy family (hell, we were barely blue collar) but I got into a good college on scholarship. My inclinations were always towards math and science so I spent all of my graduation money on a Hewlett Packard 486 sx 33 Mhz (not top of the line by any means but the best that I could do with no outside help). I had just enough money to buy one game, which took forever for me to decide on. I took everything home, cleared off the dining room table and fired everything up. It was late so all of the lights were off and after what seemed to be an eternity of load time I hear John Williams triumphant score and see the words X-Wing scroll across my 14" svga monitor. One of the most satisfying moments of my young life.
"It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
The first moment of true drama I ever remember in a game was Rescue on Fractalus. I suppose I mean drama beyond the excitement and frustration cycle that keeps people playing any game.
Rescue on Fractalus is a 3D flight simulator, in which one lands on fractally-generated terrain to rescue downed pilots from hostile territory. They run up to your ship, knock on the door, and you open the airlock and let them in. As the levels advance, the defenses become stronger.
At a certain stage, you find that the astronauts you're rescuing start to have green skin. If you let them in, they start sabotaging your ship. because they're aliens. The ideal way to deal with them is to turn your ship's systems back on before they reach the airlock, as the shields will kill them.
If, however, you don't open the airlock for them, instead of knocking politely, they jump in front of the windshield in brilliant full-size animation, scream at you, and scare the bejeepers out of you if you're seven years old.
Or, as it turns out, fifteen years old.
moment 1: towards the beginning of the game, before Kyle's powers are restored, you drop out of an airshaft to a battlefield. the music kicks up, and there's an AT-ST "chicken walker" bearing down on you, while a bunch of rebel soldiers fire on it from a ridge to your side. i remember thinking at the moment "wow, i'm IN Star Wars"
moment 2: toward the end of the game, i came across a lone dark-side user standing guard in a tunnel, one of the tough ones with the black Cortosis armor, cloak shield, and force crystal. i approached with my saber off, he turned to face me and just stood there, i remembered from the movies that the Jedi never draw first. I thought about how a real samurai sword fight would typically end in one single cut, right from the scabbard, none of this hollywood 30 minute-long fight stuff. I switched to "heavy" technique and took a single step toward him. His saber flashed to life so i ran and pressed attack, as my blade ignited it swept up in one motion and cut him right in half. I yelled out in triumph as my computer snapped back to reality around me. I don't think i ever felt more drawn in to a game than that moment.
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
..in real life. I was staying with my brother, and playing Unreal Tournament 2004 on his beefy system.
I joined an online game where we were all tiny, blasting away in a living room, and I got REALLY into it. I wasn't very good, but I DID NOT LET UP. I just kept after the guy that was doing the best,(he was unbelievably good!), getting destroyed time and time again, but I did not quit, for like four hours.
Everyone else had left the game, and in the end it was just me and him, bounding around this crazy living room, four inches tall. After a while, he started giving me tips, training me on how to kill him better. (Anticipate where he'd land, shoot the ground in that spot, etc..) Simple stuff, but I improved a lot. We had a really great time, bounding over the sofa and coffee table, firing rockets and lasers from the staircase...
Here was a guy, hundreds of miles away, at four in the morning, teaching me how to kill his tiny avatar more proficiently, for no reason other than his respect for my tenacity.
I was touched. I still think of it as one of the best experiences of my life, and man, I've had some great times in the meat world!
I was in high school and going through the usual geek/teen problems, stumbling home depressed at night to play Wasteland. I'll never forget the scene where, after gathering chemicals and other inventory items, you help those two guys with radiation sickness back to health (Metal Maniac and I forget the other's name).
The NPC sits up and says, "Let's go kick some ass!"
I remember thinking, "Yeah, it's about time for that, isn't it?"
That's one of those moments that really changed me: tenacity and humor after near-total defeat.
But yeah, there are so many moments in Torment that are incredibly memorable. One of my favorites is from right when you are about to enter the Fortress of Regrets, and Morte tells you that he had been there before, and knew all along that the portal was right where you started the game:
Morte: The other YOU, he... he didn't care very much for anybody. For anyone. We could have ALL died in the Fortress, and he wouldn't have blinked. So... I just want you to hold on to your differences, because... well, I like this *you* better. A LOT better.
The Nameless One: But that's not all you want to say, is it?
Morte: No...There's one other thing - I may not have liked that *other* you very much, but he was one smart basher - the smartest basher I've ever known; he always had every angle covered. If he died at the Fortress, that means... well...
TNO: You don't think I can succeed, do you?
Morte: No...It's not that, chief. Because it's not always who's smartest, or who's the most powerful, or who's the toughest... sometimes it comes down to who you are and what you *really* want. I mean, once you wanted to become immortal - but in the end, is that *really* what you wanted? Just be sure of what you want this time, is all I'm saying.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
There's a sad story up on progressiveboink.com called Illusion of Gaia and my cousin David that's rather relevant.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
and the realization that games could be that well written. And without further ado, here's the three stages of playing Torment:
Stage 1: The aformentioned realization, and a desire to write my own Planescape stories.
Stage 2: The realization that I suck as a writer, and can't come close to Torment.
Stage 3: The final realization that the game more or less bombed, and that they'll probably never be a game with that much effort put into writing again.
It's the kind of game I wish I'd never played so I could go back and play it again.
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Even back with Civ I, this game was able to put me into an incredibly imaginative state...like reading a really good book, when you're just there.
I remember one particular moment...it was the middle ages, and I was on the move around the world. There was one other, very aggressive, group that kept trying to take over a section of my main land. I managed to drive them out, but instead of going back to their own land they regrouped on a medium size peninsula at the far end of my domain.
I had to get rid of them, so I gathered my forces and spent a good 4 hours in a strategic and tactical battle with knights, catapults, and legions through mountains and plains. When I finally defeated them, I could just picture my victorious units on the barren battlefield, banners snappping in the wind, my enemies lying broken on the ground. Awesome!
Facts are stubborn things.
My finest moment with the game came while trying to play through the game without killing any enemies.
Spoilers: Although if you haven't played the game by now, who even cares.....
I was trying to sneak out of the UNATCO base after turning rogue, and had cleared the basement of hostile threats. Alex Jacobsen, the UNATCO tech guy, wouldn't give me the key to leave unless I kill Anna Navarre. Anna Navarre is a mechanically-augmented agent for UNATCO, which compounded with her ruthless-bitch-ness means that if I escaped Alex would be in a world of pain.
Well, I'm not a fan of killing, but Anna is pretty evil so I guess it's OK. But, she's flanked by two normal fleshy UNATCO MPs. I kind of feel bad for them; we've had some good conversations in the past. So, I need a way to seperate them...
I charge up the stairs to Anna and the two guards and fire my pistol in the air to get their attention. "What the..?" "Kill him!" Tracers whizz past my head. I turn on my ballistic shields and turbo-legs and leap down three flights of stairs. Anna and her two lackeys are no match for my nanoaugmentations, plus they're computer AIs and don't know how to jump, so they take the stairs one at a time.
By the time they even reach the stairwell, I'm already in the basement. A couch blocks the entrance to the stairwell, and I'm carefully hidden behind a potted plant for cover. I hear the chirping of one of my proximity grenades go off, and then an explosion. Coughing. The tear gas has the two guards wracked with pain, but they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Navarre, on the other hand, literally has iron lungs; no gas is going to stop her.
However, she blithely runs into my EMP grenade on the stairs. A blue glow washes over the stairwell as her energy for her augmentations (like her own ballistic shield) is dissipated. Now for the coup de grace! Navarre reaches the bottom of the stairwell, smacks into the couch, and smirks as she sees me behind my obvious cover. I smirk because she doesn't realize there's an explosive proximity mine on the ceiling just over that couch!
The smirk quickly disappears. Instead of the chirping of the proximity detector, I only hear the ricochet of the bullets from Anna's assault rifle. The leaves on my potted plant start shredding. Gack! The EMP blast disabled my explosive mine! I'm a sitting duck!
I take out my 9mm pistol. I've never used the damned thing, much less put experience into it. My hand quakes as I steady my aim on the stairwell. The plant has disintegrated by now, but Anna has to reload.
BANG
BANG
Two misses. Make this one count.
BANG-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
I manage to nick the explosive mine with a bullet, setting it off. Anna and the couch disintegrate, leaving only tattered upholstry and a motor oil stain on the floor.
I head upstairs, tranquilize the two coughing guards, and quickly make my exit with Alex's key.
- A woman who was severely ill from cancer thanked me for making her husband laugh. Those moments were few and far between for her family.
- I had several people professing their love, not for me but for one of the NPCs.
- There's a moment in the game where the player experiences a deep loss. A few people reported they were actually moved to tears.
I've decided that the best measure of success for a game is seeing how far I can emotionally draw players into the story. Emotions such as hate, joy, greed, and love are things core to the human experience. Even after all these centuries, the things that Shakespeare wrote can still move us.I have to admit that I'm not immune to that sort of thing. I remember playing GTA and then driving around afterwards. Things like curbs and stoplights seemed so unnecessary.
My favorite scene in Actraiser I, was in Kasandora, where one of your subjects is mortally wounded, and as he is dying on the steps of your temple his last request is to be bathed in the tears of his god..
.pdf that came on the CD, but it was facinating nonetheless.
Both the backstory and the opening chapters in Homeworld were really well done, and turned a space combat came into an epic. The backstory was just a
While the last scene in Halo has been mentioned already, I think it would have been 3202382 times better if they had licensed "The Touch" by Stan Bush to play, for the final driving sequence.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
#3 - Deus Ex -- The death of Paul Denton. (If you're not careful.)
#2 - While playing in an RP-heavy text MUD. Take any of dozens of moments when the GMs or other players pulled at the heartstrings, as rarely happens in a modern MMORPG.
#1 - And weighing in at #1, the death of Floyd in Planetfall:
Steve Meretzky's like a tiny god. (To paraphrase Penny Arcade.) His game is one of the reasons I entered the industry.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
For me, the most emotion I've felt while playing a video game was playing the first 'Deus Ex'. I'd been playing the entire game with some kind of moral sense - I tried not to kill people (even if they were "bad" ... I only killed less than a dozen people the entire game), I chose "sneakiness" over blazing guns, and I tried to do the "Right Thing" (including not stepping on those damn alley cats.)
I remember the end of the game - you're presented with 3 mutually-exclusive options for the mission that will end the game. After I uncovered the 3rd option and I realized the choice I had to make, I actually stopped playing the game for about a week while I made my decision. It really was that hard for me. How to best benefit "society", and is the cost worth it?
In the end, I decided it was best to destroy the communications hub and plunge the world into a 2nd Dark Age. Man, what a decision! But I figured I couldn't trust the HELIOS AI or Morgan Everett.
You've hit on a few of the things that make Deus Ex so exhilarating. See, aside from the crazy storyline, Deus Ex has this whole notion of "Investment and payoff". For instance, as you progress in the game, you gather skills and items, and how you use those points defines how you make your approach later in the game. You put points into sniping and demolitions, you become a spy-like soldier.
Me, I also used leg augmentations and shields. I remember running as an alarm went off in one level, and I had to make a hasty escape. I remember turning augs on in a hurry and leaping from the fourth floor of a building to the first floor lobby, outrunning any of the guards in the area. It was exciting and I felt rewarded for being able to make such a retreat (which I wouldn't have if I had invested in silent running).
But the storyline in this game is also brilliant. It has you running around the world trying to find out just who you are, and who you have been working for. You switch sides halfway through the game, and it is one of the first games to try and make you realize the repercussions of your actions (run-and-gun or sneak and immobilize). Truly an amazing game.
OFP is a ColdWar FPS. Renegade Russians take over some islands and threaten to launch a missile. US Forces in the area fly in to clean them out.
The missions take place on 4 large islands. There are no levels. The whole island is accessable at any time, and different missions just happen at different locations on the island.
In the last level, you fly your Cesnaback to the islands 10 years after the events. You get in a civilian car and drive around the island to meet up at a pub with your friends.
As you drive around, you're going through the same battlefields that you fought on. It was the coolest feeling to remember the hard battles fought and the experiences you had.
I'm not a veteran, but I can't help but imagine that they nailed the exact feeling you'd have if you actually did tour your old battlefields.
I'd testify on the witness stand that the whole game was worth playing simply to be able to have that feeling on the last level.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
And later, when all of fandom learned Sierra was canning SQ7, and thus we don't know when we'll ever see Roger again. Thankfully, with the ACI And SCI emulators, I can revisit Roger and the Pirates of Pestulon anytime I want.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
The sanity meter was an excellent concept to build the game around.
:D
I had lots of fun walking into rooms and seeing the obvious hallucinations - walking on celings, walls bleeding, one-time effects such as seeing myself in the bathtub dead with my wrists slit.
But that pales in comparison to the really good tricks they pulled. Once I KNEW I had cleared all the enemies in an area, then I went into a room, and freaked out when this maid approached from behind with a weapon...then my character woke up. There was also the fun time I was reloading a flintlock pistol, and blew my own head off in the process. I actually thought I would have to restart from a save after I saw that one.
Oh yeah, my favorite: one time I was playing late at night, lights out, when suddenly my TV muted. I looked around thinking I had sat on the remote, then freaked out when I saw it was on the table. Then my character in the game suddenly screamed "WHAT IS GOING ON, AHHHHHH!". Really well executed, that scare. Of course, they rendered a MUTE graphic on the TV, cut the sound, and I was so absorbed in the game I couldn't tell the difference.
The fun part is that they warmed you up with the obvious hallucinations that you laughed at...just so they could solidly freak you out with the good ones
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.