"Wow" moments in games?

[Shasoosh]

when i threw for the first time a grenade on a car in graw2, amazing!

[gigapixels Veteran]

All of both God of War games. Those are so extremely well done I was just absolutely amazed.

[theresiststance2003]

All of both God of War games. Those are so extremely well done I was just absolutely amazed.

+1

Those games are simply stunning.

Ocarina of Time was also amazing..... possibly my favorite game of all time.

[The Gunslinger]

Ocarina of Time...when you leave the village and run to Hyrule, and the sun sets as you progress, just brilliant!

Also Tales of Phantasia on the snes. Not so much graphics, but it has the best sound on ANY snes game...period!

When the lady sings, a full song, it really makes you go wow!

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter...when you leave the temple and walk into the open field, the one with the three temples on the sides. It is mindblowing how massive the scale of the game is...

Chrono Trigger...when they try you for kidnapping the princess. The fact that they recorded your actions earlier in the game just blew my mind. (I won the trial the second time round :p ).

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter...The weapons in that game make you go wow!

Doom 3...The atmosphere in that game is brilliant.

[OtRaS]

In gears of war when you first face the berserker.

[cchasem]

the slippery ice levels in the first mario game, that was my very first 'wow' moment i think... i was impressed by the 'physics'.

the second half "Stage 8" I believe in Super Mario Bros. 3, the map was all blacked out!

lots of other moments. it's these 'wow' moments that i think gamers live for.. so many people are missing out!

[Smigit]

For me, HL1 when you enter the incubation chamber and turn the switch causing the machine to start up, spinning ect. Bloody fantastic sequence IMHO.

[Echilon]

Playing HL2 on the brand new computer for the first time and noticing how great games have gotten.

I was amazed when I walked through the train station and saw reflections from the floor.

As for surprising story lines, I'd have to say the end to KoToR when you found out you were Darth Revan all along.

[kylejn]

Shadow of the Colossus, pretty much the whole thing, although the end, especially, was amazing.

Okami, as well, was one constant "wow" moment. The game was just so beautiful.

Also, when Metal Gear Ray escapes from the tanker in Metal Gear Solid 2.

[Shane Pitman]

Typing "run" after coding hundreds of lines in basic to get a slot machine game on my TI-99/4A, 27 years ago. The depth of the Sierra "Quest" games (Kings Quest, Police Quest, etc.). Castle Wolfenstein. Asheron's Call, my first foray into MMO's. Bullet time in Max Payne. Man, too many to list.

[idioot]

not really a moment, but the game "The Mafia" was just one big wow :)

[cchasem]

Sorry for bumping the old, but this is a nice nostalgic thread and a good read anyway so..

Basically all of Fallout 3. That has gotta be the best game i've played since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Key moments:

Walking out of the vault for the first time and realizing that I could go wherever I wanted... Simply breathtaking.

[fhpuqrgrpgvirzhpujbj]

end of portal.

[Leddy]

Sorry for bumping the old, but this is a nice nostalgic thread and a good read anyway so..

Basically all of Fallout 3. That has gotta be the best game i've played since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Key moments:

Walking out of the vault for the first time and realizing that I could go wherever I wanted... Simply breathtaking.

Someone's obviously never played Oblivion...

[spd21]

I thought wow the first time i switched my 360 & GTA4 on.. after that i just didn't care.

[cchasem]

Someone's obviously never played Oblivion...

Oh I know they're incredibly similar games, but Oblivion is not my style.. I dont like the whole magic and swords and horses type of thing. Ive also always been fascinated with Chernobyl and Fallout 3 turned out to be the game I thought Stalker was going to be...

[Erich]

In Counter Strike source, when I rushed the double doors with a nade, and a CT was rushing double doors with a nade, and our nades collided in mid-air knocking them straight back at us and we both TK'd our teammates... That was a wow moment, never seen it happen since.

[Phantom Limb]

My most recent was the plane crash in L4D.

[Timmah339]

the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, especially the ending, was a complete WOW. and motorstorm pacific rift, that game is just plain fun.

[Malfunctional]

Becoming the tank in the finale of the No Mercy campaign and punting a survivor off of the roof was a very satisfying wow moment

[Denis W. Veteran]

Half Life 2 has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread. The ending of the original and Episode One. At the time those posts were made Episode Two wasn't released yet. Now that it's been out for awhile, its ending was the only time I yelled out WOW in disbelief. :cry: Episode Two and Portal were two games that I absolutely made sure not to read up on their endings. For Portal especially, I avoided downloading copies of Still Alive off the 'net before finishing the game for the first time. And it was well worth it :D

In recent times, I sometimes yell WOW in disbelief when I get "bull****!" worthy killed in TF2 and L4D. Examples being a spy backstab that happens out of nowhere, or in No Mercy and Blood Harvest's finales. There are two opportunities for smokers and hunters to permanently trap a survivor to his/her death - in Blood Harvest, the ledge before the cornfield, for No Mercy the roof on top of the ladder. Happened to me a few times in both locations, me being the victim :angry:

Other examples:

Call of Duty 4. The sudden, ahem, explosion. The intro AND final scene. Those were WOW worthy scenes. Another is controlling a bomber with an authentic looking cockpit view. That was amazingly well done. In fact, COD4 still has one of the best single player campaigns I've come across.

Prey. I liked how the ending came to a cinematic conclusion, thematic music and all. The large spoiler towards 7/10s of the game is friggin awesome, battling your girlfriend morphed into a monster while the background musical choir's belting out a chilling tune. The ending was great the first time, but on subsequent plays it just seemed a bit corny. Still great music though. (Y)

Need for Speed Most Wanted's campaign ending. A giant cop chase and a cinematic escape.

Max Payne 1's ending. Just wow. I'm really cheesed off they didn't recreate that in the movie :angry:. Not really a WOW moment, but the loud scream you hear when you run into a dead end in the nightmare levels - that is friggin scary even to this day. Max Payne 2's ending was okay, but its credits song made playing through the game all worth it.

And one retro WOW moment: playing the shareware demo of Descent 1 and running across the Level 7 boss. Got lots of shockers when I'm flying around and I get this giant wireframe thing materializing in front of me :p

Edited February 5, 2009 by rm20010

[KreepLX360]

When I played kaboom on the hard setting on Atari, I reached 1,000,000 points.

[Titoist]

My "WOW" moment was in Assassins Creed when I climbed ontop of the Church in Acre. The view and height was stunning. The game itself was also visually beautiful.

[Infusion-]

When my buddy brought in his (then brand new, just came out) Dreamcast into work, and we hooked it up to the conference room projection system. Played DOA2 with life-size characters, and I about crapped myself.

[neoadorable]

not on the PC, but i'm sure it's the same. the scene in Fallout 3 when Liberty Prime leads the charge against the Enclave. that was spectacular.