The Peeps Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Lylat Wars defeating the real Andross after going down the 'hard' path. Banjo-Kazooie 100% completing it. MarioKart 64 Winning the special cup grand prix and seeing the ending for the first time Smash bros I think I got this on Christmas day and I must've played it right up until school started again lol. I miss the N64 days
gaggle64 Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) The Independence Day level from Lylat Wars. Stepping out on the planet in Metroid Prime, looking up and seeing the water drops on your visor. The nuke in Call of Duty 4. Playing ball with Dog in Half Life 2. Finally beating the Diamond championship in F-Zero GX. The Tie-Fighter and laser orgy that is the Battle of Endor as recreated in Star Wars Rouge Squadron: Rouge Leader Starwing: "This is Corneria, Pepper speaking, congratulations, on a job well done." Playing Super Tennis with my dad. Playing Super Smash Bros. Melee with my friends. Mass Effect 2 - Good lord I love gaming. Edited January 24, 2011 by gaggle64
Retro_Link Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 gaggle64 said: Mass Effect 2 - Good lord I love gaming. Haha, That was hilarious!!
The Peeps Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 gaggle64 said: The Independence Day level from Lylat Wars. Stepping out on the planet in Metroid Prime, looking up and seeing the water drops on your visor. Yes 10chaaaaarz
The Bard Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Chrono Trigger - Stepping out into the murky, misty world of 600AD and the music plays and you're just overcome by the aesthetic, and the sombre beauty of this ostensibly cartoonish and caracaturised world. Bioshock - When you realise that "Would You Kindly" serves as a fantastic metaphor for the agency of the player in any video game, or more precisely, the lack of it. I think someone should apply Foucauldian power relations to videogame theory, and how, even though, as Ebert says, there seems to be a "Smorgasboard of options," really, there isn't and it is all a fairly directed affair. Yes. Videogames need to be made more pretentious. Half Life 2: Episode 2 - The Ending. Probably the most harrowing, affecting ending to any shooter I've played (which isn't saying much for the typically unemotional and rote shooter fare of today) with Alex's sobs lingering way into the credits and you are left contemplating the implications of the events, and what exactly the bloated sacks of shit known as the advisors are actually for? Company of Heroes - Destroying a particularly annoying opposing force in a 2v2 and seeing upon finishing the game that the whole map is just an armor graveyard full of decimated shermans, halftracks, bikes and discarded weaponry. Fucking awe inspiring. Oh, and its also the best strategy game ever made. FACT. Mass Effect 2 - I don't even know where to start with this game of incredible moments. Pretty much the best game of this generation, perhaps outside of Bioshock. Had a forum argument about why this game is awesome, so this may seem to be a bit out of context: Reveal hidden contents I find the fact that review cited Assassins Creed as a counter to the contrivance of Mass Effect 2's story an instance of the most bizarre stupidity imaginable. Yeah, let’s basically make the Matrix, as an absurdly convenient excuse to let you run around in renaissance Italy with minimum exigency, because that's not the lowest hanging narrative fruit imaginable, right? The fact that Mass Effect harvests practically every cliche in the Sci-Fi book is not beyond my understanding, from the Protheans to the Mass Relays being essentially adaptations from the Ancients and Gates in Stargate, to the Geth which are reminiscent of the replicators. The thing is, Mass Effect is just another Sci Fi world, but having said that, it is well contained and fairly holistic. There is always an explanation for everything that is consistent with the Meta logic and world of the game. Nevertheless, the idea that the game has no soul is both narrow minded and ignoring the very element that gives its story shape; the fact that it is the game at the forefront of my mind when I think of player agency and impact on the way the narrative unveils itself. This is why we play games; collaborative storytelling. You cite Uncharted 2, which is heavily scripted and essentially linear. Any capacity the player has for self expression in the narrative comes from the mechanics themselves, and these have little consequence in the world, other than the way in which your proficiency affects your progression. Hell, there is more capacity for expression in something like Team Fortress 2, which, in the absence of story is abstract enough that you can create your own mini narratives within the microcosm of every death match, just because of the emergence of it all. You’re familiar with the theory of emergence right? The idea that a small set of simple rules can lead to a greatly complex set of possibilities. Still, Mass Effect was fantastic in this regard; you could approach every combat encounter from a multitude of different angles, depending on your character class, the skills you’ve chosen and upgraded, and the weapons you’re holding. On top of this is the fact that you could also choose from a fairly sizeable host of characters to take with you on missions, all of whom have their own peculiarities and traits that affect their attributes, and by extension, the attributes of your group in a combat situation. Even though this is the case, this is not even close to the main reason why Mass Effect 2 holds so much esteem in my eyes: You are the very thing that gives it soul. Unlike a film, you can’t just sit there and let it happen at you, you have to participate, and the more you invest, the better you’re rewarded. Mass Effect 2 is a huge progression within the sub genre of what I like to call “morality games,†that Bioware seem to have something of a monopoly on. When you talk to people about how they played Fallout 3, or Dragon Age or even the original Mass Effect, it was always set of categorical imperatives in mind. I will play this as a saint, or I will play this as fuckin’ Hitler, and this was because the mechanisms by which the morality system work weren’t nuanced enough to reward weighing every decision on its own merits, and your progression was only really accelerated by consciously choosing to act on the extreme ends of the moral spectrum. You never really played as “yourself,†or a projection of yourself into the game world, because there was no real means to do so. This was completely overhauled for Mass Effect 2, partly by virtue of the fact that neither the combat, nor your moral alignment had much of an impact of your stats, and levelling was staggered so that it only occurred at the end of each chapter. In this way Mass Effect 2 is a true RPG, because you are actually playing a role, instead of ramping up a series of abstract statistics and declaring that these constitute your character, and letting these be what drives your play. What was even better is the fact that within the cut-scenes that detailed parts of the story, you were given the ability to make quick split second decisions regarding the course of action your character would take. Just the very fact that these have to be made on the fly means that you don’t have time to sit there and hypothesise on values alien to you, you act on your gut, and it is these split decisions that most greatly characterise you as a person (at least if you believe Malcolm Gladwell’s theories in Blink). And finally, because in most games, your considerations are usually tied to what the immediate reward of an action is going to be, as well as how it affects the usually binary outcome in the ending. This is not the case with this series of games, since even what you did in the first Mass Effect had extensive reverberations in the second game, and these are only amplified by the additional agency you are given in Mass Effect 2. Everyone whom I have talked to has taken completely diverging paths throughout the game in terms of their reactions to events, and their inevitable outcomes, especially the ending which I’m sure will have huge implications for the following game. Not only this, but the character interactions can be fucking fascinating. For example (and this may seem far-fetched initially, but stick with me) I was reading as part of my course, some Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his theories on epistemology, which is essentially like objectivist epistemology, wherein he believes that the world is like the Rosetta Stone, and we as humans have an innate ability (as long as this isn’t hampered by too much social and cultural nurture that distorts this ability) to correlate our understanding with the natural world, and therefore come to the same conclusions, and fill in a directly correlative understanding of the world, piece by piece. Personally, I call this bullshit, because every human has a different interpretive paradigm built in, but imagine my surprise, when Legion, a machine comes and tells you this very thing about the way in which his race interpret phenomena, and have a collective consciousness with which to piece it together. What is even more exciting (to me...I’m not sure that everyone else is riveted by this so far...) is how he asks you, a human, to make a crucial decision on the fate of a divergent sect of his race... well...my mind was a bit blown, but I may just be insane... The beef that guy had with the elevators being replaced by loading screens is absurd. This is a videogame – one that is incredibly impressive in terms of visuals, sound and presentation – what does that guy expect, gold, frankincense and myrrh on a platter? On top of this, the presentation of the loading screens only serves to distract you from the fairly minuscule loading times as it is, since they’re always blueprints or diagrams detailing things from the way that your ship docks, to, the external structure of the Citadel, combining to create a sense of the game world being one that isn’t fragmented and poorly glued together, but one that is very cogent. The final point about the Asari who kills by mating, well, that is entirely consistent with the race in question. Come on, their sexual morphology shifts to accommodate any gender and race, their elders are call “Matriarchs.†Yes. Feminine over sexualisation is fairly explicit in these creatures, but then again, every Sci-Fi universe in existence has some equivalent, from the Twileks in Star Wars to the fact that every green ass puke coloured alien in Star Trek had a humanoid supermodel physique. It’s just a trope, and I thought that Mass Effect did something pretty inventive with it. And hey, I’m no xenobiologist, but I thought the games internal encyclopaedia provided some sustainable explanations. I think that guys reference to “mother issues†was totally redolent of the reflexive nature of vulgar Freudians wherein everything has to have some implications within their insipid discourse of understanding. Fuck off you utter twats. In conclusion; if you don’t like Mass Effect 2, that’s all fine and good, but don’t come and present utterly philistine arguments, that are nothing if not petty reductions, for why that may be the case. Condemned: Criminal Origins - Beating some fool over the head with some rebar is probably the most brutal thing I've ever seen in the game, because they run away whimpering and visibly hurt and you're taken aback for a second at the fact that a game gave you moral pangs, but then you continue. And Love It. Thats all for now, folks.
Jonnas Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Heh. Recently, an old thread of mine with the exact same type of content was revived on the retro boards. I was more generous with my choices in this thread, but others posted roughly the same thing in both (like Goafer)
jayseven Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 The levels thread? Great thread, I just finished re-reading it :P
Retro_Link Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 ^ I think I must be one of the few who doesn't really find that funny!
Pit-Jr Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 A few more.... Garcian's flashback at the end of Killer 7 Fighting Santa Claus in Secret of Mana Making any kind of progress in Super Ghouls n Ghosts When Drachma gets pulled into the abyss by the purple whale, and later the homoerotic battle with Vigoro in Skies of Arcadia
martinist Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 When i finally got to play as Snake after suffering through the entire game with Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 Beating the second Whizzpig in Diddy Kong Racing after running up my parent's phone bill calling up the Nintendo hotline Finishing Super Mario 64 with 70 stars Unlocking Caption Falcon and Ness in Super Smash Bros.
Dog-amoto Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Retro_Link said: ^ I think I must be one of the few who doesn't really find that funny! The boiler boss and the cogs bit were the funniest parts of this game
Captain Falcon Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Zelda: A Link to the Past - Getting the Master Sword Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Getting the Master Sword Zelda: The Wind Waker - Getting the Master Sword Zelda: Twilight Princess - Getting the Master Sword Whether it's in the woods, a temple, a temple in the woods or buried under a castle frozen in time, getting the Master Sword has always been the exact moment that defines Zelda games for me where it applies. Going to the first star in the Good Egg Galaxy of Super Mario Galaxy and watching Mario fly in before landing with an almighty thud that shakes the screen, Mario shouts "Yes!" and the "Welcome to the Galaxy!" banner is plaster on the screen with the music kicking in all at that exact same point. Edited January 25, 2011 by Captain Falcon Becauses Jonnas called me a loser.
Jonnas Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 "Winder Waker"...? Speaking of Super Mario Galaxy, those journeys through the Star Launchers in Melty Molten Galaxy were amazing. Also, skating with the ice flower for the first time. Simply marvellous.
Captain Falcon Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Jonnas said: "Winder Waker"...? Speaking of Super Mario Galaxy, those journeys through the Star Launchers in Melty Molten Galaxy were amazing. Also, skating with the ice flower for the first time. Simply marvellous. Whoops... I guess there is no chance of a stealthy edit now. Way to point out my failings dude
Dog-amoto Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Jonnas said: "Winder Waker"...?. He's talking about the Japanese version
Nolan Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Getting to the End of the World in Grandia. Also getting the Spirit Sword. The title screen, the intro, and the end of Secret of Mana. The music at the title will be with me forever.
Recommended Posts