Top 3

[DarkTone | 984]

Decided to post this here, seeing as this is the show off section. 

What are your top 3 moments, that involve games? First game you beat? Hardest game you beat? First you 100%? Doesn't have to be gameplay either. Is it something physical you own? Win a tournament? World record? Help make a game? Meet a celebrity? 

Its hard to make top lists, so take your time. 

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Tough call, I can think of a few more than 5 and it's something I'd probably move some around in by the moment.

Buying my first game console on my own, and not even realizing I had the money at the time until I freaked out and went digging would be #1 -- SNES launch day.  Waited for ages since I learned of it in NP magazine, we'd talk it up at lunches etc at school.  The day it arrived in the afternoon at TRU, had my mom go get it with the express knowledge of it was to be a Christmas gift months later.  I wasn't having it, remembered I had money here, there, other where... charged up to the room, tore open anything I could I knew had dollars and coin.  Before long I had enough and excess!  When she got back thinking it was staying up, nope, had her open the trunk and more or less threw the money at her, all $216.50 with tax... lost my mind in that every free moment for 2 weeks until I cleared out Mario World 100%, then went back for more, then kept working for $ on the side to dual scoop ActRaiser and Gradius III shortly after.

Another for me that's an easy one would be my closing project when I worked at Midway Home Entertainment I was credited on at least, they tried to pull some garbage with the very good company they partnered with to do the Gamecube port.  I was happy to finally be on a Nintendo project being stuck on PS2 for too long and a stint on XB too...bleh.  Defender, the 3D reimaging of the arcade oldie.  Because the lack of a button on the GC pad, Midway decided they would just break the game and leave out a tactical necessity in later stages for survival, a nice strafe for your ship to skirt around the manti (aliens.)  I got mad, tried to appeal to the company to fix it, was denied, so I got subversive and got even.  As I was an uncredited co-lead, but also the product standards testing lead for Nintendo spec on this one, I decided to appeal to the other leads, and co-emailed the developers working on the project.  What did I mail them?  A competent fix, one I spent part of an afternoon on drawing up, mentally projecting how it would work and then submitting it.  Basically what I did was took a N64 flashback, and used the TUROK(1) control scheme blended with Nintendo's Starfox 64.  I created an easy, fluid, competent design to restore strafe without in the slightest compromising the gameplay, and it worked.  The developers loved it, then on the down low despite 'officially' just thanking my concerns in email, patched the game.  They added +2 control modes C & D in the options menu to slide it by 'the man' effectively.  I imagined it would work, and holy crap did it work, very well, we barely touched A&B other than necessity since many would just ignore the working 100% stuff stupidly.  We got a laugh, were happy, and made the game work as well as the PS2/XB versions, which is great, because aside from the compression on the FMV, audio/visual, it's the best version of the 3.  F U Midway, Rest in Pieces.

The third is questionable for me but one I do like to remember, anyone recall the new game shop of the later 80s into the early/mid 90s largely at malls called CAPTRON?  If not Captron G&G was a chain store for malls, some physical full things, some places kiosk, they also did a funco style mail order, here's an archive.org catalog you'll enjoy(seriously look for a flashback to 1994)https://archive.org/details/Captron_GG_Stores_U but the point is, in early 1992 they did a competition at their stores with Gradius III.  Winner got a nice gift cert to get something at the store (yay?) and the challenge, Gradius III: 5 MIN on the clock, ARCADE difficulty, HIGH score wins the prize.  I practiced it for a few days leading up and before heading in.  I wasn't first, saw some pretty decent scores too, and in the end I won it, and cleared it by a decent margin as I used to be quite excellent at the game.  That was rewarding winning that competition as I love(d) that game and franchise so it meant something.

 

I wish I could have had a better 3rd, but, that's a sad piece of history that lost paperwork ruined that would have dramatically changed my entire life.   #2 on the list wouldn't have existed either, I wouldn't probably still be living in the US all these years later either, but that's another story.

Let's just leave it with this. Kuso!  Ookina machigai deshita.  Koukai shitte imasu.

[DarkTone | 984]

Mine will change. I need to think about it more, but for now its: 

3: meeting Nolan North. 2nd in queue at a comic book convention. He signed my book that came with my special edition of uncharted 4. Then he saw me wearing loads of scarface clothing and did an al pacino impression. Loved it. 

2: winning a spiderman game. I've wanted to make a thread on just this story alone. Short version is my best friend and I did an ARG, and each won amazing spiderman on the 360. 

1: Megaman X Hadouken. The only clue that this thing existed in the game, was my friends older brother telling us. Thats it. From that we spent hours fooling around and accidentally discovered it. Considering what you have to do to get it, I dont know what can top that. 

Honourable mentions include, winning an original xbox game for winning at burnout revenge, owning a competition cart, getting an article in nintendolife and making characters in games from kickstarter. 

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

1. Walking out onto Hyrule field the first time in Ocarina of time after talking to the owl that never stops talking and accidentally pressing to repeat what he said at least twice. If you know you know  

2. Using the internet for the first time to lookup fatality codes for Mortal Kombat 2 on SNES

3. Playing GoldenEye/Wave Race/WCW vs NWO with 3 other people on local multiplayer. Shit on N64 all you want but 4 player local multiplayer was a game changer. Sure it existed in some form before N64 but was made way more popular imo

Edited July 1, 2022 by a3quit4s

[DarkTone | 984]

Honorable mention. 

There was a show in the 90s called the Gamesmaster. Kids went on to win a joystick spray painted gold. They bought the show back last year for a 3 episode special. I got free tickets to be in the audience. During filming, I was approached and asked if I wanted to film a segment they had on the old show. I was genuinely excited and watched the show.... only to see the segment never showed. 

Signed an NDA, but because I wasn't on, guess its ok to talk about it publicly. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

7 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Honorable mention. 

There was a show in the 90s called the Gamesmaster. Kids went on to win a joystick spray painted gold. They bought the show back last year for a 3 episode special. I got free tickets to be in the audience. During filming, I was approached and asked if I wanted to film a segment they had on the old show. I was genuinely excited and watched the show.... only to see the segment never showed. 

Signed an NDA, but because I wasn't on, guess its ok to talk about it publicly. 

Actually, unless it specifically says that in your NDA, I'm pretty sure that you're still bound by it even if they don't air the portion you were in, until any/all expiration requirements defined in the agreement are met/passed.  And if they didn't set up any set of conditions or a date at which the NDA expires, you're pretty much bound by it forever unless a lawyer can find some loophole in it for you.  Neat that you're sharing, but depending on what the punishment is for breaking the NDA, I wouldn't say anything more about it until you're on more certain ground legally.

[DarkTone | 984]

17 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Actually, unless it specifically says that in your NDA, I'm pretty sure that you're still bound by it even if they don't air the portion you were in, until any/all expiration requirements defined in the agreement are met/passed.  And if they didn't set up any set of conditions or a date at which the NDA expires, you're pretty much bound by it forever unless a lawyer can find some loophole in it for you.  Neat that you're sharing, but depending on what the punishment is for breaking the NDA, I wouldn't say anything more about it until you're on more certain ground legally.

Your post just reminded me. They never sent the NDA to me (AFAIK). Meant to e mail me but I never signed it. 

[wyansas | 131]

Great topic.  I have a definite #1 moment that's stood for 28 years, and it will never be topped.  

3. Probably the most fun single moment I ever had playing a game was when Bayonetta "clicked" and I suddenly understood dodge offset.  When I tell people about this moment, I always say it was the closest feeling a game has ever given me to riding a motorcycle at 130 mph.

2. I beat my favorite game, Ninja Gaiden Black, on the highest difficulty without dying or buying any healing items.  Too many moments from that one game to narrow it down to one for this list.  Video here.

1.  No one ever believes me when I tell this story but I swear on my right nut it's true.  I think I was about 8 years old, I was playing Tecmo Super Bowl and I was in the Super Bowl, playing as the Chiefs against the 49ers (I was always the Chiefs).  San Francisco scores to take the lead with just a few seconds left in the 4th.  When they kickoff, there's not enough time for me to catch it and run out of bounds so I can get a hail mary off before the clock runs out, so I HAVE TO RUN THIS KICK BACK FOR A TOUCHDOWN or I lose the Super Bowl.  And I fucking did it.  I went crazy, lost my damn mind bouncing around my room.  Returning kicks for touchdowns in TSB is no joke, how many have you ever done?  Like 3?  I think I've only done it like 3 times ever.

Honorable mention:
-Mr. Perfecting Mega Man 9 and 10 on normal mode.
-Christmas 96 getting the N64 and playing SM64 on our big screen with the whole family watching.
-Seeing Hyrule Field in OoT for the first time.
-Finding a group of guys in college that liked to get high, listen to music and play Smash 64 just like I did.
-Watching my dad beat Zelda 2.  I was too young to actually remember this moment, but my sisters insist it happened and that I was there watching it too lol.  He doesn't play games, not before or since, and he beat Zelda 2 without Nintendo Power and before the internet.  Pretty impressive!

Edited October 12, 2022 by wyansas

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 536]

1. Beating the shadow queen in paper mario and the thousand year door. This game was a childhood favorite of mine but I was never good enough to beat the game. I finally did it some 5 years ago and it was such a good feeling because I was finally able to see the ending. It was also super close, almost didn't win.

2. Fixing my Atari Millipede cabinet - it was my first real arcade repair that required in depth troubleshooting.

3. Not really a particular moment, but playing games with my mother as a youngyin. Those moments and her constant emphasis on the importance of utilizing technology to not only have fun, but also work hard and help others with it helped define myself as a person especially later on in my late teens and now young adult life. I owe a lot to those times playing games with her. It gave me a career path and goals to work toward.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

I'll go with my top three moments that involve gaming accomplishments.

1. Beating Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! for the first time. That was the only time that beating a video game made me legitimately jump out of my seat as an adult.

2. Building a 600,000 population city in the Super NES version of SimCity and getting the ending that I never knew existed. This was one of my favorite games as a kid and I couldn't ever get to 500,000 and the final designation of a Megalopolis until I was in my 20s. I kept messing around with my city and got a population of 600,000 only to receive a surprise message that I didn't even know I was in the game.

3. No deathing Ninja Gaiden for the first time. That game seemed impossible to me as a kid even though I was a pretty good gamer back then. To beat it on 1 life seemed like an amazing feat at the time even though I can do it regularly now.

As far as experiences go, sitting at the Pac Man cocktail table and playing with my mom at the local Mr. Gatti's pizza as a 5 year old kid is easily #1. That was the singular moment that first introduced me to video games, eventually leading to me getting a NES when it was released and all of the eventual years of gaming fun that followed and continue to this day.

An honorable mention would be the time spent gaming with friends over the last 35 years and all of the memories we made that will be with us forever.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Bearcat-Doug

[wyansas | 131]

Bump

[DarkTone | 984]

Another honourable mention. Theres only ONE game I've had to use a walkthrough guide for, or look up the answer. Still proud of this. 

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

Event #1: I was in the last dungeon and was planning to do some grinding before I had beaten Final Fantasy. When I put the game in, and then turned my NES on, it said that my saved data was corrupted and had to be deleted.

Event #2: I was preparing to play Zelda II: The Adventure of Link only to find that my saved game was gone. And in its place was three saved games, each with items you do not start with.

Event #3: The day I got to see Shoko Nakagawa's Princess Alena claw/prop in her store (Mamitas). She was the VA in both Dragon Quest Heroes games, and did other promotional events that had involved/included it.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 12/21/2022 at 12:21 AM, DarkTone said:

Another honourable mention. Theres only ONE game I've had to use a walkthrough guide for, or look up the answer. Still proud of this. 

Come on, man. You're gonna drop that tease and not even tell us the game? Spill the beans!

[AstralSoul | 502]

Hard to narrow it down to 3 big moments. Most of my time gaming is made up of a ton of little moments. When I was younger I made a bunch of friends because we'd bond over games.

The first game I ever beat was Super Mario Bros 2, I'll never forget that. I was probably 7 or 8. I remember sitting at the ending screen watching Mario sleep for like an hour expecting him to wake up and for there to be more.

Super Mario World was the second game I ever beat, which I played along with a childhood friend. It was so much fun bonding with him over SNES, he introduced me to that system, and we haven't spoken in many years but I'll always remember him and the times we had because of the SNES. 

Super Mario 64 for the first time is still the biggest moment in my gaming life. I had only gotten SNES the year prior and I was not at all interested in N64 or 3D games. Then one day I decided to play Mario 64 at a Blockbuster demo unit and was completely blown away like no other game before or after it. My parents wouldn't let me get an N64 so on my Christmas vacation in 1996 they rented N64 and Mario 64 and all I did that entire week was play it til I beat it. In March 1997 I finally got my own system, but I wasn't allowed to have any games for it, only rent them. September 1997 I finally bought Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 and played them to death. Super Mario 64 was one of the first games I ever 100% completed. Probably the second one, after Super Mario Kart. Still have so many memories attached to Mario 64, more than any other game. 

And honorable mention goes to beating Dark Souls for the first time which was only 3 or 4 years ago. I'll never forget that either. That game tormented me for almost a decade, and I really thought it was too hard for me. One day I sat down and just vowed to beat it no matter what, and 60+ hours later I did. Best gaming moment for me in the last 20 years.

[DarkTone | 984]

7 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Come on, man. You're gonna drop that tease and not even tell us the game? Spill the beans!

Oh shit haha. My favourite game of all time, Metal Gear Solid. My copy didn't have the case, so I had to find a guide for the codex number. I did use it a few more times but the game is on a whole other level. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

18 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Oh shit haha. My favourite game of all time, Metal Gear Solid. My copy didn't have the case, so I had to find a guide for the codex number. I did use it a few more times but the game is on a whole other level. 

The meta stuff in that game is so great. Thankfully I had (and still have) the actual game with the case, so I was able to figure it out. There is actually a great reference to the Psycho Mantis boss fight in the recently released game, High on Life.

I'm with you though, I usually try to avoid looking things up since I get so much satisfaction from solving puzzles. That being said, as I've gotten older and busier, I have no qualms about pulling up a guide to see if something in game is worth doing. Spend ten hours pixel hunting to get some slightly better armor? No thanks.

[T-Pac | 7,534]

On 1/7/2023 at 10:29 AM, AstralSoul said:

My parents wouldn't let me get an N64 so on my Christmas vacation in 1996 they rented N64 and Mario 64 and all I did that entire week was play it til I beat it. In March 1997 I finally got my own system, but I wasn't allowed to have any games for it, only rent them. 

Now I'm curious - did this influence how you feel about subscriptions versus ownership of media today?

A lot of game collectors have very strong opinions on the topic, but I doubt many grew up with such a strict "rental-only" rule regarding their games.

-CasualCart

[AstralSoul | 502]

1 hour ago, CasualCart said:

Now I'm curious - did this influence how you feel about subscriptions versus ownership of media today?

A lot of game collectors have very strong opinions on the topic, but I doubt many grew up with such a strict "rental-only" rule regarding their games.

-CasualCart

I'm not sure if that influenced anything but I hate subscriptions, much prefer ownership,that goes for anything. I hated having to rent 80% of the games I played back in the day. But that's also what got me into collecting later on, buying all the games I rented and never got to own. 

[DarkTone | 984]

On 1/8/2023 at 7:58 PM, T-Pac said:

Now I'm curious - did this influence how you feel about subscriptions versus ownership of media today?

A lot of game collectors have very strong opinions on the topic, but I doubt many grew up with such a strict "rental-only" rule regarding their games.

-CasualCart

I dont think I've ever thought about it. Rental only? Hmmm....

[Webhead123 | 675]

Only just now seeing this thread. What a cool idea! Coming up with a top 3 this broad though, that's tough. Here are some possible contenders for "greatest moments in gaming":

-) Setting myself on a "One Day Challenge" at the age of 14 to play A Link to the Past from beginning to end all in one day. With minimal breaks for food and bathroom visits (and, luckily, few interruptions from the parents), I managed it and felt pretty proud of myself.

-) Discovering the secret basketball court in the training stage of Thief: The Dark Project. Finding it was itself amusing but then I found the scroll with all of the hilarious behind-the-scenes developer quotes and I felt like I had just uncovered something truly special. That's one of the earliest moments I can remember of actively thinking about the designers of a game and getting to experience a bit of what it was like to be one of them. It was a paradigm shift for sure.

-) Getting to attend Power Fest in 1990. I don't remember if it was planned or just pure happenstance but my aunt and uncle wanted to take me with them on a road trip to Disneyland. While we were there, Power Fest was going on and I had the incredible fortune to get to go. Seeing aisles and aisles of booths and demos. Getting a chance to play SMB3 for the first time. Basking in an entire event center crammed with monuments to the greatness of Nintendo. It was like every Nintendo kid's dream.

Some Honorable Mentions:

-) Getting my SNES on December 26th, 1991. The first console I ever bought with my own money.

-) Finally reaching the Dragonlord's castle in Dragon Warrior, surviving the gauntlet and defeating the Dragonlord himself, after 6 months of exploring, looting and leveling up.

-) Watching someone play Doom for the first time and being incredibly jealous that I didn't have a home computer.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Webhead123

[DarkTone | 984]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:00 PM, Webhead123 said:

Only just now seeing this thread. What a cool idea! Coming up with a top 3 this broad though, that's tough. Here are some possible contenders for "greatest moments in gaming":

-) Setting myself on a "One Day Challenge" at the age of 14 to play A Link to the Past from beginning to end all in one day. With minimal breaks for food and bathroom visits (and, luckily, few interruptions from the parents), I managed it and felt pretty proud of myself.

-) Discovering the secret basketball court in the training stage of Thief: The Dark Project. Finding it was itself amusing but then I found the scroll with all of the hilarious behind-the-scenes developer quotes and I felt like I had just uncovered something truly special. That's one of the earliest moments I can remember of actively thinking about the designers of a game and getting to experience a bit of what it was like to be one of them. It was a paradigm shift for sure.

-) Getting to attend Power Fest in 1990. I don't remember if it was planned or just pure happenstance but my aunt and uncle wanted to take me with them on a road trip to Disneyland. While we were there, Power Fest was going on and I had the incredible fortune to get to go. Seeing aisles and aisles of booths and demos. Getting a chance to play SMB3 for the first time. Basking in an entire event center crammed with monuments to the greatness of Nintendo. It was like every Nintendo kid's dream.

Some Honorable Mentions:

-) Getting my SNES on December 26th, 1991. The first console I ever bought with my own money.

-) Finally reaching the Dragonlord's castle in Dragon Warrior, surviving the gauntlet and defeating the Dragonlord himself, after 6 months of exploring, looting and leveling up.

-) Watching someone play Doom for the first time and being incredibly jealous that I didn't have a home computer.

Would love to take place in gaming tournaments. And finding secrets in games with no hints always feels great.