What were your (now retro, but not at the time) gaming wow moments

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

I remember a few from various stages of my life (born 1984).

Seeing the demo footage of Sonic 2 in Woolworths and thinking the leaves falling down in Aquatic Run zone was so cool and advanced.

The original Sega arcade of Virtua Racing with the moving cars completely blew me away.

I remember my uncle loading up Cannon Fodder on his Amiga, and a REAL song with REAL music came out, along with REAL photos. I was amazed haha.

A few years on I remember a PlayStation demo disc having promo footage of the first Gran Turismo and it looked so real to me, I watched it over and over. The first Driver on PS1 looked absolutely amazing to me also.

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Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Pairing two TVs and two Xbox consoles together for an eight player local death match. Online gaming will never match the energy in that room.

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- PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My buddies and I had easy access to a theater, which had giant curved walls on each side of the stage. We hooked up three projectors to three Xboxes; One projector for the stage, and one for each of the curved walls. Then we ran them into the sound system.
  
  We did it two or three times a week for months.
  
  The funny part is that you could always tell who was screenlooking, because the screens were so big that you had to physically turn your head away from your own screen. And at that point you just die, cuz you start missing the people right in front of you.
  
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  - Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Any theatre that doesn’t facilitate this has my express permission to go out of business. That sounds incredible.
    
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Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Starfox 64. I played it at Toys R Us…oh, uh, kids Toys R Us was a toy store that had been around for like 80 years. And everybody knew it was never going to close, because there was always going to be more kids…and then it closed.

Anyways, they had a demo unit you could play. It reset every 10 minutes. Then Mario would pop up and say “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING NINTENDO 64, WHO’S NEXT???”

And like a stupid teenager, I yelled “I AM!!!” as if it were voice activated. It wasn’t. I was just a dumb teenager telling at a CRT tv.

One time I got so invested in it, that I didn’t even notice a kid was behind me for like 20 minutes. And eventually he said “Excuse me…you went 3 times in a row. Can I try please?”

Man I felt like an ass. He probably felt like I was bullying him out of playing. I was twice his age, twice his size, and even compared to other kids my own age I was always a kid who was at the top of the food chain. I genuinely didn’t see him, and thought I was alone. I let him play all the turns until his family made him leave.

But those visuals…THE RUMBLE PACK!!! OH MY GOD!!! THE CONTROLLER SHAKES WHEN YOUR SHIP GETS DAMAGED!!! And it had 3D space ship flying and voice acting, and oh my god…

It was all very overwelming. I’m not saying Mario 64 is a bad game. I loved it. But Starfox 64 was the game that made me buy a game for a console I didn’t even own. I was THAT sure that I’d have to have an N64 one day…that day was like 6 months later.

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Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are some very memorable games.

No game has ever matched the freedom of Morrowind. You are only limited by yourself. Even Oblivion and Skyrim feel restricted by the game.

Half-Life 2 interacting with the environment. I must have played with the can for hours the first time.

Final Fantasy VIII though was the single most impressive game for the hardware it came out on. The character models being actual human proportion, the summons looking like actual monsters, and the FMVs where people look like damn people in a movie.

In the same vein, FFX being described as looking like FFVIII’s FMVs but all the time. And then living up to the hype.

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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Morrowind mentioned, based take.
  
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zcd@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Final Fantasy 6, the three mechs marching through the snow in 3d… followed by the emotional impact of the game elevated gaming to another level I had never before seen

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- Ashtear@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes. One of my moments is a certain event late in the game where the world map music changes after pounding the player with an oppressive atmosphere and some very low lows for a couple of hours. It’s amazing how well a 16-bit game was able to make it so cathartic.
  
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ramblingsteve@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
3 of them:

watching an Amiga 500 load from disk having only seen 8bit games on tape. Everything that machine did at the time was like magic.

watching the castle fly through intro for Unreal on PC when the first 3D accelerators appeared. Everything changed after that.

experiencing the shark diving demo on PlayStation VR. And also how nothing changed after that! xD
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- Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We’re the only generation that grew up alongside video games. We watched them grow up into what they are today, and our kids don’t even know of a world without them.
  
  I don’t know what “Age” we’re in right now, but I think 1970-2024+ should be referred to as the Video Game Age.
  
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  - HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I feel the same way about it being a privilege. I missed the earliest part… but even to have lived through the NES and Master System era through to today has been amazing.
    
    Games will continue getting ever more impressive, but nobody again will witness the kind of seismic leaps in what games could accomplish that people saw between the 70s and 2000s.
    
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urata@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The first thing that jumped to my mind was Half Life 2. The facial expressions on the characters, and the physics of objects in the game world.

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HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just remembered that seeing Doom for the first time is another obvious one. Man that game was incredible when it came out.

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- EvilBit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I remember my brother telling me about Wolfenstein 3D. I insisted that something like that, that moved smoothly at your command in any direction instead of in clunky 90° turns and blockwise steps, was impossible with the current technology.
  
  I was wrong.
  
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  - Num10ck@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    you were right, the computers couldnt do the math in time. the trick was to precalculate the sin/cos tables for angle steps into tons of lookups instead.
    
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- Kelly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And was re-released last week. I was pleased to see the 2024 console ports still support LAN play.
  
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MrPoopbutt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Stepping out of the sewers in Oblivion for the first time. Nothing has really captured that feeling since.

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- NoneYa@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Oh yeah this is it! Seeing that you could go anywhere in the world was a first for me. I was in awe watching my cousin play on his new Xbox 360 that night. The graphics were astounding and the gameplay was unlike anything I ever saw before.
  
  My brother and I only had the original Xbox at this time but we discovered that Morrowind was available to us for it and so we got that to help the urge we felt.
  
  It wasn’t quite the same hype, but man I’m glad in hindsight so I had more appreciation for the series as a whole. We were still floored away by Morrowind and what we could do.
  
  We were absolutely ready and hyped for 11/11/11. Man that was a night we couldn’t wait for.
  
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- ramblingsteve@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes! That is a true masterpiece that at the time set a new standard.
  
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adaveinthelife@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The beginning of Link to the Past, with the rain, thunder and lightning. LttP took it to another level coming from NES games and even most PC games at the time, setting a mood and atmosphere I had never experienced in gaming before.

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baldingpudenda@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Playing side scrollers my whole life and seeing Mario64 at a Walmart. Being able to play in actual 3D and thinking at no way they can surpass this.

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ThatRocco@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Everything about Metroid Prime. Incredible soundtrack, gorgeous scenery, interesting wildlife, challenging bosses/puzzles, and so so so much lore. It’s still probably my all time favorite game. Can’t wait for Prime 4 to come out!

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savvywolf@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Getting into Hyrule field for the first time in Ocarina of Time after being stuck in the forest for months or years. I got promptly destroyed by a pineapple.

I don’t remember much from my childhood, but that stuck with me.

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ECB@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Loading into World of War craft for the first time back in 2005 is probably the biggest.

Seeing all the people running around and doing their thing was incredible. It made me super excited to go explore the world.

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kratoz29@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Playing Mario Kart DS with people I did not know.

The DS was my entry to the beautiful world of online gaming (it was free, can you believe it?).

And now I see this world kinda meh, perhaps I play (or not) the wrong games, but nothing can beat a perfect 1 player game.

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falk1856@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Born in 1980. Seeing the original Mortal Kombat arcade for the first time at a smoke-filled bowling alley that when I was in 7th grade was pretty awe inspiring.

Aside from that playing Wolfenstein 3d for the first time was really trippy.

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- HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I very nearly added seeing the Mortal Kombat arcade to my original post but decided maybe I was writing too much!
  
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geekwithsoul@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Final boss fight of Portal 2 - one of my favorite and most satisfying gaming moments.

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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Playing the Mario 64 Demo at Walmart.

My brain had a hard time trying to navigate in 3D.

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- chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That game was so futuristic. It was nuts.
  
  Back then, the camera didn’t feel as shitty as it does today. It was all so fresh and new.
  
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justabaldguy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Actually making it to level -1 in SMB after finding out how to do it from the TV show Video Game Power. I needed my NES Advantage to do it reliably, but it blew my mind to learn it was legit.

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MajorHavoc@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I still remember the headache from trying out the Nintendo Virtual boy at Toys R Us for just a few minutes.

Sonic the Hedgehog’s impossibly sparkly invincibility, with the show-off music that sped up to show off that there wasn’t any lag at all from the particle effect graphic. Really everything about Sonic when he first arrived. That’s the best 16 bits ever looked and sounded… Except…

Star Fox. See the other post about Star Fox 64. Star Fox (original) felt the same. Nothing before it looked or played that way. (No offense to Stellar 7’s many previous attempts.)

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MermaidsGarden@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ll never be able to get over the opening cinematic to the first Kingdom Hearts. Having played mostly Game Boy Color prior to that, I had no idea that graphics could look that good.

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Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Storming the beach for the first time in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault back in 2002.

Even though the graphics haven’t aged well (of course), the sound design, the vibration of the controller, the beats in the pacing as you are tossed around in the boat and then thrown overboard. It was all so well done. It was also the first time (that I could recall) where you began the game and had a moment to just “look around” while the boat was heading to the shore but before you had the ability to move.

You look behind you and you see other soldiers, some puking. Someone yells, and you look up as a fighter/bomber screams over you. The controller rumbles as it drops it’s load on the landing craft next to yours, tossing you around. The game took a few moments to let you immerse yourself in the situation before the action started, which I think was an amazing choice.

Anyway, that’s my answer. And yes, I’m old.

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Eiri@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Final Fantasy X blew my mind in pretty much every way possible. Never had I seen such amazing graphics, heard such great video game music, been immersed in such a gripping story in a game.

Honestly I think I may have been chasing that high ever since.

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- Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I came here to say the same thing, first game I played with full voice acting. I was blown away, and the graphics compared to everything else to that point we’re outstanding. Nothing has topped FFX.
  
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drasglaf@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For me it was the jump to 3D in the 32 bit era. We already had some games in 3D prior to that, but with the arrival of Playstation and Saturn the landscape changed forever.

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numberfour002@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For me it was the original Resident Evil on the Playstation.

It was the first time I saw live-action digitized full-motion video on a gaming system. I know there were a lot of FMV (Full Motion Video) games in that era on other systems, but I didn’t own those other systems and I didn’t know anybody who did. So, it was all new to me once I played a Playstation.

Resident Evil was also the first time a video game had ever given me a jump scare. Early in the game a zombie doberman bursts through a window unexpectedly and I was hooked! I loved introducing my friends to the game, specifically so I could see their reaction when the dog shows up. So much fun.

Honestly seeing and hearing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo was kind of wow, too. The graphics boost compared to the 8-bit systems I was used to was incredible. And the sound quality compared to the other 16-bit systems I’d played (Genesis and TG-16) was a leap above. The experience probably pales in comparison to modern games, but back then there was wow factor to it.

To young me, Street Fighter 2 Turbo was pretty wow as well. It was “literally” the same as the arcade version to child me. I could not believe the home version was so close to the real thing, because prior generations of game systems like the NES couldn’t come close to that level of performance.

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- HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, playing Resident Evil for the first time was something incredibly atmospheric and special. I rented it from Blockbuster and knew straight away I had to buy it.
  
  Before it released my friend and I used to speed-run the Resident Evil 2 demo which let you play as far as you could get into the full game, but with an 8 minute time limit.
  
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QuarterSwede@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Oh boy I have a few:

PC Another Lifeless Planet (and me with no beer) was fantastic for a text adventure. Testdrive. Wolfenstein 3D was incredible at the time being surpassed by Doom then Quake. Day of the Tentacle for its high quality cartoon animation opening sequence. Unreal on a Voodoo graphics card. HL2 of course with its physics (ragdoll) engine and jump in polygons.

SNES Fzero and Mode-7 graphics Donkey Kong Country, its CG was nuts at the time FFVI’s snowfield theatrics Starfox

Sega Earthworm Jim Another World/Out of this World for that opening and style was amazing and still holds up!

N64 Super Mario 64 Japanese demo at Babbages in a mall before the US demos came out. That was mind blowingly smooth. Waverace 64 for its water effects. Ocarina of Time for its cinematic 3D story telling and fun gameplay.

PlayStation Resident Evil was incredible for the atmosphere. Tomb Raider for more detailed 3D environments. Warhawk also stood out for its great use of the analog dual joysticks. FFVII for its cinematic story telling and FMVs. Wipeout for its fast paced racing and great OST.

Dreamcast Seeing the demo of Sonic Adventure blew my mind since it was so fast and colorful. The whale jumping after Sonic as you raced away was burned into my brain.

Wii: Super Mario Galaxy for its outstanding OST and gameplay.

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ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The first time I saw gameplay footage of the original Doom, I thought it looked almost photorealistic. I must’ve been like 6 or 7 at the time.

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deuleb_biezelbob@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
UT2004

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swordgeek@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So many…

loading (from ¥) and playing Adventure on a PET 4004. It was breathtaking!

Wolf 3D on my first x86 machine.

DOOM! I spent all bloody day trying to download the shareware levels on the University campus, and ultimately, it was worth it.

Crying at the end of Grim Fandango

Mass Effect. All of it"
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APassenger@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Pitfall on Atari 2600

Becaise I’m old, I guess. Pacman, too, but pitfall seemed more advanced.

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