Biggest wow moment in gaming

There was an old mission based space game on Amiga called "Warhead". It was a bit of an Elite "lite" but it had a cracking set of missions. Watching TV show The Expanse and some of the space battles in that (epic!) reminded me strongly of this old game and how a modern VR remake of Warhead would be rather cool.
 
Kevin Toms Football Manager on C64 when I took Palace to the Div 1 title and Fa cup and League cup and European cup.

After that, SM64 on N64.
 
I just wish more people could experience Half Life: Alyx. Especially those who grew up loving the series. The whole experience was a WOW moment. I kept talking to my other half about it after each session until it was over but think she thought I was mad.
I can't wait to see what Valve release next
I would love to play HL: Alyx! I did consider getting a Valve Index VR but couldn't justify the price. Maybe if they ever release a Portal 3 it would be worth buying.
 
Delta Force
Another classic of mine I played over and over again.
^ this.. not a wow moment but loved the game.. spent many days playing this on a 56k modem… online gaming.. having friends/family phone me getting an engaged tone for hours…. had a US robotics modem back then… best ping out there :D

And Lara Croft.. yes some great moments… but half-life 1&2 was a big omg game.
Tlou was another similar but not as great.
There’s been soo many great games… but market dried up atm .. guess COVID has slowed things down some what.
 
^ this.. not a wow moment but loved the game.. spent many days playing this on a 56k modem… online gaming.. having friends/family phone me getting an engaged tone for hours…. had a US robotics modem back then… best ping out there :D

And Lara Croft.. yes some great moments… but half-life 1&2 was a big omg game.
Tlou was another similar but not as great.
There’s been soo many great games… but market dried up atm .. guess COVID has slowed things down some what.
Yeah actually apart from the games I mentioned they were all great as was many others, I wouldn’t say I had wow moments though, not that I can think of anyway. Games were just games, lol. Great, good, bad, ****. Wow moments erm no, I can’t say I ever have had any with games.
 
I would say the Metal Gear Solid games, especially the first. They opened up the potential of what games could be (at least for me). I was captivated by all of them up to MGSV which while probably the best gameplay wise still is maybe the biggest disappointment I have had in gaming. Spent years looking forward to it and how epic the story would be, rewatching trailers etc just to find that side of the game did not deliver.
 
Pokemon Silver/GOld when they give you access to the old game's world easilty
 
I would love to play HL: Alyx! I did consider getting a Valve Index VR but couldn't justify the price. Maybe if they ever release a Portal 3 it would be worth buying.
Just get yourself a 2nd hand Rift S, works really well and you can play HL:Alyx, Valve Index is good but not £900 better than a Rift S, TBH the Rift S is bloody excellent for the money.
 
The nuclear explosion in Call of duty 4
 
I just wish more people could experience Half Life: Alyx. Especially those who grew up loving the series. The whole experience was a WOW moment. I kept talking to my other half about it after each session until it was over but think she thought I was mad.
I can't wait to see what Valve release next
There's information about variety of gaming apps available on Tricks key that feel you like the biggest WOW moment.
 
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Pikmin 3 challenge modes. When you discover that your solution you have slaved and laboured over for ages works with only a few seconds to spare and you whoop for joy. Then you see your performance in the global leader board graph and discover you are just a bit better than average and that there are some outliers with insane levels of percentage completion and you hunt down a video of one of these geniuses doing the same level and it's a master class in planning, team task assignment, handover and multi-tasking and you realise that some people are operating on a different level which is probably some form of savant autism but is still awesome to behold.
 
Pikmin 3 challenge modes. When you discover that your solution you have slaved and laboured over for ages works with only a few seconds to spare and you whoop for joy. Then you see your performance in the global leader board graph and discover you are just a bit better than average and that there are some outliers with insane levels of percentage completion and you hunt down a video of one of these geniuses doing the same level and it's a master class in planning, team task assignment, handover and multi-tasking and you realise that some people are operating on a different level which is probably some form of savant autism but is still awesome to behold.

I get the same feeling watching people do speed runs of BOTW. Some of the glitches they find in the game are so complex to perform. It's truly impressive, the ability of certain people to work these things out.
 
Seeing the levels and hearing the music on Manic Miner. Ridge Racer graphics on Playstation.
 
Buying a pc to play X-Wing, only bettered by going out the very next day and spending another hundred and something quid in a Soundblaster sound card and hearing the proper SW music and the proper whine of the TIE fighters flying past.
 
Just get yourself a 2nd hand Rift S, works really well and you can play HL:Alyx, Valve Index is good but not £900 better than a Rift S, TBH the Rift S is bloody excellent for the money.
Thanks, I had a look on ebay and they look to be reasonably priced second hand.. it is very tempting!
 
I thought Hang On was good as an early Sega super scaler game, but Space Harrier was next level in the mid 80's Just stunning for the time and I spent a few years as a young teen hunting down the best arcade versions to play local to me. Best one Swanage arcade with full sit down

Hydraulic cabinet.

1st time seeing and playing on import F-Zero on a Super Famicom, was amazing mode 7 scroll effect was a wow moment.

Neo Geo AES so many wow's, the arcade in your home! but the bloody cost for Rolls Royce gaming left a bitter taste in my mouth to say the least.

PC Engine, had one in 1988, the jump from an Amstrad CPC464 to this little box of 8 bit magic was something else, so many more but these early systems have a place in my heart more so than the Xbox and Playstation generations.
 
Quake: I had access to a VR lab, and they had a huge screen that worked with those polarising lenses to create 3D (like the 3D TVs did about 15 years later). My mate fired it up so I could try it, and everything was fine until the first dog jumped at me and I fell backwards off my chair.

Unreal: The visuals in that game were truly breath-taking if you had a Voodoo. I remember just seeing the intro screen where the screen rotates around a building, realising it was being rendered on the fly, and blown away by it. We used to play this of a Friday afternoon in the office, and the bosses knew, but it was really good fun.

WoW - Wrath of the Lich King: When we finally managed to defeat the Lich King. The guild I was with had been trying to finish the raid for a while, but we'd end up wiping at certain points, and it took us a while. One night we decided to do it as a completely spontaneous raid (as opposed to our "raid nights"), got on TS, and we had that perfect session, and took him down without wiping once. I also had a "blue" (tech support) coach me through an instance while he waited to deal with an open support ticket. When we reached the end, I found out he'd been following us through the instance, and briefly appeared to give us a cheer.

Outrun, Afterburner, Space Harrier et al: Something that still hasn't been done at home for the mass market almost 40 years later. I remember being on a cross channel ferry one day, and it was a bit choppy, and it added so much to the Outrun and Afterburner cabinet 🤣. Honourable mention to WEC Le Mans and Konami for creating a cabinet that spun around and made you dizzy. There was also the Afterburner gyroscope thing that was absolutely amazing to play, and flying upside down with coins raining from your pockets is simply awesome.

Far Cry 6: I loved this game. What made it for me was the little finishing touches to the character, and little things she'd (I play female) do during down time. If the radio in the car is playing she sings along, she'll also make little comments regarding what's going on around her, and some interactions are really nicely done. It's also absolutely beautiful with maxed out settings.

Frontier - Elite II: I bought this on day one with a mate, and while he went absolutely batshit insane over it, I was like "meh!" as I'd not liked Elite. I then discovered a the cargo eject bug (if you bought rubbish, and then clicked under the eject button it freed up cargo space but kept the rubbish, rinse and repeat to create a TARDIS). At one point I had an Eagle with 50 passenger cabins and a particle accelerator which was actually bigger than the ship and made it impossible to see anything. Regardless of bugs and exploits, the sheer size of it made it feel formidable.

Elite Dangerous: I think the ED players are some of the nicest in gaming. There are various groups like the Fuel Rats who spend their time flying out to rescue stranded players. You might have had a fight in game with someone, and they'll occasionally call you out on forums and say how much they enjoyed the battle. There's also a few in jokes such as getting a free ship if you go to Hutton Orbital (it takes almost 2 hours at full tilt to reach it), and it tends to be a rite of passage along with the Colonia Highway and visiting Sag A*. The community also has a very big heart and when a terminally ill player said she wanted to visit a system which shared her player ID, a whole logistics operation was arranged, and there was a large community effort to escort her there safely (it took a few weeks to get there). There's also some of the amazing sights you'll see.
 
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Every time Wow! Long live the pre-order .
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Frontier (Elite II) on Amiga - '93-ish
First game to get anywhere near to giving a sense of the vastness of space, and the distances between stars/planets/etc...

Then the original Half-Life for another big 'Wow!' when I got a PC a few yrs later.
 
Not a gamer any more but was thinking about this a mere few mins ago then popped into this forum and found this thread!

Probably several.

Alien Breed (Amiga). Genuinely never tangling with that soundtrack.

Wipeout (and the sequel) on PS1. Staggering improvement compared to previous consoles.

Gran Turismo on the PS1 again. Loved driving games and spent a zillion hours on this.

Halo (CE) on the original Xbox.

Again, after taking a break from gaming, I purchased an Xbox and a copy of Halo. Absolutley blown away with the gameplay/story/soundtrack.

Still have fond memories of being in such awe of The Silent Cartographer, Assault on the Control Room and Two Betrayals.

Playing initially on Normal, then working up to Heroic. Then finally mastering it on Legendary. Simply incredible. Great times (20 years ago):eek:
 
I was playing ori and the blind forest recently. It had quite a few wow moments- the owl in the final chase being one. The whole game was just stunning to look at (and play obvs) and the music was superb.
 
Soccer Brawl on the Neo Geo original and also Speedball 2 on the Amiga.

Not forgetting the laughs to be had on SNES Bomberman!

Some great memories there.
 

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