Biggest wow moment in gaming

Lloydy92

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I don’t know if this has already been covered but here goes. I wondered what has been everyone’s biggest wow moments in games, graphics or gameplay. A few examples from me to get the ball rolling:

- Racing around on F1 97 on PS1, one of the first console video games I played.

- Roaming around Liberty City in GTA 3

- Stepping out of the sewers at the start of Oblivion

- Playing Just Cause on Xbox 360 on my dads Panasonic plasma, probably my first experience of HD gaming. The lighting effects and colours on this one still hold up.

- Being able climb up just about anything on the first Assassins Creed

- Walking around Rapture on Bioshock and just marvelling at the gameworld.

I could go on but hopefully this gets everyone’s mind working!
 
I agree with f1, still play it on emulator and the graphics and commentary are amazing.

First time I played call of duty 4 (modern warfare) I thought it was amazing, then played it online and it went to another level. I had never played online games before but that blew my mind. I still love it now!

I think I was addicted to cod and never played any other games for years, then decided to broaden my horizons, bought Uncharted and can remember getting a first cut away scene were it panned to an amazing view, again I was shocked how great it looked, I remember thinking this was like a film! Went on to play them all, the spin offs and then the last of us (another classic).

I think I've gone on enough! I am sure someone will mention something else and I will go, wow yer, I loved that too!
 
Playing Toca Touring Cars, and hearing the click of my Orchid 3dfx Voodoo graphics accelerator card switch on. Seeing the improvement in quality just blew me away.

Ghost Recon co-op. Was the first time ever I'd played an online co-op game.

Splinter Cell. Stealth is my thing, and it's the only game franchise I've played from start to finish (up to Double Agent of course, which I consider marks the end of the franchise in its proper style, for me)
 
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Got this as a Christmas present when it came out, exploring the 3D open world just blew me away.

Going into a game shop and playing Goldeneye 64 for the first time, remember being so impressed with the graphics, and was so excited to get the console and game.

The first 10 minutes of The Last of Us, never played a game that started like that, instantly hooked me into the story.

Bioshock, when you see Rapture for the first time, always gives me goosebumps.

Mass Effect, when you're made a Spectre.
 
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Got this as a Christmas present when it came out, exploring the 3D open world just blew me away.

BOTW for me, takes open world to another level. That was a wow moment when you come out of the temple of resurrection and look out over the plateau.
 
BOTW for me, takes open world to another level. That was a wow moment when you come out of the temple of resurrection and look out over the plateau.
I mainly said Ocarina of Time because I was young, and at that time, open world games were kinda new. To my little mind, the scale of that game was huge (small now, by today's comparisons).

But yeah, I also loved BOTW.
 
Starfox on the SNES, 3d polygons, jaw dropping on a 16bit system.

Tomb raider PS1. Just brilliant.
 
I would say probably Halo on the OG Xbox
 
I remember as a kid in the 80s going to a Leicester Square arcade and seeing an arcade machine booth you sat in.
A space shooter similar to After Burner but utilising real studio video film in the background with your computer generated ship in the foreground.
As you shot the alien craft and the bases you'd see the studio film footage of them exploding!
Think of Dragon's Lair but with Star Wars style studio film not cartoons!
Can't for the life of me remember the name of the game.

Then there was this arcade pod


When Gran Tourismo came out on the PlayStation I thought arcade games had reached their PINNACLE and surely couldn't get any better.

How wrong was I.

I'm the tech dinosaur out of the family.
When my brother got the first Occulus on release and showed me RoboRecall I was blown away once again!
 
Gran Turismo on PS1, hands down.

I’ll never forget the sheer joy of driving the tracks and watching the post-race replays, blown away by how real it felt and looked.
 
With no prior knowledge it even existed.. . trying Goldeneye in a gaming shop on an n64 (mid 90s?), mind blown 🤯
 
Seeing Driver being played on the big screen in GAME was a big wow for me. Had never heard of the game prior to this.

Modern Warfare being displayed in Toys'R'us was another one. Even my dad was impressed with the graphics at the time and he doesn't usually care for stuff like that.

And finally Oblivion. Had never heard of the game until a friend in my class was explaining it to me and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I bought a 360 and Oblivion that weekend and was hooked. Easily my favourite game of all time.
 
Making my way to Ironforge in World of Warcraft and the size of the open world.
 
Multiple wow moments - Sonic the Hedgehog 1, Thunderforce 4, Gunstar Heroes on the MD. Ridge Racer, Metal Gear Solid and Tekken 3 on the Ps1, and the intro of MGS2. Finally, my jap import of MGS3 on Ps2.
 
Outrun in the arcades, a moving cabinet and a soundtrack you could change.

Another World - the opening cinematic

Wipeout and Wipeout 2097 on the PS1, the speed, the soundtrack, the style

Read Dead Remption 2 - The landscapes, the lighting, NPCs i really cared about.
 
Looking back through the mists of time.
Alternate Reality: The City (scale and scope jaw drop), Astro Chase(8 way Williams Sinistar influenced shooter) and Necromancer (crazy but brilliant three phase video game with amazing sound design considering the tech available) on Atari 800.
Defender (best home version ever) and Elite on BBC Micro.
Uridium on C64. First game at home that made me feel like it was an actual arcade machine.
Marble Madness and Turrican 1 and 2, pinball Dreams/Fantasies and Super Stardust on Commodore Amiga.
Ocarina of Time, Mario 64(the original 3d platformer), Goldeneye (groundbreaking FPS 4 player greatness),Starfox and Banjo & Kazooie 1 and 2 on N64.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Metroid Prime (incredible sense of place,isolation and sound design) and Echoes, Pikimin 1 and 2, Timesplitters 2(multi-player chase and shoot even better than Goldeneye with a great sense of humour too) and LoZ: Twilight Princess on Gamecube.
Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and LoZ Skyward Sword on Wii.
Prince of Persia (oh that free flowing smooth loping hand to hand motion!), Super Stardust HD (the point where arcade machines bowed to home machines for me) and the beautifully surreal Flower on PS3.
Bayonetta 1 and 2, Pikmin 3 and LoZ Breath of the Wild on WiiU.
Metroid Dread, Mario Odyssey and Ori 1 and 2 on Nintendo Switch.

All of those have made me go Wow! at one point or another.
 
I've got quite a few - Starfox and Super Mario Kart on the SNES, 4 player split screen Goldeneye, Gran Turismo on PS1 - my Grandad asking what channel the racing was on! Playing Killzone 3 in 3D....oh and if I go way back I had a game called Vindaloo on the Acorn Electron..the wow factor was the plot...you've eaten a very hot curry and have to make it to the toilet 🤣
 
I've got quite a few - Starfox and Super Mario Kart on the SNES, 4 player split screen Goldeneye, Gran Turismo on PS1 - my Grandad asking what channel the racing was on! Playing Killzone 3 in 3D....oh and if I go way back I had a game called Vindaloo on the Acorn Electron..the wow factor was the plot...you've eaten a very hot curry and have to make it to the toilet 🤣
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Some fond memories brought back with a lot of the choices.
Two additional for me were the first encounter with the T-Rex in Tomb Raider - unexpected, incredible and terrifying

And the first time I saw Knight Lore on the Spectrum - never seen anything like it
 
Flashback on Amiga - when compared to my Prince of Persia on B/W display on PC (Hercules graphics card) - it didn't stand a chance....

Another World - for it's amazing animations, and as mentioned before - the intro was something special these days - i could watch it over and over again and it always felt special...

First Unreal on PC - my friend was running one of early vga accelerators (3dFX i think) and there's a bit early in the game when a long straight corridor is blocked and little lamps at the floor start to shut down, making it darker and darker - and then some monsters jump out - absolutely stunning at the time :)

Little Big Adventure - one of the first games i've managed to do stuff in without any guides and with very little english language at my disposal...

Cheers
f.
 
I don't think anything will ever top Half-Life for me, and Half-Life 2, they raised the bar so much back in the day with so many "wow" moments all the way through.
 
Seeing the animation of the guy running in Impossible Mission on the C64 in our local computer shop. I had the Spectrum 48k at the time and it made me desperate to upgrade. Hated the game when i finally played it but was always impressed by the somersaulting guy.

Seeing Dragons Lair on arcade in the service station also blew me away but again the game was a bit of a disappointment.

Playing Red Dead Redemption on the PS4 was a much more recent wow moment.
 

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