Your Crowning Moments of Awesome in Videogames

Hello Everyone

I am sure we all have had it, we are playing a videogame and suddenly something happens which just clicks with you. A boss battle, a reveal, an entire dungeon or quest, whatever it is we find our pulse rising steadily and we are totally absorbed in what is going on on the screen and once the moment passes we are bathed in sweat and smiling. It is the kind of moments which make videogames truly worth playing, at least for me, so feel free to share your Crowning Moments of Awesome right here.

I have a few, but i have cut it down to my 3 greatest:

1: World of Wacraft: Burning Crusade.

This one happened near the end of Burning crusade. I was an active raider and the guild I was in had reached Illidan, the final boss of Black Temple. We had struggled with him for about a month, but things were clicking into place and we knew we would have him soon.

So we engage and things go perfectly. We get through his different phases with no casualties and he is steadily dropping...until he has about 10% hp left. Suddenly the Tank takes a few unmitigated hits in a row and drops.

Panic ensues on our voice chat even as Illidan turn to me as i was second on the threat meter. I was a Rogue at this point with over 60% chance of dodging any attack coming my way. This makes me survive the first blow from Illidan and I hit Evasion, boosting my chance to dodge above 100% for 15 seconds. I now have Illidan and shout over the voice chat for everyone to continue damaging him.

Time seems to slow, each second feels like ten as my hearts beats loudly in my chest. Evasion hits the last 2 seconds and I pop Preparation finishing the cooldown on Evasion and activating it again. Illidan's Hp is dropping, though not fast enough and I ask for someone to ping a trap I can draw him into. I succeed just as Evasion runs out and we manage to kill him as he is stunned by the trap.

Immediately the voice chat exploded in celebration and I sat back with a wicked smile as I knew I had made it possible.

2: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

I usually enjoy smaller faster bosses over towering behemoths in games, especially if the boss is similar to yourself (though not necessarily a mirror) There is just this feel of a duel to such battles.

Spoiler:

3: Okami

Another final boss, though this time it was not the intensity of the boss which caused my heart to beat faster, but the scenes halfway through.

Spoiler:

Now this battle is epic enough on its own, but the music which comes on pushed it into Epicness. It truly is the Rising Sun

And that was mine, so now it is your turn. What events of gaming has made grabbed you attention so completely that nothing else but what was going on on screen mattered to you?

Easily one of my absolute Crowning Moments of Awesome was Mass Effect 2: The Suicide Mission. I really don't need to say anything else.

Another one would have to be the trench run at the end of Halo 4. The combination of great music, brilliant gameplay, and

Spoiler:

add up to one of the best Halo sequences ever, IMHO.

And just recently I finished Dead Space 2 again, and I was reminded of just how awesome the whole final sequence is.

Spoiler:

It's really one of my favorite game endings ever, because it never let's up, and once you succeed, you really feel like you've earned your victory.

Oh, and before I forget, I should add at least one from Assassin's Creed II. Again, this is a final mission, but I really feel like these are what sticks with me most. Those finales that REALLY grab you by the proverbial groin and never let you go until the end. Anyway, the mission itself is the final memory sequence of the game, and it involves

Spoiler:

It really is as awesome as it sounds.

Anyway, there are MANY others, ones that aren't endings or final sequences, but these are the ones that stick out.

The final chapters of the first Witcher game present some fantastic battles and an intriguing plot twist that I think has some ME parallels. Whopping great big spoilers the size of a planet to follow.

Spoiler:

The chopper crash in Deus Ex: HR is also properly epic, with a difficult decision to make.

There's leaving the vault for the very first time in Fallout 3 and seeing the Wasteland stretch around you as far as the eye can see (or the video card can render).

Shepard emerging from the rubble after fighting Saren in ME1... and after choosing a councillor, we get M4 Part II as the credits roll.

The Battle of Ostagar in Dragon Age: Origins...

On a small scale, duoing silver in ME3 with MaximisedAction with both of us running Geth Juggernauts was hilarious - at one point we were fighting hand-to-hand with 2 brutes and 2 banshees, not to mention various mooks, and they barely managed to scratch our shiny paintwork.

Oh yeah the Chopper Crash of Deux Ex: HR.

Spoiler:

Back in college we'd have a small LAN party every now and then. Quake III was the main attraction (people walked there in the snow, uphill both ways) and we'd run capture the flag 4 vs. 4. We decided to run one match against the AI on nightmare which basically meant it would hit you between the eyes from a half a mile with that rail gun.

So we get up and running, and before long we're getting our tails kicked hard. The AI just needs 2 more captures to win at this point, and we finally start pushing back. The shouting between rooms picks up (we're usually separated by teams), and the excitement builds. It peaks as we tie them up with just one capture each to go. I'm running defense with a few other guys when a couple bots run in, smoke us all, and make off with the flag. Just then the offense starts yelling that they've got the enemy flag and are running back. "Hold on to our flag", they yell to us at the same time we're screaming at them that we just lost it.
I respawn, grab a rail on the way out the door and RUN for the enemy base. I see them up ahead, but I can never get a clear shot at the flag carrier.

Then our carrier goes down. The bots have recovered their flag. I know this, not only because the announcer tells us all, but also because I see it appear as the pedestal chamber enters my view. Their flag carrier is just a few seconds away from victory. I get one shot. It connects and our flag drops within arm's reach of their pedestal. I don't have to tell anyone what just happened because the game summed it up for me perfectly as the announcer proclaims "HOLY SHIT".

Cheers erupted, laughing ensued, and we went on to win the match. We still talk about that one even 10 years later.

It's not really one of my favorite moments in videogames, but it was probably my favorite moment playing a videogame with other people.

I refuse to constrain this merely to videogames; so I have a few I still talk about.

1. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic; great game. The physics are awesome; you can kick enemies off cliffs, throw them onto spikes, set them on fire, kick out supports and drop barrels on them, slash ropes and hit them with falling chandeliers, all sorts of stuff.

One enemy I was fighting was an Ogre; it was huge, mostly constrained to one area, and for the most part it would have taken me the better part of two hours trying to kill this thing with hit and run tactics; I charge in to start, and notice one of the statues has a set of supports that I can kick out...

I wait for the right moment, do so, and the statue comes crashing down, right onto the ogre's head, killing him instantly.

2. Just the other day; Pathfinder game, I'm playing the party's wizard; a very Rastlin fellow, in concept if not in temperament; 8 Constitution, very wimpy and physically unimposing, attractive, relatively strong, but a stiff breeze could take him out since he's so sickly.

I get sick of being called a weakling, since that's a thing for this guy; he hates being called one. What does he do? Goes down into a bar filled with brawlers, and gets into a fight with one, challenging to the room basically with a "Who wants a piece of me" kind of thing.

Big, BURLY, half-orc nearly twice my size and still in his armor accepts. He takes off his gauntlets, I promise not to use magic; he nearly takes me out in two hits. I can barely do a thing to him.

Then; he makes a big swing at me, intending to knock me cold. His hand slams into the collumn. He breaks every bone in his left hand. I start exploiting his weakness, grabbing his hand, pulling his wrist toward me and then, left not knowing what to do; turn to the party Monk for help, asking "Ok, now I got him; what do I do with him?" In the end, I manage to win, barely, the half-orc eventually gets so enraged that he charges into the bar and knocks himself silly. I get to walk away covered in bruises and seriously impressed a bar full of testosterone junkies who would have called Conan even-keeled.

3. Playing Warhammer 40k, my first time ever; a tiny, little 500 or so point affair; I bring my Space Marines; 1 tactical squad, my captain, filling in as Sicarius, some terminators and a dreadnought, against a Zoanthrope, Hormagaunts out the wazoo and a big, ol tervigon.

Most of my army is dead in the first turn; blasted into luncheon meat. Having no other recourse, I decide I may as well die with honor and charge my captain into the midst of the enemy; he crawls out two turns later on top of a pile of 'gaunts. He had single-handedly wiped out the enemy squad; then, he notices the Tervigon nearby; I charge forward and use an ability Sicarius has to insta-kill enemies on a lucky shot.

I use it; the tervigon goes down; along with half the enemy army. I was just about to go about chopping up the Zoanthrope too when the game had to end.

Unlike the guys who play the game for merely the minis aspect; that is precisely why Warhammer 40k is cool, when it is cool, of course.