From 5-13 I had a PS1 and PS2, fantastic games were made. But that one night in maybe 2010, I was maybe 14, had a new computer I’d saved up for and built, I looked at piratebay and saw “Fallout 3” lots of seeders, cool, let’s try it. Must be good if so many are seeding.

It was leagues above anything I’d ever played before. The graphics were stunning! The open world was breathtaking. I get to choose my own dialog!? I don’t think anything will ever manage to compare to the day I played Fallout 3 for the first time.

Probably winter 91 or spring 92. Not sure when, but I saw the ads on TV and I needed to get Metroid II: Return of Samus.

I was 7.

I asked. I begged. And for Christmas or a birthday it came.

Every day when I came home from school, I played. Sometimes I took it with me and played at lunch.

Nobody else played that game. Nobody knew what I was talking about. I took the booklet with me and tried to draw the creatures.

I was stuck at one point. It lasted weeks. Maybe longer. One night before dinner I made some progress. My mother actually let me keep playing until I got to a save point.

Whatever feeling I had at that moment, I’m not sure I’ll find it again, but my expression must have been enough. I made it to the save point.

Eventually I beat the game but I’d look forward to getting home to try and speedrun it 100% And eventually I could consistantly beat it under 3 hours with 100% items. I haven’t had a game since that I’ve enjoyed as much except maybe a few shmups.

I think it’s a pretty easy call for me - World of Warcraft raiding was some of the most fun I’ve ever had gaming. The pinnacle was probably when my guild got Realm First! Fall of the Lich King (25-man heroic). We spent MONTHS grinding away at it - we had the 10-man realm first achievement as well and could clear heroic with a variety of group comps, 2 or 3 groups per week would run on off-raid nights. But for 25-man heroic, we could clear the rest of the raid in 2-3 hours as I recall, so we’d take some swings at him on night 1 and then we’d spend 2 full raid nights on The Lich King - the final boss of Ice Crown Citadel raid and in fact the final boss of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

For SEVEN months we did this. He was tough af. He had a number of abilities where a single person fucks up and either the whole raid wipes immediately, or it rapidly snowballs out of control otherwise. So after a month’s long uphill fight, and with competing guilds just as close as we were, it was an INSANE moment when we got our realm first kill. It was such a ridiculous high, everyone screaming with relief and excitement. The realm second kill happened that same night, too - so we just narrowly managed to earn our server first kill.

We continued with realm firsts in the Cataclsym expansion on Sinestra, Ragnaros, and Deathwing. I got my first and only legendary weapon - Dragonwrath this expansion. And finally the Mists of Pandaria expansion was the beginning of the end for our guild as a lot of long time players like myself started falling off, so after earning #1 for the first raid tier, things slipped from there. I had a ton of personal victories in game too - after earning Dragonwrath, the most esteemed of all was earning the achievement Insane in the Membrane.

And yet - none of those other victories remotely compared to that first kill of the Lich King. It was truly a special moment.

Gaming my consciousness with shrooms and ket.

Accomplishment-wise playing in a few ProAm counterstrike tourneys, beating any of the dark souls/elden ring/Bloodborne was great, beating a couple of the xwing missions felt like an accomplishment too, topping the score board in online shooters like TF2, tribes 2, quake arena etc

Just overall hitting max level in wow and raid level in EverQuest back in the day, and a couple rpgs Chrono trigger, phantasy star 4, pillars of eternity 1/2 for the story and characters. Monster sanctuary ng+ randomizer is a lot of fun too

The first time I beat the final boss of Sekiro. It was a culmination of everything you learned in that game and perfectly paced. Felt like being part of a well choreographed dance and like everything you had gone through to get to this point of the game was paying off.

The first two weeks of Pokemon go were like peace on earth. Everyone was friendly, excited, and walking around outside together, chatting with perfect strangers was actually a blast for once. We shared tips and locations, exchanged numbers, metup after work, cops were largely unmotivated to do anything about it because of how many of us and how wholesome it really was. Honestly best 2 weeks of my life

Being a 90s kid I feel that there were many mind blowing moments seeing the games evolve.

My first one was playing Shining Force 2 on the Sega Genesis with my dad.

Next was gen 1&2 Pokémon, I’m with you.

Next one was probably FF7 on the ps1. Remember having to switch disks while the game was running? 🤯

Next one was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Kinda burnt out on games now. Adulting sucks

edit: The gb

Morrowind. Playing it, modding it, breaking it, trying to fix mods, writing new mods, all of it. Morrowind was so fun, for some time it convinced me that Bethesda might be a competent company

Playing the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time.

Sure the ending was a bit disappointing, but the ride was absolutely phenomenal.

Finishing Ultima IV on my C64. Yep I’m old.

Someone else’s comment about LAN parties jogged my memory. I only ever attended one (big one in a university auditorium), and for the most part, it was kind of meh. Until late in the night, a game of Savage got going, something myself and my friends had never played before. After a few other people hopping in and out of the commander role, I decided to give it a go. Before long, the game just clicked. I had four of my friends at the table around me designated as squad leaders and was barking orders to them as they moved across the map, I beefing them up with spells, poi ting out enemies, etc. We handedly shut down everything the opposing team could offer. It’s the only time that I can recall getting into a real tactical squad-based flow.

I didn’t chase that experience much, though, because nothing recreated the physical space I was in. I went on to play Savage 2, which I loved for a time, but I almost always eschewed the commander role.

Aerial dueling in Starsiege Tribes was a high for me that I will always chase. Any game that offers that freedom of movement + timing of shots always piques my interest. Wall running and leaping as the Alien in AVP 2 did much the same.

Not really a thing I’ve been chasing but I did really enjoy the time I was home sick from work and spent all day playing Super Mario Odyssey back when it first came out. I really felt like I was a kid again and hadn’t felt that before or since.

Middle of the road millennial for age context.

Two that come to mind:

• One that I still remember from high school. It was just a simple Counter Strike match. But it was down to me and one other guy. I switched to knife, turned the corner, there he was, going the other way. He didn’t see me. So I followed him, riiight behind him, around several corners, while chat spectated. Still never noticed. I finally knifed him in the back, chat erupted, I felt like a god even though I sucked at Counter Strike.

• Winning my first Rocket League tournament after years. It really felt like I’d done something that mattered.

the very first Call of Duty and Tribes 2 on PC way back in the early 00s.

I used to be fairly “known” on the old “Planets” websites (PlanetQuake, PlanetTribes, etc) that were hosted via gamespy. I was popular, on a few of their camportals that were invite only and I worked on a couple of the gaming news sites providing art, writing reviews, and doing web dev stuff. I was friends with some very early internet celebs which really just consisted of guys that made webcomics or had their own websites. Friends with Mike and Jerry at Penny-Arcade, etc.

So anyways about once a week we’d all get together, Jerry from PA, myself, couple of gamespy guys, and a few other close mutual online friends and we’d play CoD, Tribes 2, etc. We started playing CoD fairly frequently. One guy on our team, Porkfry, had a thing about not playing as the Nazi’s so if we got into a game that put is on the Nazi side we’d always have to leave and find another server until we were Americans.

It was funny, we joked about it. just one of his many quirks.

Now on one map in CoD there was this german truck that had a raised flatbed. there was NO WAY to normally get in it but Porkfry had figured out that if you jumped at the rear of the truck at a certain angle you could get inside, duck down, and you’d essentially be hidden. So we did that. We would hide in the back of this truck and while the enemy team was frantically searching for us we would stop crouching and just blast them when they got nearby. We’d do this constantly and just howl with laughter over vent or teamspeak or whatever we were using. That’s what we did, just silly stuff like that. Or we’d be playing Tribes 2 and one of us would act like a disgruntled bus driver when flying the troop transport. We’d just do dumb shit in the games we’d play to keep us all entertained and make each other laugh.

I really miss those pure early internet days.