Afroken

Half-Life (PC)

First level, in the test chamber, everything starts to go wrong, then the whole room starts to explode. Then, silence and blackouts… When I first saw this, I completely froze and felt unable to do anything for a few seconds – the only time this has ever happened to me in a game.

Doom (PC)

The very first encounter with the Barons of Hell. The sound of their bellow had the seat of my pants flapping. Panicked, and ran into one of the little 'huts' that they come out of - possibly the worst thing I could have done. I was minced in seconds.

Half-Life. Push cart into chamber. What could possibly go wrong?

Moobaa

Quake (PC)

2am on a Sunday morning. Headphones on to keep from waking up the neighbours. Hearing the murmur of Knights around the corner, discussing how they're going to perform your circumcision. The faint waft of a shambler in the distance. A quick check of the ammo collection showing nowt but a shotgun. Creep around the corner… and then your pants are choc-a-bloc with cack as you're set upon by a volley of ogre-flung grenades, as the knights sit back and have a giggle before skewering you skillfully. Sitting back in the darkness, looking at the screen indicating your violent and complicit death. Waiting for the heart palpitations to die down. Wondering whether this is really "fun". And then hitting the ‘Quickload’ key…

Jamesac

Ico (PS2)

That bit when Yorda finally shakes off her passivity to try to save your life. My combination reaction of: "Aaawww!" and "WooHoo!"… before it all goes horribly wrong. It's a short scene, but I was emotionally exhausted afterwards.

Ico. “You wanna get yourself outside, son. Stuck in this room, all the time…”

Stone

Decathlete (STV)

It’s a shit, shit game. But I was playing it with a friend when we noticed that the character with a mushroom-shaped afro has a victory dance that makes him look simultaneously double-jointed and constipated. We cried laughing. Ironically, my friend wet himself.

Meatpuppet

Alien (Spectrum 48k)

2D monochrome genius. You’re down in the engine rooms, you’ve scuttled the Nostromo, the clock is ticking and that stupid cat is nowhere to be seen. “Here, Kitty Kitty!!”… The only sounds to be heard are your rapidly beating heart, and the distant sound of airlocks opening as the Alien relentlessly hunts you down…

Sir_LANs-a-lot

Unreal (PC)

The bit where you walk down a corridor to collect something, throw a switch and start making your way back, only to find your passage blocked and one by one, the lights along the corridor going out. And then a baddie gets released behind you...

Goldfish

Star Wars ( Arcade)

The first time I blew up the Death Star in a sit down machine. It felt like my eyes would implode, as the music in the background built to a tingling crescendo... Then, we were off again...

Star Wars. “Wooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgggghh!”

Biggestjim

Pitstop II (C64)

At the start, pushing each other directly into the pits, wasting valuable seconds. And the cramps, those cramps! My hands, I can’t take any more! Woooh! - my brother ran out of fuel facing the finish line! Duh! – I was stupid enough to bump into him, pushing him over, first.

Decathlon (C64)

Hot summer. Decathlon. Last challenge: the infamous 1500 meters. The concentration, the frantic waggling, sweating all over the place, the joystick-destroying finale, falling over backwards from my chair… *Plok!* Disconnected joystick. The shame, the blisters, the FUN!

Sty

Rescue On Fractalus (C64)

The moment when you meet your first Jaggi face to face. From that point on my heart beat raced whenever I landed to pick up a pilot. I didn’t even want to think about accidentally letting a Jaggi into my ship...

Rowan

Doom (PC)

The false exit was just special. I think it was in Episode 3 somewhere. You ran up to complete the level only to have all the walls open like doors to the sound of hundreds of enemies. Nearly broke my finger trying to run away.

Doom. Probably a good idea to shoot those pink things.

Thalamus

Crash Bandicoot (PS1)

I arrived in a new level, but this time Crash was walking towards the camera. Then, I spied the huge boulder just behind him. I knew what was coming. Anxious and palms sweaty, I pegged it and the boulder gave chase. Fuckin' glorious.

Half-Life (PC)

Nothing compares to the moment the Marines are sent in to clear up the mess. You hear the crackle of their radios and the sound of the choppers, and moments later they're descending on ropes down the lift-shaft towards you. Panic. Carnage. Class.

Ratchet & Clank (PS2)

Hard to ignore the genius that is the Robot Disguise. You slip on a cardboard robot suit and clank your way through the factory, picking up strange looks and waves from the dumb robots. One of the most fantastically funny slapstick videogame moments ever.

Creatures (C64)

The moment of uber-violence on torture chamber #2, as the Acme Jack ascends and the innocent-looking green blob wanders off, only to arrive back with a chainsaw. After carefully slicing into your poor chum, he suddenly goes psycho. Well worth losing a life to see.

Crash Bandicoot. And The Crusty Malteser Of Doom.

Snakey

Metal Gear Solid (PS1)

You're crawling in caves and can’t see anything, your scanner makes that ‘WHOOP!’ sound to alert you to wolves. You dispose of them. Then, after fifty seconds of crawling around in silence… ‘WHOOP!’ – leading to a crap-in-pants situation. But, in classic horror film style, it turns out to be just a friendly dog.

Resident Evil 2 (PS1)

After much zombie-killing and with zero ammo, you make your way to the library balcony. Music fades and all you can hear is your own echoing footsteps. Sooo quiet. Must… find… ammo. *CRAAAASH!* The floor gives way. Your on-screen persona is unharmed – but you just had a heart attack.

PaulEMoz

Paradroid (C64)

The transfer game can be a mixture of luck and skill. Being pummelled down to a 001 Droid (the weakest) and blindly stumbling into – and winning – a transfer with the 999 (most powerful) is the ultimate C64 power trip. You only know how good it feels if you've done it.

Tomb Raider (Saturn)

The original was like nothing seen before. On the second level after the waterfall, I'd just managed to kill a pack of velociraptors and the ground started to shake. When the T-Rex lumbered round the corner, I dropped my joypad in sheer fright, and Lara was eaten. Brilliant.

Tomb Raider. Well-Appointed Bint With Torch versus King Of Monsters.

Skip

Alien v Predator (Jaguar)

Borrowed a friend's Jag and played AvP all night. Thought I was good and couldn't get scared. Walked into a new room. Alien screams, I jump. Predator whispers and decloaks. I jump more. Compose myself and kill them. Walk out of the room and facehugger jumps on me. I really screamed.

Tempest 2000 (Jaguar)

Bought a Jag but had to run a nightclub gig that night. Got home a bit inebriated. Sat on my arse to play a bit of T2K. Up till then, the game hadn't thrilled me. I played. And played. Got up to the mid-twenties levels. My eyes burned and my thumbs were raw by the time the sun came up.

Halo (Xbox)

Boring training mission. Ho hum… Shit. Hang on, stuff's exploding. Voices are yelling. I'm in the middle of a firefight with no weapons. What the hell do I do? Where do I go? What are these aliens? Best first level of a game, EVER.

Halo. “Sorry. It’s my first day. Where do I find the orientation seminar?”

Ahchay

Planetfall (PC)

It’s all about Floyd, your robot sidekick. You spend most of the game sending him off on dangerous side-quests until, towards the end, he volunteers for a suicide mission… No game since has produced an emotional reaction like it. I suffered real trauma over that robot.

Day Of The Tentacle (PC)

Here’s why videogames are great. Midway through playing Day Of The Tentacle for the first time, I had to try and explain to my wife exactly what I was doing (“I've got to get the wooden teeth from George Washington in the past, in order to give them to Laverne in the future, so that Bernard, in the present, can...”) and I had this sudden realisation that the story I was so deeply engrossed in was next to impossible to tell in any other medium.

Space Invaders ( Arcade)

The sounds. The Sssssh-bnk firing noise, especially, announcing that something new, and impossibly exciting, was in the world.

f0zz

Duke Nukem 3D (PC)

"Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride!". Duke hits the gaming g-spot.

Doom may have set the standard, but Duke took that standard, wrought it into an origami orifice and rogered it senseless, whilst chewing the ubiquitous Havana, and ripping some hapless alien "a new one.

The Duke encouraged me to throw out Leisure Suit Larry (386 with 8mb RAM) and plump for a testosterone-fuelled Pentium I (133 with a TNT Riva 2). From the moment I saw the looping demo in the shop it was: "Sold! To the dribbling autistic boy who hasn't moved from the screen in two hours."

Duke Nukem 3d was awash with coffee-down-the-nose moments. From the simple pleasure of the pee-able toilet (“Ahh, much better!”) to the in-your-face response from a tassel-nippled go-go girl to the proffered greenback (“Shake it, baby!”). It was gag-frag digital shag, leaving you breathless, and needing more. The Duke's laconic drawl, exquisite level design, the tips, the traps, the miniscule cracks – to which the detonation of a timely RPG shell could open up a whole new hornet’s nest.

And in those later levels, my ultimate gaming moment… Duke promises the warhead-laden boss: “I’m gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck!”

Much later, as the megalithic baddie dutifully keels over from an overdose of pipe-bombs, the Duke makes good on his promise, squatting down with his New York Times and fucking casually whistling – like its neck-shitting day every day. The word emblazons itself across my brain even as I choke on a cappuccino: genius.

Duke Nukem 3D. The final boss – about to be killed and used as a lavatory.

Gorecki

Halo (Xbox)

Out the warthog, hit the ground running, through the barriers, seconds on the clock, then Elites, Flood, Explosions. Shit! Pause. Erm. Cortana - "We have to get aboard, NOW!". Aaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhh! Run, fuuuuucckiiiiinnnnnggggg ruuuuuuunnn! Full pelt, stop for nothing, shotgun right, left, taking fire, two bars left, two seconds left… Aaaaannnnnd, cut-scene.

Fflip

Balance of Power (Amiga)

Gee, this game looks too complicated. I'm just going to start a war... ‘Click Here To Question USSR Foreign Policy’. Heh heh... They're not backing down, eh? 'Challenge' then – no – 'Threaten'… Hee hee, ya darned Rooskies. 'DefCon 3' - ooh, it's realistic, it's like the movies, next must be 'DefCon 1'. This game is fun…

"You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure." Oops.

Ely

Track & Field ( Arcade)

It started innocently enough. Four players up for a laugh. Became three after the dreaded Hammer. Then for nintety minutes, three of us laughed, mocked, tried to psyche each other out. Finally, the three became two after one got the yips on the Long Jump. In the end the two just called it a day, otherwise we might still be there now. Fantastic.

Track & Field. Is THIS ‘cool’?

GeeZa

Elite (BBC Micro)

After years of travelling the galaxy, trading animals and machinery from system to system, there comes a point when the stark blackness of space no longer holds any interest. I can waste Krait-equipped pirates in a matter of nano-seconds, and it's been three months since I survived that Thargoid attack... So, a week ago, launching from the Space Station back at Lave, strictly routine, I stop the ship, turn her around to face the docking hold, and hold down the fire button. I must have wasted over 30 Police Vipers that day, my life out here has changed forever.

Mayhem

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64)

It’s not in my nature to get over-emotional, least of all over videogames. And yet, for whatever reason, when Link is taking his first steps into Hyrule Field, and he has to say goodbye to Saria... You know something is working when you feel that pang inside.

Rev. Stuart Campbell

Bangai-o (Dreamcast)

The first time you detonate a maximum-power special attack. Totally surrounded by enemies and bullets, staring certain death in the face, then a casual press of a button, the screen whites out with a ‘Whump!’, and FOUR-HUNDRED lethal missiles with individual vapour trails are unleashed into the midst of your tormentors and mayhem reigns. Actually, screw "the first time". That one never gets old.

Hudson Hawk (Amiga)

Leaving the controls alone. Our hero taps his foot. He puts his hands in his pocket. He glances nervously at the sky. He taps his foot again. He glances nervously at the sky again. He's crushed by a falling piano. The only way it could be better would be if the sprite actually looked like Bruce Willis, but you can pretend.

Super Probotector (SNES)

If you live a million videogame lives, you will never do ANYTHING cooler than defeating the boss while leaping across the sky using the missiles he's firing at you as platforms.

Bangai-O. Blast the bastards.

MysteryMan

Madden 2002 (GC)

It's fourth down and twenty-seven. Nineteen seconds to go. Two points down. Been throwing like Stephen Hawking all game. Shotgun. Testaverde to Andre Reed... OH, FUCK! He caught it. Run, you bitch. RUN, RUN… CUNT! Tackled on the two-yard line. Hit the start button QUICK. Time Out, Jets. YES. Two seconds to go. Kicker comes out. Field goal attempt… IS GOOD! Pulse 160. Blood Pressure - off the scale. Joy rating - over the moon.

Barry_X

Tomb Raider (PS1)

You're playing the first level and have bounded past the darts and the left turning where Lara purposfully turns her head in guidance - but you walk on for a bit, instead. Just up ahead is a protrusion from the ground which you use to do a back somersault and reach the first secret area, thereby forcing the game engine to play that magical ‘trinkling’ sound for the first time. It doesn’t sound like much, but it mad the hairs on the back of my neck spring up the first time it happened.

Sickboy

Half-Life (PC)

After surviving a frantic, duck-and-dive face-off with those elite ninja uber-bitches, I sauntered into a side-room expecting a nice hit of health and ammo before the next chapter… Clunk. Total blackness. Fade back in to side-on first-person shot of a helpless Gordon being dragged over to the waste-crusher by a couple of bantering squaddies. Cruel and quite brilliant.

Animal Crossing (GC)

Got fleeced of a big chunk of my hard-earned by some motormouth squirrel. “Fuck that…”, I thought, and hit the ‘Reset’ button. Back to my previously saved game, and… up pops some surly mole (‘Mr Resetti’), yaddering out a lecture about not cheating. I was gaping and laughing at the same time. For the first time in my life, a videogame was telling me off.

Mr. Resetti. Angry mole bastard-chops.

Jedburgh

Forbidden Forest (PC)

It looked crap, with its great, splodgy graphics boosted by parallax depth. The aiming was hit and miss. Mostly, miss. It punished you between rounds by making you watch your character dance like a robotic spazzed-up Bez. But playing it on a big black-and-white telly in the dark, with night falling in the game and the atmosphere getting ever more oppressive… it scared the crap out of me the first time that Demogorgon appeared out of nowhere and ate my archer in half. Bastard.

Fuseball

Soul Blazer (SNES)

I'd battled to the top of Magridd Castle and finally rescued Dr. Leo. Unfortunately, rather than saying: "Cheers" and hopping into the waiting airship with me, he gave me a long speech about "transmigration of the soul" before committing suicide. I could barely bring myself to finish the game after that.

Stargate ( Arcade)

It was my first couple of goes on Stargate and the last lander on the first wave was making off with a humanoid. I shot him and panicked when the wave didn't end. One frantic reverse later and I caught the falling humanoid just as he hit the ground. The game went mental - flashing and whooping. I shouted: "Shit!" and instinctively flicked the game off at the wall. The arcade owner gave me a bollocking but I was convinced I'd broken the machine.

System Shock 2 (PC)

Approaching a door, it’s eerily quiet and then those fucking ghosts start appearing. Your stomach lurches, the room feels a bit chillier. Then you open that door and those... things... are everywhere. *Shudder*. I vowed I'd never play it again after that.

System Shock 2. That’s tonight’s nightmare all sorted, then. You’re welcome.

Histor

Jedi Outcast (PC)

I’m not easily scared by computer games, but there’s one moment here I find absolutely terrifying: when Kyle Beardy-Bloke goes to disable the shield reactor on the big spaceship, and in walks Admiral Fyyar. It’s not his un-Star Wars-like powered armour, his array of weapons or his impenetrable force-field that makes me afraid. It’s the fact that he looks like Michael Portillo.

Zen-Chan

Super Mario Bros (NES)

Playing Level two, I noticed that there was an opportunity to escape the main game screen and run about near the high scores at the top. While up there, I figured I’d eventually get stuck - until I kept on running past the exit and found the secret warp room! Miyamoto had already thought I might try such a thing, and rewarded me for my sense of adventure. This totally blew my mind when I was about eight years old.

Goldeneye (N64)

In the Facility, the general route of the level took me up to a corridor with a guard who had his back to me. Heart in mouth, I snuck up right behind him, brought up my aiming crosshair and put a single silenced bullet in the back of his head. This was many people's unforgettable introduction to the joy of stealth.

Goldeneye. “Do you like our tight costumes?”

Matt

Ico (PS2)

I’d developed so much of an emotional attachment with the characters that I was genuinely worried about falling off a high ledge, or losing my girl to a shadow monster. I've never felt so involved with a game before or since.

Pushover (ST)

When you think: "How can this puzzle be solvable - I've tried EVERYTHING!", and then, almost by instinct you move this block, that block, run over that switch, push that box and it just… works.

Wipeout: 2097 (PS)

When you've been bouncing off wall after wall and nothing seems to be going right. Eyes are on match-sticks, you should have gone to bed hours ago but that: "I'll get it next time…" feeling is just too much. And then you pull off a perfect lap and it all clicks – into first place.

The one that got away

Maths genius readers will have noticed that we’re one short of the 50 great moments advertised. So what did we miss? Is your own greatest videogame moment one that we’ve not featured? Tells us here. Maybe there is just one-more great moment, maybe it’s a hundred more? We have a feeling that we’re missing a million more, and that every year that goes by in our fantastic pioneering world of games will generate many, many, great videogame moments of its own.

RODENTIA, May 2004.

Something to say? Click to comment!