I remember a few from various stages of my life (born 1984).
Seeing the demo footage of Sonic 2 in Woolworths and thinking the leaves falling down in Aquatic Ruin zone was so cool and advanced.
The original Sega arcade of Virtua Racing with the moving cars completely blew me away.
I remember my uncle loading up Cannon Fodder on his Amiga, and a REAL song with REAL music came out, along with REAL photos. I was amazed haha.
A few years on I remember a PlayStation demo disc having promo footage of the first Gran Turismo and it looked so real to me, I watched it over and over. The first Driver on PS1 looked absolutely amazing to me also.
3 of them:
-
watching an Amiga 500 load from disk having only seen 8bit games on tape. Everything that machine did at the time was like magic.
-
watching the castle fly through intro for Unreal on PC when the first 3D accelerators appeared. Everything changed after that.
-
experiencing the shark diving demo on PlayStation VR. And also how nothing changed after that! xD
And to have been able to experience that evolution from space invaders to cyberpunk in a single life time has been a privilege.
We’re the only generation that grew up alongside video games. We watched them grow up into what they are today, and our kids don’t even know of a world without them.
I don’t know what “Age” we’re in right now, but I think 1970-2024+ should be referred to as the Video Game Age.
I feel the same way about it being a privilege. I missed the earliest part… but even to have lived through the NES and Master System era through to today has been amazing.
Games will continue getting ever more impressive, but nobody again will witness the kind of seismic leaps in what games could accomplish that people saw between the 70s and 2000s.
-
For me it was the jump to 3D in the 32 bit era. We already had some games in 3D prior to that, but with the arrival of Playstation and Saturn the landscape changed forever.
For me it was the original Resident Evil on the Playstation.
It was the first time I saw live-action digitized full-motion video on a gaming system. I know there were a lot of FMV (Full Motion Video) games in that era on other systems, but I didn’t own those other systems and I didn’t know anybody who did. So, it was all new to me once I played a Playstation.
Resident Evil was also the first time a video game had ever given me a jump scare. Early in the game a zombie doberman bursts through a window unexpectedly and I was hooked! I loved introducing my friends to the game, specifically so I could see their reaction when the dog shows up. So much fun.
Honestly seeing and hearing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo was kind of wow, too. The graphics boost compared to the 8-bit systems I was used to was incredible. And the sound quality compared to the other 16-bit systems I’d played (Genesis and TG-16) was a leap above. The experience probably pales in comparison to modern games, but back then there was wow factor to it.
To young me, Street Fighter 2 Turbo was pretty wow as well. It was “literally” the same as the arcade version to child me. I could not believe the home version was so close to the real thing, because prior generations of game systems like the NES couldn’t come close to that level of performance.
Yeah, playing Resident Evil for the first time was something incredibly atmospheric and special. I rented it from Blockbuster and knew straight away I had to buy it.
Before it released my friend and I used to speed-run the Resident Evil 2 demo which let you play as far as you could get into the full game, but with an 8 minute time limit.
I come from the ZX 81, Spectrum, C64 and Amiga days….I made a lot of music on C64 and Amiga, but for gaming?
Borderlands 2 with 3 friends battling Vermivorous the Invincible, everyone on life support and hanging on to their teeth and after a long struggle defeating it. Once in a lifetime.
Actually making it to level -1 in SMB after finding out how to do it from the TV show Video Game Power. I needed my NES Advantage to do it reliably, but it blew my mind to learn it was legit.
The first time I saw gameplay footage of the original Doom, I thought it looked almost photorealistic. I must’ve been like 6 or 7 at the time.
When you could walk up to the strippers in Duke Nukem 3D and they would flash their titties at you.
Shake it baby!
Starfox 64. I played it at Toys R Us…oh, uh, kids Toys R Us was a toy store that had been around for like 80 years. And everybody knew it was never going to close, because there was always going to be more kids…and then it closed.
Anyways, they had a demo unit you could play. It reset every 10 minutes. Then Mario would pop up and say “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING NINTENDO 64, WHO’S NEXT???”
And like a stupid teenager, I yelled “I AM!!!” as if it were voice activated. It wasn’t. I was just a dumb teenager telling at a CRT tv.
One time I got so invested in it, that I didn’t even notice a kid was behind me for like 20 minutes. And eventually he said “Excuse me…you went 3 times in a row. Can I try please?”
Man I felt like an ass. He probably felt like I was bullying him out of playing. I was twice his age, twice his size, and even compared to other kids my own age I was always a kid who was at the top of the food chain. I genuinely didn’t see him, and thought I was alone. I let him play all the turns until his family made him leave.
But those visuals…THE RUMBLE PACK!!! OH MY GOD!!! THE CONTROLLER SHAKES WHEN YOUR SHIP GETS DAMAGED!!! And it had 3D space ship flying and voice acting, and oh my god…
It was all very overwelming. I’m not saying Mario 64 is a bad game. I loved it. But Starfox 64 was the game that made me buy a game for a console I didn’t even own. I was THAT sure that I’d have to have an N64 one day…that day was like 6 months later.
Stepping out of the sewers in Oblivion for the first time. Nothing has really captured that feeling since.
Yes! That is a true masterpiece that at the time set a new standard.
deleted by creator
Biggest for me would be going online with the Dreamcast. At home I was online with the DC before we had a PC so used it quite a lot.
I probably spent to much time on Dreamarena chat rooms and playing PSO with randoms.
Final Fantasy X blew my mind in pretty much every way possible. Never had I seen such amazing graphics, heard such great video game music, been immersed in such a gripping story in a game.
Honestly I think I may have been chasing that high ever since.
I came here to say the same thing, first game I played with full voice acting. I was blown away, and the graphics compared to everything else to that point we’re outstanding. Nothing has topped FFX.
Pitfall on Atari 2600
Becaise I’m old, I guess. Pacman, too, but pitfall seemed more advanced.
EverQuest, playing a 3d online fantasy game with some sim elements with other people, was something very new and felt like the future. Limiting fast travel to specific places and classes made the world feel huge. Stumbling across the weird stuff like giant chess boards or a whole underwater dungeon made it feel unique.
deleted by creator
Everything about Metroid Prime. Incredible soundtrack, gorgeous scenery, interesting wildlife, challenging bosses/puzzles, and so so so much lore. It’s still probably my all time favorite game. Can’t wait for Prime 4 to come out!
