What was your greatest moment as a gamer

[Aspgren]

Note: This is a spoiler for FFVI

Back when I was a kid I would play final fantasy 6. Of course I still play it from time to time but back then it was me and my older brother. Each with his own save file.

My brother would hog the nintendo most of the time and would be very thorough as he went through the world. He drew charts and lists (a hobby he keeps to this day) to get as much juice as possible out of his characters. He thus maximised the character "Shadow" who was a shared favourite of ours.

It made him quite upset when he had to leave Shadow behind in the sky. Just before the world came crumbling to pieces... and when I later reached that place I stubbornly stood behind and waited for Shadow to arrive. My brother was taunting me how I was going to get -EVERYONE- killed and that he was much further ahead in the game than me.
He did this with sadistic glee.. but it quickly disappeared as Shadow came running in the final seconds and the entire party made a clean get-away.

The result was that he restarted his game and while his maxed-out characters eventually would fly through the later part of the game like a breeze .. and my merry band would be set back every step of the way and end every boss fight on the brink of death and game over .. I beat the game before he did.
It is my personal videogame equivalent of the turtle and hare story.

[Xian042]

I had a gaming Zen moment with Sonic 1. I borrowed the game from a friend of a friend the week it first came out. I got a phone call from the friend saying the friend of a friends mom was pissed he lent the game out to a friend of a friend and demanded he get it back. He would be by that evening to pick it up. So I had a few hours left with this game that was completely blowing me away. I decided to try and beat it with all the emeralds before my time was up. I focused, got comfortable, and had a near perfect run with that game, minimal deaths and grabbed all the emeralds with a few levels to spare. Those bonus stages were tricky, when I play them now I wonder how I did it.

Also as far as drawing a crowd goes. I used to get some bystanders when I'd start a 2-player game of Gunblade NY and use one gun in each hand. Its quite a satisfying feeling, try it with that or LA Machineguns if you get a chance.

[jb143]

Hmmm, first thing that comes to mind...after not touching SMB1 in years, a friend bet me that I couldn't beat it on my first try. I beat it in 8 minutes.

[dnehthend]

I had been playing super mario bros since about the age of 5.. I didn't beat it until I was 15, that was pretty momentous

[o2william]

This thread has made me remember a lengthy thread I posted here over 6 years ago(!), where I shared stories about several different games from my past. Holy cats, I'm old!

Entry #17 was for the NES ports of Section Z and Gauntlet, which my friend Warren and I completed on the same weekend, after previously considering both unbeatable. It was my most triumphant gaming moment. But rather than writing the story again, I'll just link to it.

[Manga4life]

Some of my best moments as a gamer were ones shared with friends through playing 2-player games on the NES and SNES way back in the day. The reason I say that is because of the fun memories that were created from sharing that gaming experience with someone, you don't often find that anymore with current games or at least not as much as with games of yesteryear. Playing and beating games like TMNT II, Contra, Double Dragon, Rampage, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and other fun 2-player titles will always be memories that I will never forget, and as a gamer I couldn't ask for anything more.

[swlovinist]

So many to choose from, I will pick a couple. Recently, a good friend of mine and myself beat Ghouls and Ghosts Twice on the Sega Genesis. It took us a couple of hours, but it was fun to play though a game that is rarely seen at its true ending.

Also, about 6 years ago, I played though Magician Lord with some of my friends on my Neo Geo AES. The ending is extremely brutal, and it was a very savory moment to see the ending of that game.

[Nirvana]

Taking second place in a pretty big Street Fighter IV tournament in Chicago 2 years ago. It was the best I've ever played. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go to other tournaments due to my work schedule. I would love to top this achievement.

[Collector_Gaming]

since i love love great stories that pull you in and mess with you almost on a emotional level.

I think my greatest gamer moments would be Beating

Both Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
and Beating Half Life 2.

You get attached to characters and you lose them just like that and theres not a damn thing you can do about it.

[slapdash]

One of the more stupid ones... A friend got Mortal Kombat on Sega CD and we were playing it. One match I had Sonya Blade, and came out kicking -- and kept kicking. I literally just hit the high kick 4 or 5 times and dropped him without taking any damage myself. I don't know if I'd EVER seen him that pissed off before. :-)

[bb_hood]

Beating Dynamite Headdy without continuing, the last boss is just a nightmare...

Also beating Beyond Zork with minimal (very minimal) use of the hint book, the game is sooo difficult. Played this for the first time in grade school, finally beat it when I was in college. It was very rewarding to finally get that coconut back!

[Leo_A]

I belonged to a big group that sanctioned league races in the old Papyrus developed NASCAR games. One year, probably back in 2003, they started to do the occasional full length race.

That required lots of planning on the part of the league, qualifying competitions (We had far more than just 42 members, the limit for a single race), people would paint custom racecars for the special events, and the drivers had to be able to accomodate a 4-5 hour length of time on the morning of raceday to do some final practicing, qualifying to detirmine where you were going to actually start in the race, and the race itself.

That first year, we ran a full 400 mile race under the lights at Daytona, a full 400 lap (300 mile) race at Richmond, and a full 500 mile race at Talladega.

I walked away with the victory in all three events. When I finally stopped racing several years ago, I had won an even 150 races in NASCAR Racing 4/2002/2003 in league environments (Usually around 40% of the length of the real thing), something like 10 league championships (I'd have to check), and countless numbers of random pickup races on public servers that I never bothered to track (I'd say it's fair to say that the number is somewhere around 500). And a rough estimate places me at around 750,000 miles ran.

[Black_Tiger]

Playing as Mouse Man in Dragon's Curse, bypassing all other forms and beating Tiger Man's boss to jump straight into bird man.

With only the Shadow Cat form in Shape Shifter, morph jumping my way into the final area and finishing the game.

[danny_galaga]

The first time I clocked Super Mario Land on Gameboy. I think I was in a laundromat. And the next biggest moment was when I clocked it more than once (",)

Not sure I've ever clocked any other game...

[Coptur]

beating the super monkey ball games maybe

[Fuseki]

Walking into Someplace Else arcade and seeing the rows of Galaga and Ms Pac-Man cocktails the week that they came out. A sight and feeling I'll never forget.

Runner up is playing Tempest for the first time at the same arcade...