For 90s kids, there’s no need for explanation. For others, well, pokemon was a phenomenon. It was everywhere, on TV, in magazines, toys, stickers. You could trade pokemon at the school excursion on the bus.
You felt alive in this world, pokemon gen 1-2 were the pinnacle of pokemon for me. And in gen2, finishing the game, and lo and behold, there’s a whole other region (kanto) waiting for you to explore it. The night cycle in the game blew my mind in ways that I have been chasing ever since.
I know it will never be reached again, but the memory will remain as powerful as it was that evening of the early 00s. What is your greatest gaming high, that you know will never be topped again, and that you have been chasing ever since?
After dragging my long suffering mum around every shop that might possibly still have a copy of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and finally getting what must have been the last one anywhere.
We then have to go and do a whole load of other things all afternoon while I read the manual from back to front about a dozen times in the back of the car, getting more and more excited.
Then we finally got home but I had to help with dinner first and then eat all the while jabbering incessantly about how amazing it was going to be while I’m sure she just rolled her eyes and said “yes dear” and then I was finally allowed to put the N64 on and I then sat glued to it for hours in a state of wonder and amazement.
Truly the best experience I’ve ever had gaming.
I know what you mean about Gold and Silver. Everything you mentioned, plus events that happened on specific days of the week, “mystery gift” functionality via IR, and more stuff I’m forgetting. There were also radio stations you could “listen” to (read text) that made the world feel alive.
Even in gen 1, trading/battling revived link-cable culture, which I’d only ever seen people use for Tetris, years before.
Halo 1 LAN parties
Unreal Tournament LAN parties.
Damn- I wish LAN parties were still a thing. The vibe was unmatched
Also, Halo 3 custom games with full lobbies and super creative customs. Honestly, just Halo 3 in general
Same except Marathon 2
Splinter cell: Pandora Tomorrow.
Spies v Mercenaries, screens were set back to back so you couldn’t peek at the other team. We were rotating around for a while before people settled into their preferred play style and shit got intense.
I miss that game.
Planetside 2.
Was pretty new to the game and just wsndering around as a sniper when a guy in a transport pulled up and told me to get in.
Boarded the transport and drove around for a bit when we crossed a hill that sat above an enemy camp.
I jumped out as he drove on and started scouting the camp from the hill. Felt a bit lonely and asking myself if jumping out here was a good idea at all.
After a while, I chose to shoot and see where it lands to see how high I need to aim to adjust for bullet drop.
Suddenly I hear a loud ‘boom’ and an explosion roughly where I was shooting at. Then another ‘boom’ and another explosion.
Turned around to be surprised by 5 friendly tanks in one line behind me unloading at the enemy camp.
After about 20 more seconds, my hill was swarmed with all kinds of friendly tanks and personell, just blasting away at the camp.
It was as if I went from a lonely scout newb to somehow spearheading the attack, which felt really cool.
I was late to planetside starting in 2018, then a haitus and then playing the shit out of it from 2020-24
Getting a level 80 asp 2 NSO (I’m not insane I’m not insane)
But for me I suck at the game, drift my
pancakedervish over a lib and perfect swing around keeping my Gub trained in him at all timeI’ve been playing it for too long. Varying styles of play is really interesting when combined with the carried map and scale of battle. Not that everything in the game scales well, but what does scale makes it very interesting.
Planetside 2 is incredible for facilitating “greatest gaming high” moments.
I just hopped back in a few weeks ago after probably six or seven years, and it’s still an absolute blast when the population is high enough.
Amazing game. Sad it’s falling off, but glad there are still at least occasionally enough players to enjoy it as it was meant to he enjoyed
The awe and grandeur of Occarina Of Time… at the time.
Disco Elysium is the best literature I’ve ever played.
I still feel like used to live in Skyrim. It was a place where I wanted to be and explore.
TF2/Halo CE multilayer mix of copetitive adrenaline and funny shenanigans
Those are the game experiences which stuck with me.
You know what stuck with me about Ocarina of Time? Zora’s fountain is the source of all water in Hyrule. King Zora’s fat ass blocks the way through. So about a percent of all the water in Hyrule flows through his ass cheeks.
Probably Halo Reach Forge mode, couch co-op with a friend of mine. We’d spend countless hours building bases, doing races, all sorts of stuff in Forge. We played other stuff in Reach too but Forge was always my favourite.
We haven’t spoken in years. We used to be super close, I hope he’s doing alright.
Psycho Mantis
Revolver Ocelot
Swimming Nougat.
Did I do that right?
Playing Wing Commander very late at night, hit a large glass water bottle off the table with my elbow, and catch it with the same arm/hand before it reaches the floor to shatter and wake up the whole family.
Peak reaction times induced by VideoGame adrenaline never reached again.
The result of waking the Wind Fish in Link’s Awakening broke something in me at such a young age that I don’t think I’ve since experienced as profoundly.
Learning I only beat half of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and then playing the rest. And then playing it again and again, and finding new crazy weapons I’d never seen before. Learning that some weapons (like Sword of Dawn) do something other than just slash. Later reading GameFaqs .txt guides to learn about even more stuff I had no idea about, so end up playing it even more.
And playing Final Fantasy 7 right before all of that. When the demo disc of Final Fantasy 7 came out (inside a Playstation Underground magazine), I lost me shit. I had loved, loved, loved FF4 and 6 (2 and 3 in the US), and 7 was just insane. The graphics, the music, everything. Absolutely revolutionary. That game was a reason to buy a PS1. I remember maxing out the playtime at 99 hours in my first playthrough.
I have a few from childhood, but the gaming high I am chasing now is whatever Outer wilds was. A beautiful story told through exploration and discovery. I just want to go back and experience for the first time again.
d00d. I keep trying to play it. The world resets and I’m like wtf is going on? Something is not clicking for me. Boy do I suck at piloting too.
You’re out there collecting info maaaan. Information is the thing that unlocks new areas.
We all suck at piloting lol. I have crashed into the sun, planets, etc over and over again. You get better at it with time though.
Best thing I did when playing that game was to stop trying to figure it out, and just start letting my curiosity drive me. Things intrigued me, and that drove me to go try and figure it out. Eventually the pieces start to come together. When I felt stuck or confused, I just went somewhere else and poked around for a bit elsewhere.
Did you beat the echoes of wisdom DLC? It’s fucking incredible and easily on par with the base game if not better
The absolute peak of gaming for me was the first time I got stoned out of my mind and played Minecraft. Probably like… circa 2012. I’ve never been able to get back to that place ever since lmao the colors were so vibrant, each pixel was absolutely perfectly placed. The light grey ui elements in your inventory… everything just tied together so perfect. It was like seeing a new color for the first time, but then every time after that is just, eh…
I had similar experience with alcohol and horizon zero dawn. I can remember so much about that night despite the liquor.
Chrono Trigger, and finishing the games first full arc. What would normally be the end literally showed me that this game had so much more, which expanded the more I played it.
DOOM II. Sinking the final rocket into the demon’s brain on L30 Icon of Sin. I did it before Z-axis engines like ZDoom. 30 years ago? Something like that.
The very last level is worthy. You must train in order to finish it. I could not do it today without a month or two of practice.
These days if I want that rush, I boot up DOOM 2016 and play the first level on Ultra-Nightmare Arcade.I did enjoy killing every last Brotherhood of Steel member in the airbase and then blowing up the Institute in FO4. That wasn’t a rush, it was a culmination of about 800 hours. I was done. Kill em all now.
More recently, the first time I killed the final boss in Risk of Rain 2 was quite satisfying. Took about 3 months.
Hey, just in case people don’t know:
There is a very lively community still playing Doom II. There are incredible mods and maps, from minor addons to gamechanging mechanics. I enjoy the Brutal Doom-addon for it’s modern shooter feel and the heavy pixel-gore. But there is loads of other stuff, years of fun!Ya, Brutal Doom is the fukin shit. Killer. Really. With lots of blood.
I have Selaco on my Steam wishlist. I’ll get it someday.I already played Selaco and liked it very much. It looks phenomenal, all the particles and the mood lights, it’s such a beautiful chaos. Only the enemies are real bullet sponges, that’s not to my taste. I’d rather have shorter combats or more enemies than sinking clip after clip in one simple enemy. But it’s just a personal preference, go play it!
Well, thank you! I’ve been curious. And I don’t mind hard.
Looks phenomenal.
I was recently so excited to discover Fortress Forever also, which is the old TFC game. I dominated in that.
The immersive world of Oblivion (Elder Scrolls IV). Morrowind had been great, but the high-fantasy realism of Oblivion blew Morrowind away. Skyrim wasn’t as immersive for me, mostly because the guilds and other side-stories weren’t as deeply developed. Oblivion remains THE high water mark for open world RPGs.
Skyrim has the best bars in any video game that I know of. I used to dump all my crap on the floor of the Whiterun tavern, so the npcs would kick it around as they moved. Hundreds of baskets and pans and garbage items. I’d leave the game running as I slept, listening to the trash being kicked, local gossip, awful minstrel, and pleasant sounds of people drinking.
What a mental image that is.
Heh. I do shit like that. Before i quit/finished Fall Out 4, I killed all the Brotherhood, stole their power armor, and put it on the roof of the Atomic greaser’s gas station. Didn’t stop till I had it covered. It was a fukin monument. Looked cool as hell.
Oblivion was the only game that came close to how I felt the first time I stepped out of the dungeon and opened the world map of Daggerfall. I couldn’t stop making new characters that I wanted to explore the world with.
But Oblivion really was something special too. Felt like an alive fantasy world.
I’ve been chasing that Daggerfall high for so long. Oblivion and Morrowind were amazing, but they didn’t quite get me there.
