When you first walk out of the shrine of resurrection in Zelda Breath of the Wild and view over the landscape

Bioshock’s big twist was so well done. I still think about that one a lot especially in games where there’s no explanation for why you’re doing a mission.

“A man chooses… a slave obeys…”

“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”

I bet there are people out there who hate video games but recognize this line.

The first time a Reaper Leviathan attacks you in Subnautica.

The first time you launch a rocket in Factorio.

The first time you do a bunch of stuff in KSP.

Portal 2 - The Part Where He Kills You

The player is put into this spike trap by the antagonist (Wheatley), and at this point the chapter text comes up saying "Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You", you get an achievement of the same name, and Wheatley then says "Hello! This is the part where I kill you!"

The timing and delivery of it was so perfect.

GTA Vice City - taxi and ambulance driving

I loved the part of VC (and I think other installments have this too) where you jump into either a taxi or ambulance and you can then become an actual driver for them, earning money. Loved that minigame for being such a different thing to all the other missions.

Driv3r - the Bascule Bridge

In one of the maps of Driv3r (kind of a GTA clone), there was a Bascule bridge you could actually toggle, and so I'd usually get a wanted rating, bait as much police and cars onto the bridge (even blocking the roadway with my own car) and then draw the bridge up with all of them on it, and watch how the physics bug out and some officers end up in water (should never happen in normal gameplay) and the cars just all explode in the water.

Aeris/aerith ff7

Kotor the big reveal

Halo when chief and arbiter team up

That first goomba in world 1-1

Hmm, there are quite a few of those, I think. Let's see.

Bioshock reveal. A man chooses, a slave obeys.

First time talking to Sovereign in Mass Effect, oh and the ending sequences from going through the Conduit and Sovereign attacking the Citadel, the Alliance fleet coming through. The cinematics and music were just so well done.

D:OS2, fighting Alexander when Battle for Divinity starts playing. Or the end fight, with Sins and Gods. The soundtrack was a delight.

The Witcher 3, the first time you arrive in Skellige, the landscape and the music, it just made me feel these things, it was beautiful.

The Deep Roads in Dragon Age:Origins, when Hespith starts reciting her poem and the Broodmother afterwards. Oh dear lord, I still remember the first time I was there, it was so fucking creepy. "First day they come and catch everyone." Truly superb.

In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, when you're forced to flee Skalitz, but you're so incredibly noob that you can barely ride a horse, and you realize this game is different from many others, because you're really just a nobody without any skills - and you'll stay a nobody, pretty much. This entire game was a joy to me.

There are also some games that are entire masterpieces, where I can't really pick a single moment but the entire game would count, for example Disco Elysium, a true masterpiece. This game made me experience the entire rainbow of human emotions. Another example would be Deus Ex, which to me will never get old, however bad the graphics might be.

Let's stop here, before this turns into simply a list of my favorite games. :D

That moment in Final Fantasy 7 when Sephiroth, um, drops in.

Gotta be up there.

Or in Deus Ex when, if you haven’t been paying attention (or just running through killing) the twist hits. I saw it coming but still. “That’s right JC. I’m [redacted].”

That time I was playing Quake and I said 'I'm cocked, locked and ready to rock' and someone else said "You shouldn't lock your cock. Cocks should be free!"

It technically happened in a video game and I will never forget it.

But also getting Strogified in Quake 4.

The cake is a lie

Hey, you're finally awake.

Half Life when you reach the surface for the first time.

Would you kindly..

pwning and getting pwned by friends playing counterstrike dust 2 in the local cafe

Rise and shine Mr Freeman. Rise and shine

LAN party 2012ish. Playing Farcry 2 team Deathmatch multiplayer on the Clear Cut map. First team to 100 kills win. I got 60 of the 100 kills to win and from that point forward I was no longer permitted to use the 50cal sniper rifle.

How to be me. Someone else might have got it wrong.

That scene still hurts .

The entire ending of portal 2.

Reaching the peak of celeste was an incredible moment for me and the summit chapter is such a good "final" gauntlet. I've gone on to beat everything but farewell and the entire game is so well made. (My thumbs really hurt though)

"Hey, Listen"

Arriving at the astral plane with the Amulet of Yendor.

Glados's anger in Portal

The ending of Dragons Keep in Borderlands

So many moments in TUNIC, but the huge one when you find the Holy Cross.

The moment in Phantasy Star III on Sega where it is revealed that the entire world was actually just one node in a vast interstellar ship

EDIT: Originally posted the wrong one (PS IV). Please forgive me; it was like 30 years ago and I was drunk AF when it happened. I may have wept a little at the time. It was a special moment. I almost called my parents.

Not going to look the same to everyone, but being scammed in runescape for the first time. I remember trusting someone taking me to their training spot in the wilderness to level up prayer, and got back stabbed 😆

The ending in the barn with John Marston. Red dead redemption.

The giraffe in the last of us

Watching the credits for Super Metroid for the first time.

That end card probably stayed on my tv for for like an hour while I just sat there.

A certain sythe sweep near the end of Grim Fandango.

The dip in the river near the end of Bioshock Infinite.

Jumping into the thing near the end of Outer Wilds, and coming down where you come down going through what you go through.

When Joel has to choose to save Ellie from having the brain surgery or not in The Last of Us. When Monika in Doki Doki Literature club removes other characters in the game from the player's file + when she breaks the 4th wall. "It's just a prank, Han!" from Until Dawn.

Good:

Lifting the Master Sword in Link to the Past

Beating Melenia in Elden Ring

Jumping through the first painting in Super Mario 64

Bad:

Playing LoL the first and only time

Playing Burning Crusade for WoW at release and picking up the first blue item in the first area that made my Tier 3 items I worked months for, completely obsolete.

The name of the friggin' gnome in the original Kings Quest on the IBM PC. Turns out I had a version with a bug in it and a spelling error.

When I first got out of Midgard in FF7. I honestly hated the gameplay, but the story and level design kept me stuck.

When Majora’s mask grew legs. Freaked me the hell out as a kid lol.

The part where you launch white phosphorus in Spec Ops the Line

Being given the Normandy in the original Mass Effect

I remember playing Hollow Knight lost in an area really needing a bench. I found a coin slot in a room and put a coin in. A bench popped out of the ground and unfolded for me. Then a speaker popped out the wall playing some mellow music. There was a little glass window with fish swimming on the other side. I really liked the game. After that I loved it.

Eric fucking Sparrow claiming credit for the chopper hop in T.H.U.G.

most hatable villain in any game, hands down

I don’t know why, but the King Zora Sliding scene has probably stuck with me the most. Not for being annoying or amazing, but because it has been the memory my brain has used to understand so many situations in life. Like the just impossible to avoid, watching paint dry boredom that infects so much of life.

There are many for sure, but now that I thought about it a bit, the strongest has to be me booting up and logging into World of Warcraft for the first time. Gave me such sense of wonder. And the world opening up more and more with every zone...

It's beem years since I played it the last time but the game still sticks with me anyway.

When the shields on the Arsenal Bird go down in Ace Combat 7. Just the way the music swells and everything.

I was screaming and cheering. Just felt invincible in my beloved F-15E.

Runner up:

Learning about Revan in KOTOR 1.

This is incredibly niche but in the Blue Planet mod for Freespace 2 you're on the losing side of a war for the whole campaign - your elite unit pulls off a bunch of small-scale clutch victories but overall things are not looking good. Near the end of the campaign there's an elaborate series of missions involving disabling a bunch of hostile ships, intercepting and manipulating distress comms, and otherwise setting up a trap for the opposite faction's command ship, the Carthage (culminating in a mission called, appropriately, "Delenda Est"). All the setup missions go smoothly, as does the first springing of the trap, but then

Being airlifted over the wall into Anor Londo in Dark Souls. I had to spend several minutes collecting my jaw off the floor.

Tha bit in Mario Kart when you finish a circuit and your guy rides up to the podium and suddenly there's a huge motherfuckin' fish and you're like, "what's this puffy guy gonna do?" and then ba-boom it fuckin' explodes and there's your trophy

The ending of Telltale's Walking Dead season 1

He has a gun!?

Sekiro players will understand.

At a LAN party 8 of our friends played Versus in L4D2 at the peak of our skill playing those games and the matches were very even and extremely competitive in a good way. I hosted a lot of LAN parties but that was the best of them all. The only game I ever surpassed it with hours played is Dead by Daylight.

The first time my friends and I got Resident Evil Outbreak Files 1 and 2 set up to play online via PCSX2 and the obsrv.org fan server. It's much easier now, but setting it up in the PCSX2 1.6.X days was awful. These games are so much better with voice chat. The only improvement I could dream of is a decompilation adding proximity voice chat. You already hear muffled commotion and gun shots of nearby players. Beat both games eventually on Very Hard difficulty.

The first time I booted up Roller Coaster Tycoon which I got in a cereal box for free. I'm still playing it via OpenRCT2! Parkitect is the true 3D fan sequel, fuck Planet Coaster. RCT3 devs kept making the same mistakes.

Too many to list.