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?
Getting called out by my name in the literature club, or being told about how I could have used my superpower better in that other game. Two get-up-and-take-a-walk moments for me.
On a different tack, the introverted but social Unreal Tournament clan nights, Instagib with Relics. Played that to absolute death, clan nights with pizza and beers. Worms, too, with four people sharing a keyboard.
Lands Of Lore, Eye of the Beholder, BG1 and 2, etc. when solving a puzzle or finding a secret after being lost for hours.
Halo 1 LAN parties
Also, Halo 3 custom games with full lobbies and super creative customs. Honestly, just Halo 3 in general
Unreal Tournament LAN parties.
Holy shit. I was trying to think of an answer and this is probably it. Unreal was indeed unreal. Once I got used to the pace of the game it was on. Saddle me up with Speed Boost & a Flak Canon.
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.
Damn- I wish LAN parties were still a thing. The vibe was unmatched
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.
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 timePlanetside 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
I’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.
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.
And also that fucking hand creature. That thing freaked me out.
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.
Psycho Mantis
Revolver Ocelot
Swimming Nougat.
Did I do that right?
Swimming Nougat didn’t come out until Steak Eater tho.
Ah… yeah I forgot. My bad.
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.
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.
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 the eye DLC? It’s fucking incredible and easily on par with the base game if not better
I did. Loved it. Echoes of the eye is a really good addition to the based game and honestly other than the base game, the only game I have very been choked up at.
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.
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.
Morrowind. Playing it, modding it, breaking it, trying to fix mods, writing new mods, all of it. Morrowind was so fun, for some time it convinced me that Bethesda might be a competent company
Ah modding it…I remember, for some reason, whenever I wanted to make a new NPC, everyone in the world reacted as if I were naked. I have no idea what that was about!
…so I just did goofy stuff like putting a ton of that ice ore chunk stuff in a barrel right next to the guy that makes you ice armor in Bloodmoon.
Or making the “Glass Bracers of Chuck Norris” to fortify hand to hand because mine sucked and I needed to beat up a guy for a quest…killed him in one punch. Oops. <_<
I also made a fun house in Balmora with a bunch of replenishing colorful torches (I LOVE the light sources in this game) and embedded tons of chests in the walls, since the poor sucker it belonged to never would go inside. XD
FF IX. I’ll never get that again.
Playing the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time.
Sure the ending was a bit disappointing, but the ride was absolutely phenomenal.
The ending of ME2 alone makes the whole trilogy worth it IMHO. I dare say that’s just about a “perfect game.”
Yup. Especially with The Arrival DLC.
Woah you know what? I think when I got it on 360 I didn’t get any of the DLCs. Just a special edition that gave me a…nuke launcher? Lol
Here the remastered trilogy is just sitting in my library…I need to finally get to it!
Oh yeah. The DLC doesn’t add an incredibly large amount of content, but there are a lot of awesome nuggets in there. The Citadel DLC for ME3 is flipping hilarious and incredible, too. Easily adds 10-15 hours of gameplay. Wrex’s “MOAR ICE” lives rent free in my head as one of the funniest ME moments ever.
