Gaming moments of excellence

[Brad]

Let's have them. Maybe it was the feeling you had the first time you beat a game? Is it the rush you get from snapping off an admittedly completely fluke head shot from across the map in Battlefield? Perhaps it was a slice of story that genuinely made you feel sad, scared, Sam rage?

I'll kick things off with two that I simply can't split.

The first happened in a co-op game of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on my old PS2. As anyone who has played the series of games knows, you generally want to deal with enemies in a non-lethal way to net yourself the best outcome. We were both sticking to the shadows and saw that our way was blocked by an enemy stood near an alarm unit. Thankfully he was turned away from us which gave us an opening.

My mate crept forward with the objective of grabbing the guard and using a silent take down. Nothing we haven't done a hundred times. Except this time it went wrong. At the moment of strike my mate hit the wrong button and did something to alert the guard. Right now two things could happen. Either he kills my mate and it's game over, or he triggers the alarm and we're pretty much screwed. Out comes deadly assassin Brad. Draw gun, bang, headshot. It happened so quickly that my mate hadn't even managed to make any other move. It was deadly, brilliant and above all it used up the entire amount of godly luck that I had available.

The second isn't a single moment. Instead it's the feeling of satisfaction that comes from playing a support role in a cohesive game of Bad Company 2. I'm no demon with a gun but I know how to keep a team alive and moving forward. Give me a large clip to lay down covering fire, a medkit/paddles and some smoke grenades, and I'll have fun doing the jobs that make the difference between a good round and a great one.

[StingRay]

Team Fortress 2, the Heavy-Medic combo.  When I'm teamed up with a somebody who knows what they're doing, those moments were sublime.  I forget the name of the map, but there are a few spots, defending the check point, where a good Heavy-Medic combo can practically hold off the Persian army.  I'll admit that I've been moved to shout, "Cry some more!" on more than one occasion.

[Tony]

Facing Diablo for the first time in Diablo 2.  The screen... THE WHOLE SCREEN shook when he came stomping in... and wasn't on the screen yet.  Such a WTF great moment.

[plasma walrus]

There's a lot of Monster Hunter moments I've had where I yelled like a bloody Valkyrie at the TV. 

So, after having tackled a lot of what Monster Hunter Tri had to offer, I started to go through offline challenges.   I opted to go after this fight:



On the left we have the Lagiacrus, which stays primary in the water.   The right, blasted fire like a busted radiator, is the Rathalos, who (unlike most radiators) stick to the sky.  Clearly, there's a huge difference in these bad boys.   They have COMPLETELY different weaknesses, so as a Hunter of Monsters, you have to pick a weapon that is going to equally damage them both.  That and, eqiup yourself to the ears with bombs, healing items, and tools of destruction.   You have to kill both of these creatures.   In fifty minutes. 

So, off with my little bumbling idiot sidekick I went.  The sidekick, Chacha, is a plunky little minion that only serves to play distraction and ultimately fuck up my grand plans.   With Chahca, I head for the water to find the Lagiacrus.   My fighting underwater skills are shallow-end warm at best, but I managed to throw in a few traps, take safe pokes at it, and capture it (which is about the same as killing the thing).  A cool twenty minutes.   Thirty minutes for the Rathalos. 

The Rathalos on the other hand... is another annoying fight.  Fortunately, it is not water based creature.   However, it stays to the sky and hovers just out of range of a number of attacks.   Constant Rage Face. 

"GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE SO I CAN BREAK YOUR FACE!"

So, you also get three lives basically to try and kill the monsters.   The rathalos killed me twice.   Once when Chacha decided it would be for the best if he hid like a turd while the Rathalos barreled down at me raking my face, then stunned me, and allowed the poison he blasted into my system to finish me off.   

This happened twice.

So, I'm white-knuckled on the control.  Tense.   Pissed off.   I get the in-game message "TEN MINUTES REMAINING".  I continue to pursue the Rathalos through another area.   It's not showing ANY signs of limping and I'm nearly out of healing items.   I'm tattered and bruised, while I'm not sure I've done HARDLY any damage to this bastard.   

"FIVE MINUTES REMAINING"

Shit.   Shit.  Shit. 

Chacha, the Rathalos, and I are in a wide open area.   I'm feverishly checking my map to see if the Monster is weak and ready for capture (one of my handy armor skills).  Chacha lays down a trap.  Fine, whatever, little buddy.   I didn't ask you to do it and the Rathalos isn't ready yet, but I can put in a few free hits.   I continue to hammer away at the Rathalos, hoping, no PRAYING the son of a bitch will go down.   

Clock is ticking. 

I finally see the mark on the Rathalos start to blink, indicating he is READY for capture.   I know I don't have enough time to kill him, but I do have enough time to trap him.  I quick check the clock as I line up the trap.

2:40 remaining.

Putting down the trap is a risky move.   It's my last trap.   If he avoids the trap and leaves the area, I'm completely boned.   Utterly screwed.  I set it down and start to flag down Chacha, and hopefully the monster along with him.   The Rathalos rears its pointed, yet busted face toward me.   It roars.   I cringe and cover my ears.

1:30 remaining.

It starts to charge straight at me.   It slides into the trap and is frozen in place.  Quickly, I hammer out my Tranq bombs.   Its eyes roll up in its head and it passes out.   

Trumpets blare my success and I toss my controller aside and dance like Gourmand from Power Stone 2.   

[Mollarom]

I'm sure I'll have more than a few moments of gaming excellence to list on this thread, but one always stands out.

Command & Conquer: Renegade. For those not familiar with it, it's a base vs. base FPS based on the C&C series. As you fight, you earn credits, and with those credits you can upgrade your weaponry, buy yourself a tank, that sort of thing.

You can also buy yourself a superweapon beacon. About a minute after it's planted by an engineer class, a superlaser will blast down and obliterate any structure and opponent in the immediate area.

The map I was playing on had each base separated by a series of mountain passes. There was the base, the high ground, and then the other base in a separate valley. My team had a control point on the high ground, but the Brotherhood of Nod was winning the tank war down below.

I chose to go for my favorite tactic. If I could plant the beacon at the Hand of Nod and destroy it, the game would be over. I choose the engineer class, which is very weak by itself compared with any other class one-on-one, I bought a beacon and headed down to the enemy base.

If memory serves correct, you're supposed to plant the beacon INSIDE the Hand of Nod, but planting it outside the building was still a valid tactic. I sneak over to the building, plant the beacon, take cover and withdraw my only weapon, a pistol, ready to defend it.

A Nod engineer comes out to defuse the beacon. I burst out of cover and take him down with three headshots. Another engineer rounds the corner, and somehow I take him down in a duel. Then THREE Nod brothers come out, and at least one of them is a soldier. I'm screwed. I start withdrawing and zigzagging, trying to make myself a hard target, when BOOM, the soldier goes down. The snipers on the high ground have seen what's going on and are giving me cover! BOOM, another one Nod brother goes down to a sniper, and I take care of the last engineer.

I'm critically low on ammo and HP now, but I give the beacon one last repair boost and head out. Four Nod engineers come out of the Hand of Nod to try to defuse the beacon. The snipers take one out, but then the sky lights up, the superlaser fires, and the Hand of Nod has been destroyed.

One engineer. One pistol. One beacon. Two snipers. Done. Teamwork FTW.

[Mollarom]

And then, of course, there was the time when I was chasing down Godfather Brak in Brink as he fled with my team's vaccine. Two light body types, parkouring like crazy to a waiting security chopper. He gets there and finds out he has to spend time delivering the vaccine, and that's when I dump a clip from my machine pistol into him and finish it off with the knife.

He got his revenge, though. Not long afterwards, he was repeating his run for glory, only I wasn't able to sidestep a mine fast enough...

[plasma walrus]

I can't remember if it was an AssBro night with you guys or my birthday, but I had a MEAN streak with Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.  I must have been channeling some kind of chemist or something because I'm sure I poisoned several people in a row before my reign of terror was over. 

... Man, we should do that again. 

[Mollarom]

It's been a while since I've posted something here, but I had a game last night that was freaking magic.

I've often talked about "Bobby from Florida." He and I were friends back in high school (late 80s), but we really started hanging out a lot in the late 90s. We'd play a lot of Legends of the Five Rings CCG, but when we weren't playing that, chances are we'd be playing basketball on the PS2.

I don't even remember exactly what game it was, but we'd make custom players to be ourselves, create a 5'2 point guard with supernatural dunking skills, and then populate the rest of our team with decent players like Kevin Garnett and Steve Kerr. We'd create a season and take on the best of the NBA. After every dunk we made, we'd position our players next to each other and do a block animation as if we were giving ourselves high fives. It was awesome.

But time marches on, right? I eventually moved away, and it's only within the last few years that Bobby and I have started gaming again on the Xbox 360.

He's always wanted to recapture that experience of playing basketball with me. For me, while it was good in the past, I've always thought that NBA games had gotten like Madden, where you had to be a real student of the game to get the most out of it.

He picked up two copies of NBA 2k12 and gave one to me.

After figuring out we couldn't create co-op seasons or even invite each other to play with custom teams, we realized we'd have to make our own rules in order to recapture the feel of a season. We decided we'd use a 52-game schedule with the Knicks and "make the playoffs" if we won 53% of our games (which is the winning percentage of the worst team to make it to the playoffs this season).

Last night, we started the season.

The first game was a blowout. We simply dominated the Toronto Raptors.

The second game against Boston was incredible. Boston played much better defense, and our shooting percentage dropped. At the same time, we were defending Boston very well, and the first quarter was a low scoring affair, with Boston with a slight lead.

In the second and third quarters, we got our asses handed to us. We were shooting like crap, and mental errors lead to costly turnovers. At the end of the third quarter, we were down 13 points.

"That's okay," Bobby said as the horn ending the quarter sounded, "we're going to kill them in the fourth."

And we turned it on. Bobby was playing 'Melo, and he was draining shots both in the paint and beyond the arc. I was okay dishing to the big men inside, getting my assists. Still, Boston was still showing plenty of resistance, and we had to come up with some key blocks to keep them from scoring.

With two minutes to go, my player, Landry Fields, turned into one hell of a clutch player. I drained three after three, and suddenly the Boston lead was down to five. We continued to battle. With one minute left, I hit another three, cutting the lead down to two. The Celtics took the ball down the court, and failed to get a score.

Timeout!

"Okay," I said to Bobby, "who's going to make this shot? You're the star."

"No," Bobby replied, "you've been on fire this quarter."

"Okay, I'll take it, but be ready for the rebound."

Inbound pass to 'Melo. 'Melo to Fields beyond the arc. Fields goes up for the three...

Nothing but net.

Two friends, separated by a few thousand miles, playing basketball together for the first time in 15 years, screamed in triumph together. Even my wife, who had been watching the game all this time, shouted in happiness.

But there were still 15 seconds on the clock.

Boston came back. Rajon Rondo got the ball, and despite our best efforts, he scored a last second layup.

Final score: Boston 87, New York 86.

But that was okay. When I drained that last three, we won. We recaptured that magic. Mission accomplished.