Top 10 Greatest Videogame Moments, Part 1

First off, I realize the inherent subjectivity and you-had-to-be-there factor of this list, but frankly I don't care. I had to get some of these great moments off my shoulders where they've rested for, in some cases, over a decade. Daniel will probably recognize some (or most) of them, and maybe even a few others will spot some too. Sorry if this is weighted a bit heavily towards Guitar Hero, but that is the series I put--by far--the most time into, because I played competitively, via submitting my scores to ScoreHero.com.

Note that there aren't too many traditional bosses or missions from the games themselves. I've always felt games were more fun when we used our own imaginations to create unique challenges for us to go after instead of simply being told by the game what to do. My friends and I doing weird shit has always led to the best gaming moments for us. Anyways, here we go:

10.) 30,000 Point Combo (1080 Snowboarding): I'll start the list with something more mild. 1080 was an early Nintendo 64 extreme sports game that foreshadowed a later obsession with games like Tony Hawk 3 and SSX: Tricky for Daniel and me. We liked that it had options for both tricks mode and racing. This particular moment belongs in the tricks mode. There were two different options: halfpipe and big air. Big air allowed you to get the biggest combo, and of course Daniel and I wanted to see what the biggest possible combo you could get was. That was I think more impressive then even a high score in halfpipe, which was also a really big deal, but the biggest score you could get on a single trick showed the true potential. 13,000 combos were fairly common in big air and I think they could even be done in halfpipe if you were having a magnificent day (correct me if I'm wrong on this, Daniel, for perhaps 8K was the biggest thing you could get on the halfpipe, but I think 13K was possible, and is almost as impressive as a 30K on big air). 20,000 was the highest combo we could get up until this point. It was not particularly easy and I think for a long time we thought this was the limit of what could be accomplished. That was until I stumbled upon a playing style which I only used briefly, for it burned out after its meteoric rise to the top. This style was doing 360-540-360-540 again and again and again. I don't really know how I did it, and obviously I was not able to replicate it later, but I was happy when I briefly had this ability, for it allowed me to rack up some really big fucking scores. The climax of this was the unheard-of 30K combo done in the big air level. What else can I say? It was like God was playing through my fingers, because I had no idea how I was doing this 360-540 thing, and I never could do it again. But it was worth it for this. I wonder if anyone ever got a higher combo in this game?

9.) Deathmatch to 1,000 in Disco (TimeSplitters: Future Perfect): Mike and I had been slumming this idea around for quite some time. Other than the Guitar Hero games, there was no game we put more time into than TimeSplitters 3. We knew this game inside out, like the back of our hands. Whenever we went to set the deathmatch score, we'd always go to 50 or, if we were feeling ambitious, 100. 100 matches took a fair amount of time, maybe 10-15 min. We always laughed at the possiblity of there being a 500 and even 1,000 option. However, being the kind of fans we were of this game, we knew one day we'd have to grow a set and play to 1,000. The time came on a Friday night when Mike and I were pressured into going to another lame JMU party, but seeing as this was our opportunity, we had to decline. The time had come.

Disco had basically always been the venue we were going to do. It offers perhaps the fastest finishing time because of how intense the killing is in this level. There are maybe a few other levels, like Subway or Mars Prison, that offer the same type of killing frenzy madness, but Disco was really the premier place to prove who was the finest player, because the automatic weapons and lack of explosives helped prove who the most accurate and skillful players were.

We realized through math that the match would go on past two hours, but this is a lot different on paper then it is in reality. I have never been so drained physically playing a videogame as I was for this match. Our eyes hurt, our asses hurt, our hands hurt--our brains especially. Let's say for the record here that Mike came back from being in sxith place for over an hour to pull past such notables as Deerhaunter, Gretel, and R-110 to finish in a respectable third place. I believe that wild and unpredictable Beserker Splitter pulled off the second. I must say, it was a lot easier to win a match this long then a shorter one. You had time to get into a groove, and while we thought that the bots would destroy us becuase of human tiredness affecting our playing ability, this proved not to be the case. I beat that dick Beserker by over 150 kills. A match for the ages.

8.) "Race of the Century" (SSX: Tricky): Greg and I were often rivals. We thrived on pushing each other to our limits. This is perhaps best showcased through our band name writing, but the most clear-cut rivalry we had was in the snowboard game SSX: Tricky. This game was the fruition of everything we dreamed that an ultimate sports game could be. Along with NBA Street and the Tony Hawk series, SSX fulfilled all of our wildest childhood fantasies. The tricks in this game were staggering. But most importantly, we took the racing in this game very, very seriously. Specifically in the first level. We had entire tournaments complete with pages and pages of stats. Greg and I competed constantly for the fastest time in the first level, trading off day by day who was considered the fastest at this game (other levels were basically irrelevant, with the possible exception of the second one).

This all came together in one incredibly tight race Greg and I had. This was not in a tournament and I'm not sure exactly what was going on, since we didn't usually have head-to-head races outside of tournaments (it was better to save that competitive energy for when it counted), but all I know is that it was a killer fucking race. We both had solid starts--no one fucked up. That was a rarity for whatever reason in this game. Most races were determined by someone screwing up. Very rarely did both people have good starts and good finishes. But this was shaping out to be just that. What made this race most memorable was when we came out from different parts of the level at around the two-minute mark and we were exactly neck and neck. Right by each other. Our arms faintly touching each other, snow from each other's boards was flying into the other's face. This is the moment that forever defined our relationship from that point on and what separated us as players. It was an unspoken agreement that you don't knock your fellow boarder down. It makes it into a race of skill and beauty if you rely on speed and technique instead of brute force and knockdowns. Greg broke this code that day. It is something (one of many things) I will never forgive him for. I would've given anything to see what the outcome of that race would've been. There had never, ever been a closer one in that game, period. What made it even more amazing (in addition to Greg's later knockdowns--he was really the only person to go for them on other opponents, besides perhaps Daniel going after him when they played each other) was that Greg would later say that his brother's use of knockdowns was "cheap." That about sums it up right there.

An honorable mention would be the "Upset of the Century," which took place in our first SSX: Tricky tournament, Greg's Graptacular of Tricky in Garibaldi #1. For whatever reason (perhaps I had the fastest time at that point), I was considered the favorite to win in this tournament. This all changed with my loss to Greg in the first race of the finals, an event which would shatter my confidence forever and make me nervous in all upcoming tournaments. I think at this point I was flying high, but I was soon to have my wings broken by God and his unfortunate sense of humor. The race was going well, I was about fifteen seconds ahead of Greg going into the final portion of the race--I had about 20 seconds left or so if I was having a good finish. Oh mother of God, I did not have a good finish. I got greedy and tried to cut too far right at the end to shave off precious tenths of a second. I went behind a rock no one has gone behind since, and it started me over so goddamn far back and so out of the way of that shortcut that Greg managed to beat me by less than a second. The sad part is I still almost beat him, and God did that shatter my heart. His comment was "By that point I knew it was all over" (referring to when I went behind the rock), but he's full of shit, because I still almost beat him. But such is life. The SSX: Tricky tournaments were almost always full of tragedy for me, probably just becuase I was the one that cared most, and like I said, God has an unfortunate sense of humor.

7.) "Surface Tension" (Half-Life): This was what I meant by a completely subjective moment. This isn't really an achievement, since this happens to everyone who gets this far in the game, but really just a testament to how awesome the single-player campaign of the original Half-Life was. Every review I read of this game talks about how cinematic and immersive it is, becuase of its lack of cutscenes and other design feats. Let me be the first to say that this is so true. I have never been more involved in a game than I was in Half-Life. It was like a personal quest of mine, digging my way from the very bottom of an underground secret military base through office complexes, rail systems, and all sorts of crazy level designs. Though this game is known for having no distinct levels because Gordon Freeman's journey out of the base is seamless, I liked a lot that there is a distinct feel to each of the "chapters" (distinct from traditional shooter levels) of the game. There is perhaps no game I look back on with more nostalgia then this. I wish I could play through this for the first time again more than any other game. As I said, you climb thorugh sewage and past myriad beasts and this comes to a climax in the "Surface Tension" chapter as you finally, after many, many hours (Half-Life was very long for a FPS, being around 20-30 hours long), see sunlight. This was like the revelation of God to me, for whatever reason. I had finally made it out of the base! Ah, that was such a beautiful part of the game outside too: being hunted by Apache helicopters, shooting them down with RPGs, walking across minefields. This was the biggest "eureka!" moment I ever had in a game. Just love this game so much.

6.) "Message in a Bottle" FC (Guitar Hero II): Most people who played the Guitar Hero series were happy just to play it with friends and have a good time. Some even beat the game on medium. Fewer went on after this to beat it on hard. Even fewer felt compelled to beat it on the most challenging difficulty level, expert. Most people did not see the point of going after 5 stars on a song, or even understood how to do so. Being a member of ScoreHero.com, I knew that 5 stars wasn't the end either. You could get 6 or 7 (or even 8 on some songs!) stars if you got a high enough multiplier on the song. However, this was not the end. The end product of your hard work on a song--often after years of playing it over and over--was an FC (full-combo, or a 100% on a song without overstrums, which, believe me, is different than merely getting 100% of the notes hit on it--I've had 100%'s without getting an FC, and let me tell you, it's a heartbreaker). Only full-out losers go after FCs, but if you get one, you know you did your goddamn best on that song (of course, if you're a really big competitive player, you will continue past the FC onto getting the perfect star power path and--even more intense--perfect squeezing on that song).

Now at this particular point in my life, I was doing leagues for Guitar Hero. What leagues are is you get 2 or 3 songs for that week per league, and everyone works as hard as they can on those songs in that week to get the highest possible score. You get scores based on your points and you compete against others. "Message in a Bottle" by the Police was one of the songs for this week and I had made it my goal to FC it. Normally, this would be considered way, way out of my league, since I had only FCed two songs prior to this on GH2 expert ("Heart-Shaped Box" and "Parasite," ranked as #1 and #3, respectively. To get some perspective here, "Message in a Bottle" is ranked as #15 in the game [I am using this FC breakdown--http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63177&highlight=expert++breakdown--since it is by far the best one I've seen on that site, and believe me, there are many] and #64 overall).

However, for whatever reason, I was able to nail that last part that is really fast very, very consistently in practice mode. People thinking of this song will probably recall it's not that hard on the guitar, and I would agree most of the song isn't, but it is so incredibly annoying that the one taxing part is right at the very end of a 5-minute song. Anyone with any experience going after FCs will be able to tell you this: Prepare to choke a lot. It's even worse when your hard part is at the very end of a song. In fact, it's not even really a choke, since that is the part you are expected to miss on. Now I'm a very nervous Guitar Hero player, so I've been known to choke on very easy parts and it takes me up to two-plus hours to FC even the easiest songs. This took me the entire goddamn week. Even though the song is not particularly challenging (although it is mildly challenging, and retains that steady level of difficulty consistently through the entire song, so it is very easy to slip up if you have been playing it over and over and over and over and over again and break your concentration), it took me a long time even to get to that ending part without missing a note. Once I got there, it took me a long time before I finally nailed the ending, but when I did! Oh God, one of the happiest moments of my entire life. I'm still a little surprised I was able to FC this song at such an early stage in my GH career. I still haven't gotten a higher-rated FC then that, although I almost got "Heart Full of Black," which is rated as #74 (I think I missed one in the outro solo, which is not the hardest part of the song...it's hard to tell if it was a -1 or more, since GH1 does not give you a stats page upon song completion). To put it in perspective, "MiaB" is considered to be a harder FC than "John the Fisherman" and "Cherry Pie," both which have very difficult solos which would take me a lot of time to hit (if I ever could). It is only one step below "Strutter." For whatever reason, I am able to hit a pattern like the one in solo D of "MiaB" very easily--one in which you hold down green or red and then hit other buttons on top of this anchor note. I just never found it to be hard, although apparently it is for others. However, it goes without saying that there is lots of stuff that is very easy for others which absolutely destroys me in this game. I will talk about that more in my Log entry in later in this list.

--Edward