Five Vivid Memories From 35 Years of Gaming
What makes a great game?
For me, it’s the memories.
My friends and I have been gaming for over thirty five years. We’ve seen a lot. Like childhood memories, certain moments stayed with me. When I think back on my years of gaming the same ones stand out every time.
These are five of them.
I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I did reliving them.
5. Whisper of the Worm, Destiny 2
For such a social game, Destiny 2 sure made me feel lonely.
I played it at a time when I was estranged from my friends. I was intimidated by the companion app (used to meet players for raids and high level PvE multiplayer) because playing with strangers made me nervous. The one time I’d tried a raid in Destiny that way I messed up, caused a wipe, and people got mad. I’m sensitive and I was really embarrassed.
It wasn’t like playing with real-life friends. Thus, all the best content in Destiny 2 was walled off from me.
I tried the Whisper quest by myself. It was fresh and fun and entertaining, but impossible for me to finish alone (you only get twenty minutes to complete it). I needed others, and since it wasn’t a raid — it was a three person quest — I went back to the app.
One guy joined my party. We waited for a third but no one showed, so we decided to try with just the two of us.
I was nervous.
My hands were shaking when we entered the anomaly.
The guy was really good and just zipped through the platforming portion of the quest. I was intimidated. I got flustered and anxious and it all went wrong.
I fell behind. I got stuck, I couldn’t make the jumps, I rushed my timing. The guy made it to the combat portion of the quest about five minutes before me. I didn’t catch up with him until he had already made it to the last room. I was embarrassed and frantic.
But when I got there, we coordinated. He told me what to do, what Taken to target. I’d revive him when he went down. Under his direction we surgically dismantled the Taken forces. We worked really well together. I’ll never forget how I felt watching enemy numbers dwindle faster than the mission timer on the edge of the screen.
“Is this happening? Are we going to pull this off?”
We did.
When that exotic gold engram snapped into existence on the screen with that satisfying exotic thunk sound I was thrilled. I was beaming, smiling like an idiot. I’d done something I never thought possible, something that only “real” Destiny players did.
I thanked the guy profusely.
Then the mission ended and he disappeared forever.
But the memory remains.
Always will.
4. The Opening, Final Fantasy 2
“Press Start.”
That’s it. When I was eleven and I turned on a game, that’s what I expected to see. Then I’d name my character, start out in a castle, go to a convenient nearby cave on a menial errand for the king, etc., etc..
So imagine my shock when I turned on Final Fantasy 2 and the game just…started. On an airship, no less.
No preamble, no title screen, just straight to the action, a nosedive right into the plot.
?
“What the hell is this? Did it skip a part? Did it glitch? Should I restart it?”
And then I was fighting enemies! Before even naming my guy?
“What if I die before I make my character!? Ah!”
Wow.
It was a complete shock. It opened my mind not to playing possibilities, but storytelling possibilities. From that moment video games were changed for me. My standards were forever raised (by what I still say is the most well-written member of the franchise).
That sense of shock, the feeling when the game instantly gripped me is why it made the list.
(The game didn’t relinquish that grip until I’d finished it, by the way.)
3. Bunker Hill, Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike
My friends and I started on Ghost Recon. That’s where we first learned to cooperate, assign each other roles, and coordinate our play to achieve a common objective. We knocked down mission after mission on high difficulty to our great satisfaction.
We were elite. When Uncle Sam needed it done, and done right, where no one else could do it, he called us. There was no objective we couldn’t take, no mission that could withstand our study, planning, and six hour sessions.
We stayed with the franchise for a long time.
Until Bunker Hill, in fact.
That was where our great squad finally met its demise, over and over again.
Bunker hill was a nighttime mission. We were sent to defend. We knew the odds were against us, but they always were.
We weren’t prepared.
No matter what we did, where we positioned ourselves, how we adjusted, we’d invariably be overrun. We just couldn’t hold it. There were too many of them, disciplined and fierce.
They were everywhere.
I watched Sarge go down, then the LT, then me. Our persistence was irrelevant: no matter how many times we tried, we couldn’t hold the hill. They handed us our asses over and over again, until we just…left.
Defeated.
Eventually, new consoles and a pile of years buried Bunker Hill in the past. But we still talk about it every now and then, in the hushed tones of shamed soldiers. We wonder if someday, somehow, we can go back and finally finish the job, and stand triumphant on the hill of our demise.
The unfinished work has been on my mind for over 15 years, so it gets the number three spot.
2. The Chase, Killzone 2
I resisted getting a PS3 for a long time. In fact, I actively avoided learning anything about it. I hadn’t seen any gameplay of its marquee titles. Hell, I didn’t even know what it looked like turned on.
When I did get it, I picked up Killzone 2. That game was a muddy, dirty, deep, beautiful mess. The multiplayer was like nothing I’d ever seen before or since. At first it was chaotic and muddled and confusing, then — with patience — it became compelling and rewarding.
I was playing on a map called Beachhead. It’s a dark place, lashed by wind and rain. I got to know it well.
One team spawns on the beach. Inland there’s a desolate, cratered no man’s land leading up to a dark fortress.
I spawned near the beach. Immediately I saw a guy a short distance away, through the sheets of rain. He killed one of my teammates (also he had no business being that close to our spawn).
So I crept up and went straight bust on him. Full clip. Lit him up. He ran at the end of the clip, but there was no way he lived.
But he did.
It was one of those occasions where I knew, I just knew one more bullet would do it. I could feel it. If you play shooters you know what I’m talking about.
He took off running up the right hand side of the map. I gave chase. I just needed to hit him one more time.
I was hot on his heels, but whenever I’d shoot he’d just round a corner, then I’d catch sight of him again and he’d just disappear into a trench.
Finally I caught him as he made a right in the trenches. I knew the map: it was a dead end. There was no way out and nowhere to hide.
I felt a lot of respect for the guy, because he knew I was after him and he’d given me an entertaining chase. It was white-knuckled and Killzone at its best. But it was over, I’d won.
End of the road.
I rounded the corner to deliver the last bullet and my head exploded. My body hung there for a second, headless, before it crumpled to the ground as the guy calmly trotted past me while reloading his shotgun.
And he didn’t sprint. He took his time.
I could tell.
Didn’t…see that coming.
It was tremendously cool.
1. The Chainsaw Incident, Gears of War
There have been some moments in video game history that are beyond momentous. Moments that changed how we think about games, how we play them, how they’re made.
Moving from side-scrolling to first person. Ocarina of Time. The introduction of dual analog sticks. Online multiplayer.
But there is one moment that transcended the genre. It advanced humanity like the moon landing or the discovery of the Higgs Boson. A moment that altered our perception of ourselves as a species and challenged our view of the universe.
That moment was when Cliff Bleszinski gave us a gun with a chainsaw on it.
My best video game moment of all time happened when my friend Andre and I were playing GOW. We ended up in what I believe was a broken elevator. We were playing on high difficulty and got trapped. The Grubs were coming in heavy and it looked like all was lost.
At the exact same time our chainsaws roared to life and suddenly everything was blood and guts and Grubs being carved in twain. Blood covered the screen, Marcus and Dom were screaming, the Grubs were screaming, the chainsaws were screaming. After a while it became this ludicrous wall of death-noise and redness.
And they just kept coming. Grub after Grub it had to be two or three minutes straight of spurting blood and sundered Grubs and loudness.
It was utterly ridiculous, and here’s the best part:
Andre and I laughed.
And I mean laughed. Like, short-of-breath, had to take the headset off and feebly wave my hand like a weak white flag in surrender as I convulsed with laughter.
It was so funny.
Now, you might think it’s the laughter that makes this moment number one, but that’s not entirely accurate.
It’s sharing the laughter with my good friend Andre.
That’s why it’s number one.
So, there you have it. I have many memories, some probably more interesting than those above, but when I think back, these are the ones I remember first, and I’ll remember always.
Feel free to leave your memories in the comments!
