WOW! moments for me:
1. Seeing Doom for the first time. Climbing those stairs to the right of the start point and seeing this apprently vast terrain in high detail stretching out before me. Those were simpler times, when one was easily fooled by a skybox. :-)
2. Seeing Mario 64 for the first time in Toys R Us. The first truly free roaming third person 3D game. The minute I saw that I knew games were going to change dramatically over the next few years. And playing it was an absolute blast.
3. Beating the first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and being allowed to exit Kokiri Woods and enter Hyrule field. Upon entering the field you saw rolling terrain stretching a mile into the distance, with a castle, and a ranch... And being indecisive about which direction of ANY to explore in! You could go any way you wanted! So what did I do when faced with this wonderful dillema?
I followed the path. :-)
4. Half Life 2 didn't have any one big wow moment, but did have a lot of little ones, like getting in that car and being able to drive around.
I'm sensing a pattern here actually. All the big wow moments I've had have been a result of experiencing a new level of freedom to explore anywhere in a game. The Doom one was partly graphics, but I wanted to explore those mountains, and thought I would be able to later in the game. Ahh how naive I was back then. :-) And Mario 64 has a big field to explore at the start. And Zelda too.
Thaat reminds me. I just thoughtof Grand Theft Auto 3 and then it occured to me that that wasn't as much of a wow moment as the others, because I'd done that before.
5. Harley Davidson and the LA Riders. An arcade game where you ride a motorcycle through LA to reach checkpoints. That was yet another game which allowed you to go absolutely anywhere, but this time in a city! Jumping over an embankment and up onto a runway and then driving under a taxing 747 was awesome, and then you got to drive up on the highway. Sure, your exploration was limited by the timer, but you could still find all sorts of shortcuts if you explored a bit and went off the beaten path... like through the middle of a park. :-)
1. Seeing Doom for the first time. Climbing those stairs to the right of the start point and seeing this apprently vast terrain in high detail stretching out before me. Those were simpler times, when one was easily fooled by a skybox. :-)
2. Seeing Mario 64 for the first time in Toys R Us. The first truly free roaming third person 3D game. The minute I saw that I knew games were going to change dramatically over the next few years. And playing it was an absolute blast.
3. Beating the first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and being allowed to exit Kokiri Woods and enter Hyrule field. Upon entering the field you saw rolling terrain stretching a mile into the distance, with a castle, and a ranch... And being indecisive about which direction of ANY to explore in! You could go any way you wanted! So what did I do when faced with this wonderful dillema?
I followed the path. :-)
4. Half Life 2 didn't have any one big wow moment, but did have a lot of little ones, like getting in that car and being able to drive around.
I'm sensing a pattern here actually. All the big wow moments I've had have been a result of experiencing a new level of freedom to explore anywhere in a game. The Doom one was partly graphics, but I wanted to explore those mountains, and thought I would be able to later in the game. Ahh how naive I was back then. :-) And Mario 64 has a big field to explore at the start. And Zelda too.
Thaat reminds me. I just thoughtof Grand Theft Auto 3 and then it occured to me that that wasn't as much of a wow moment as the others, because I'd done that before.
5. Harley Davidson and the LA Riders. An arcade game where you ride a motorcycle through LA to reach checkpoints. That was yet another game which allowed you to go absolutely anywhere, but this time in a city! Jumping over an embankment and up onto a runway and then driving under a taxing 747 was awesome, and then you got to drive up on the highway. Sure, your exploration was limited by the timer, but you could still find all sorts of shortcuts if you explored a bit and went off the beaten path... like through the middle of a park. :-)