`Blew your B*ll*x off games`:

[garyfoo182]

I suppose Quackshot was like this for me too. As a young kid I watched Duck Tales all the time and to have a game featuring most of the cast AND lead with Donald Duck was awesome. Plus the game is pretty sweet.

Gary

[Team Andromeda]

Nice Thread , Some of my jaw dropping moments

Revenge Of Shinobi MD) - The 1st time you kill a enemy, the rising moon and that water Fall background

Strider (MD) - Just the sheer size of the sprites and the super smooth Parallax scrolling

Ghost N Ghouls (MD) - When you get the rain storm

Thunder Force IV - That multi parallax scrolling water

Sonic II (MD) - Chemical Zone the part where Sonic runs so fast he almost goes off the screen

Contra III - The 1st time you zoom in on the Overhead section

Super Castlevaina IV (Snes) - That tunnel like spinning background where the skeletons jump out of the windows

Pilotwings (Snes) Just being in sheer amazing of watching the helicopter ride before you even do the jump

Super Tennis (Snes) - The mode 7 ball cam intro

Axlay - Oh the 1st stage
F-Zero (Snes) - The mean machine screen shots were jawdroping , the game moving was unlike anything I had seen before, a truly jaw dropping experience

Match of the Day II (ZX) - At the time It was the closest any comnputer game had got to representing the beautiful game

Panzer Dragoon (sat) - The 1st Ep stunning ancient agriculture and the music and water effects , and hands down the best intro ever

Panzer Dragon Zwei - Ep 7 the last boss

Panzer Dragoon Saga - Disc II whirlwind water effect

Panzer Dragoon Orta - The water effects to Ep 2 and that Ancient weapon Boss music

Batman Returns (mega CD) The 1st driving level , never before had a seen roadside buildings and objects scrolling so smoothly and look so solid , and the soundtrack was jaw dropping

Cobra Command (Mega CD) Laugh but that was the 1st time I saw FMV and it really did like you were seeing something not seen before

Grandia (Saturn) - The intro and the fly over right at the start , truly jaw dropping at the time

Exhumed (sat) The audio and the time the game stated to move , so smooth

Virutal Cop (Sat) It was more or less the Arcade Model 2 in your house

Virtual Fighter (sat) People can laugh , but that was the 1st time I saw people move onthe screen as good and as gratefully as Jackie Chan , amazing back in 1994 and the sound effects are still the most bone crushing

RSG (sat)- The 1st time the backround starts to swirl around

Souky - On the 2nd level , everything about it is jaw dropping

Athlete Kings/Decathlete (Sat) The model 2 levels are GFX in High Res and 60 fps

Last Bronx (Sat) The time when you see the ceilings in the subway/parking lot stages

Gradius V (PS2) - The 1st stage with the pumping soundtrack and swirling backgrounds , does anybody do it better than Treasure

Mario 64 (N64) - The draw distance

Conkers (X-Box) - The sheer PS3 and 360 levels of GFX on show , onthe humble X-Box

Slipheed (Mega CD) Yes I know it wasn't real time , but it didn't half look out of this world.

Shenmue II (DC) The fly over right at the start of Disc III

Virtual ON (DC) - The intro and then the real-time attract mode , Still some of the best graphics and textures I've seen

D2 (DC) - Seeing the downed Jumbo inthe snow. Still in my view no other game as done snow and the feeling of being inthe wilderness so well (I felt cold playing the game)

Maken X (DC) Seeing the the massive Jumbo taking off

God I stop now , I want to watch the GP, I could be hear all night

[gizmo1990]

Very few really.

Elite. Seeing that running first time was amazing.
F-Zero and Pilot Wings, utterly drawdropping.
Ridge Racer PS, blimey.
Tombraider PS (appeared a few weeks before Mario 64 as far as I remember..), crikey!

[Sabreman]

Soul Calibur on Dreamcast. It immediately sold me on a new console at a time when I was very much weary of the whole shebang. I used to leave it running in exhibition mode while I did other stuff, and I could never get over how utterly beautiful and fluid it was.

To top it off it was amazingly fun to play, and chock-full of extras. One of the very few games I'd consider an absolutely complete package. There hasn't been a beat 'em up before or since that I've played with so much dedication.

[moonwhistle]

ESWAT (MD) Dad got us an MD (our first console) with that and Altered Beast for ?60 from the Loot. We finally figured out you had to jump off the building on the first level and fall right the way down onto this platform to fight the boss, which turned out to be a wicked helicopter that could walk around! And that boss tune!

I remember that music vividly, it's one of my favourate bits of 16bit music.

Raiden really blew me away when I first played it, sure it's just a bland scrolling shooter but the attention to detail go far beyond what most games did at the time. Those collisions and meaty exposions really impressed me and the bit where you defeat the airship boss and it plumetts to the ground with a howl and massive exposion.

[beecee]

Contra III on the SNES - the whole first level is amazing, at every moment you feel super powerful and completely vulnerable at the same time. It makes for a rip-roaring edge of the seat experience and one of the SNES's most viscerally exciting games. And then you get to THAT boss. I'd never seen anything like it at the time and it still wows me today.

Contra III is made of awesome.

the game that made me buy a snes, when i first saw that, it was ardcade for the home...i was just amazed at the colours and detail and thenthere was the sound.

[garyfoo182]

A game that IS BALLS is Bodycount! Just tried it.

Utter nonsense.

Gary

[Tirian]

Elite. Seeing that running first time was amazing.

This this this!

I remember reading the reviews for it in Acorn User Magazine, and knowing that I absolutely had to have this game. It was a world ahead of anything else that had ever been seen on a computer at the time.

It was one of the very few games that my dad got completely addicted to as well (the other being Lemmings ..)

Nothing ever came out on the BBC Master System to surpass it. Ever. And I don't think I have devoted as much time to any game since.

And I blame my addiction to eBay trading entirely on the experience of building up massive fortunes on Elite. In that sense, it's probably the best £15 I spent (well, £30 actually since I had to buy a second copy when the first one got worn out!).

[DCharlie]

Knightlore (Zx spectrum) - good lord, it was like a game from the future. I struggled to comprehend it at the time and the news that the game was apparently completed and ready almost a year prior to it's release makes it even more :O.

There has been some since, but that's still the stand out "shock" game.

[Duddyroar]

(There was only 2 other MD owners writing into the magazine at that early time though. One of them was Julian Rignall! - Ed).

Heh, awesome that you had a high-score printed! Although I doubt Rignall would have had to 'write in' to the magazine, seeing as he was editing it at the time

For me, the game that really blew my socks off was unquestionably Golden Axe on the Megadrive. When I got my import machine for Xmas 1989 it was the first cartridge I booted up and after years of enduring ****ty Atari ST arcade conversions it felt like playing the real thing. Second to that is probably the MD conversions of Strider Hiryu and Dai Makaimura, both purchased on import.

Seeing F-Zero in my local importers the week after the Super Famicom had been released in Japan was also amazing, although it depressed me a little because it made me realise that my trusty MD wasn't the 'best thing ever' anymore. Also, I was really blown away by the Super Fami port of Final Fight, even if it lacked the 2-player option and was missing Guy...I was totally addicted to the arcade version at the time and this was the closed thing available in the home.

And I guess seeing Ridge Racer and Daytona USA on the PSX and Saturn were impressive moments, too - even if they do look pretty rough in retrospect.

[Geoff D]

Seeing the Final Fight SFC screens in Mean Machines for the first time - coming off the back of owning a Nes, it was like looking at an arcade machine; couldn't wait to get my mitts on that one.

[Skull Commander]

Most of my wow moments were arcade based.

Final Fight in the arcade. First time I saw MASSIVE sprites and loads of enemies to kick the crap out of.

TMNT in the arcade. Four player! Massive cab! Loud music! Turtles! I was powerless in getting drawn to this machine and slotting in as much as my pocket money allowed.

Street Fighter II in the arcade.

I was also wowed by the snes in general. Everything from the quality of graphics, sound and games.

[capcom_suicide]

R-Type 1 - Purchasing a Jap Megadrive from Shekanna in late `88 was special even though I had to put up with Altered Beast (in-print C&VG highscorer though!) (There was only 2 other MD owners writing into the magazine at that early time though. One of them was Julian Rignall! - Ed). Seeing R-Type 1 running on this shopping trip was enough to make me realise that even though I was actually probably buying the wrong machine, the future had finally come home to a begrudged Spectrum 48k arcade loving (and R-Type) owner. It flickered a bit yes, but it didn`t slowdown like the coin-op which was simply amazing. The PCE wasn`t RGB scart then, that is the only reason for my purchasing of the MD, if otherwise, it would of been the PCE and this game for sure.

I had no idea that R-type was out on the Megadrive! Was it a good conversion?

My "Wow" moments....

Thunderforce II, second level boss. (Jap Import MD 1988)

Scud Race - Arcade.

[Fastware]

Super Shinobi and Golden Axe, the two hit combo that sold me a Megadrive. Amazing.

[fallenangle]

I came to serious gaming late so it's, relatively, recent in my mind. It was the first game I had played since my last go on Space Invaders on a college field trip just under 18 years earlier and that was the PS version of Riven.

Don't laugh. I'd seen some stunning FMV of Riven which had spurred me to buy a PS but honestly I no inkling video games had become that sophisicated;. Every new frame was a mini-revelation, every new animated element was a delight to see. How was I to know this was a niche game and hardly representative.

That leads on to my second 'blown away' moment. Six weeks after I started Riven I was stuck and the newness was wearing off. Still excited by my knew hobby I went to EB looking for something else that would give me a similar buzz.

I didn't know what I wanted, I'd never even read a games mag and I wasn't online then. I came across Tomb Raider - I must have heard the name somewhere because it rung a bell but I had no idea what it was about. Anyway, it was cheap so I bought it.

Playing that for the first time was the second but most important 'blown away' moment of my gaming life. Suddenly I realised what video games could be, I was just gobsmacked you had control of this animated character on screen. You could actually control her to explore those imaginative, abstracted but still highly evocative environments and fight the beasts which inhabited them too. Utterly captivating entertainment.

It was a true revelation and a significant reason why I'm still into video games over 10 years on.