Gaming

Finishing Halo 1's campaign co-op in one night during a sleepover with friends.

The end of Twilight Princess is permanently embedded into my mind. Just the silence of Ganondorf standing with the sword plunged through his chest is incredible and a little haunting at the end of that game.

That, and when my dad showed me DOOM. That was a good day.

It's not a good one but the first time I felt existential dread was playing Missile Command in the Atari 2600. I was about 8 and realized that the game only ends when all of your cities are destroyed and life is extinguished. No matter how I tried or how good I got the game would end in a devastation.

On a good note, I remember skipping a party to play ocarina of time. I thought I would regret skipping the party, nah. OoT was and is still better.

Going to Toys R Us with my friend just to play the SNES Donkey Kong demo.

First time I played Pokémon, Age of Empires II and Diablo II.

Playing Super Mario Brothers 3 and later Super Mario World with my older siblings.

Playing Super Mario World on the SNES as a kid.

Not sure if I can pick one:

• 4-player Mario Kart 64 with siblings
• Command and Conquer Red Alert, Red Alert 2, and Generals with my dad and brother
• Halo 1 and 2 co-op campaigns with my brother
• 007 Nightfire multiplayer with my brother

Playing smash bros and mario kart on the game cube with my two brothers.

My cousin and I were playing Monopoly on NES. The computer player offered us a trade. I don’t remember what it was exactly, but it wanted Boardwalk from some other property we had no use for. We declined the trade and console immediately reset. It still makes me laugh realizing the game rage quit on us.

My most memorable gaming moment would be when I beat Magus in Chrono Trigger for the first time. The build-up to this bad-ass of a character was intense. The whole first part of the game had you thinking he was the final boss. He had everything: a cult worshiping him in 600 AD, ominous music, bumbling henchmen and a castle surrounded in shadows and mists.

For those who've played the game, who can forget when you first come to his room? Everything's black, there's this scary weird chanting in the background, you're running into the darkness. Suddenly, blue flames burst to life on either side of your party. Oh yeah, this is it.

You find him facing an altar, in bad-ass pose mode, arms outstretched. A few exchanges of short, characteristic dialogue. Cue in music.

"The black wind begins to blow..."

And it begins.

I died like 5 times before I beat him. But getting beat by Magus, especially when you're around 13-14 years old and really into CT's story, could not get any more exhilarating and jarring at the same time. Of course, after I got Crono's Luminaire, it was all over. Still, one of my best memories growing up, especially since I loved the archetype of the anti-hero.

Second best gaming moment would be when I found him again after the fall of Zeal, only to find out you can have him as a party member! I never thought twice about what I wanted. In fact, I don't think I've ever done a playthrough of CT without choosing Magus to fight alongside me, even to this day.

This will make me sound young but beating KOTOR on Xbox. It was literally years in the making because I was 6 when I started it and maybe 9 when I finally figured out how to progress to the end and defeat Malak with grenade spam of every single one I saved the whole campaign. Man I was in heaven

The Legend of Zelda. So many amazing, visceral memories associated with that game- cracking open the package and gawping at the golden cartridge, leafing through the manual, looking at the paper map while running around in game, exploring, sweating through the labyrinthine later dungeons, hacking my way out of a like-a-like, braving the graveyard for the magic sword, the music... It was like 35 years ago and it's still a helluva thing.

When my parents bought me a famiclone in the middle of 90s (best moment of sad reality in a recently liberated post-commie country).

Reading the FF7 player's guide while my older brothers played it.

Playing Dungeon Master, and Eye of the Beholder series on my Amiga.

Playing Final Fantasy VII as a kid and realizing that video games had reached a level of storytelling on par with film or books.

Discovering the Sevii Islands in Pokemon Leaf Green, felt like exploring a secret zone I wasn't supposed to. 7 Year old me was extremely excited.

Me and my cousins taking turn to move "our" character in UFO Enemy Unknown.

Late to the party, but probably playing Battlefield 1942 for actual HOURS. Such a great game

The N64 was the first console that was mine. I got it for my birthday. Before that, they always belonged to my older brother. We would play together and I’d always be player 2.

Eventually when I got my own nintendo and my sister was old enough to play games, I became player 1. I remember being so proud being able to help her the same way my brother had for me. She was so impressed when I helped her beat the final boss in Majora’s Mask.

There was nothing better than 4 player split screen for Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64

edit: seconded only by 16 player Halo LAN parties in the early 2000s

A bunch of neighborhood kids would come over on Fridays and spend the night, we'd stay up until like 2am with 1 person playing the original Resident Evil on ps1 and were scared shitless. Then we'd spend the next day playing Mario Kart 64 and OG Smash Bros.

Waking up early with my brother to play Goldeneye on the N64 was peak gaming for me.

The Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System was my first big console game (I played some crappy DOS games on Windows 3.11 before that), but I remember getting a SEGA Genesis with Sonic 2 when I was around 10 years old and being blown away by the graphics and game quality.

I had played Sonic 2 on the SEGA Game Gear since my 9th birthday, but I became a lifelong fan of Sonic the Hedgehog ever since I got to play the Genesis version (I'm 39 now).

I replayed that game so much, it's one of my core memories of my summer vacations as a kid.

Staying up late at my friends house on a school night, trying to finish Kingdom Hearts while eating WAY to many cheese puffs and root beer. Ended up asking her older brother for help on one part of the final boss but we got it eventually.

I spent a lot of time playing wwf no mercy and vigilante 8 2nd offense. I mostly fell back into playing the tony hawk games for the longest time.

I have several, but the one that was probably most impactful was Bassin's Back Bass with Hank Parker for SNES. My brother and I, as well as a few uncles, aunts and adult cousins within the area, would regularly rent it from our local corner store. We would all compete for various records within the game, and it was neat because you could visit the records page every week and view them by category and type of fish. Each included a photograph of said fish, along with info on the fish's weight, where they caught it, the bait they used, etc.

It was neat as hell and I've never experienced anything like it. Still the best fishing game I've ever played to date.

Both Sonic Adventures on the Dreamcast. Just terrific 3D platformers and gorgeous for the time, plus they still hold up.

Back in high school, I had an older friend that got me into Phantasy Star Online. I have absolutely amazing memories when I'd head over to his place and we'd hop online in split-screen to clear some levels and look for gear. Can't forget the copious amounts of Code Red and Domino's pizza!

Going over to friends houses to play games. I never had a large library and playing new games. And the games I did have were the mane ones everyone else had so no one ever wanted to come over and play at my house.

Really vivid memories of going Christmas shopping with my mother and getting Final Fantasy X with the strategy guide as an early gift when I was young. I think it had just released and it was all over the magazines I was subscribed to (shoutout Gamepro haha). Was super engrossed with it during that break. I always interested in RPGs, but I was at just the right age to really start enjoying them a lot more when that game came out. Was a really awesome, memorable winter break.

...on a more duderbo note, my high school friends and I would stay up ungodly hours and drink waaaaay too many Five Hour energy shots playing Halo 3 and later Reach. Undoubtably unhealthy, but very good times.

Everything about Halo 3. Going through the co-op campaign on Legendary with 4 friends from school, big team battle and ranked duo's were really sick. All the custom game lobbies that would spontaneously spin up from a random invite from someone you never knew.

Sneeking into my brother's room when he was not at home, playing Super Mario World, Secret of Evermore and Metal Warriors on his SNES. Lovely memories!

I played a little MMO called Face of Mankind. It was hot garbage but I loved it. I played in a faction called the Law Enforcement Division (LED), the Solar System's police force. As part of that group, I joined Internal Affairs and helped run investigations into other LED members. I loved the process of applying rules to cases and investigating situations, applying fines or punishments as needed. The game really didn't empower much player agency in this regard, but we made it work. And it was an absolute blast.

Two memories stick out that made the game become mythical in my mind. First, was the Tequila Yuen Incident, in which a player changed from the "army" faction to the LED and was accused of murdering another player. As IAD, we had to investigate. During the investigation we determined that the army had faked the evidence to support their claim of murder by dressing another player to look like Yuen and faking a screenshot to imply Yuen admitted to the murder. After that, we uncovered an entire hidden organization within the army and led to a cop/army war.

Second, after a falling out with the LED leadership, I joined the underground "Brotherhood of Shadows" faction. As part of an anti-system government movement, the BoS joined forces with a number of other factions to form a counter government called the Nation of Shadows. As part of that government, we needed to draft establishing documents and I spent a few weeks working with others to draft a NoS constitution and binding agreements for military force commitments and representative government.

I cannot stress enough how little the developers gave us to support any of this nonsense. And yet, it happened regardless.

Playing Midnight Club 2 all night with cousins. Setting up races with only beginning and end checkpoint and finding the fastest way to get there was awesome.

Hm, alright. It's gonna be one of:

• Fully completing Majora's Mask with a bud, going through each of the mask quests and figuring them out together was amazing
• Having a hilarious good time smashing through Mystical Ninja Goemon with another friend
• My friend group as a whole organizing around games of Smash 64/Melee for our own tournaments
• Halo 1-3 co-ops and multi with my brother and cousin

I remember renting a box in the video store (1980s) with some sort of console. It hooked up to the TV and we'd play for a few hours.

Some time after we got a commodore 64 and turning in on in front of the family and no one knew what would happen. I vividly remember how the on/off button and all the keys felt. The tapes and discs and everything is a tactile memory that I'll never forget.

One particular gaming session does stand out. My brother and I had both invited friends over one random day after school and while we were of different age and had no other relations across the groups everyone were united in completing this single player game. One guy at a time getting a little further than the previous one - until it was dinner time. That was the best.

Being physically together and playing games is somehow better. Later on in my early 20s, I had a close friend and we'd always just game and drink and then hit the pubs later on, but it's mostly the games that stand out. Myst being one. It's an excellent single player puzzle game, but it's even better when you're two people trying to figure it out. We also went through Roller coaster Tycoon, GTA 3, vice City and San Andreas amongst many more together. Just gaming, drinking and sometimes we wouldn't even make it to the pub.

It's been many years since then. I played many games alone that were fun but didn't mean that much. Lately I've stopped gaming for myself. I only play games with my kids, hoping to give them a similar experience as I had as a child.

Minecraft does that well. We can sit and play together or stream on the TV and talk and hang out in the room or through servers. It is probably the best game ever.

Not because of the graphics or story or gameplay or balance or FPS or... No, it's because you can watch the screen and be indulged without even playing the game.