How about the greatest -single- game you ever played?

[Rimbo]

You know, like the time you got the high score on Pac-Man, or beat Ghosts 'n' Goblins (OK, bullshit alarm goes off if anyone claims they did that without cheating)...

It was the Spring of 1997, and I had lost my mind. In-between trips to the bowling league, psychotherapy sessions, and the occasional good night's sleep, I was on the computer playing Quakeworld Teamfortress on my brand-new cable modem.

This was back when San Diego was one of only four markets in the States to have them, so a combination of being a Low Ping Bastard and experience from having played made me a rather formidable opponent. But Teamfortress is a team game. The choices other players make determines the outcome as much as anything.

I chose to be a scout. The rest of my team, without discussing it, all set up as engineers and heavy weapons guys. I made flag runs alone, meanwhile they set up the Defense To End All Defenses.

The other team had one engineer and one heavy weapons guy guarding their base. While the engineer slowly built his gun placement, I ran by him. Same thing with the HWG. I rarely if ever died... at least, not in their base. In our base, the scene was nonstop carnage -- rockets, pineapples, shotgun blasts, and every second someone got fragged. Engineer gun placements, once built, spent their lifetime constantly firing at the invasion.

The server balanced teams; if one team was ahead of the other, it placed incoming players on the losing team -- but the teams could start unbalanced if people left or switched sides in-between rounds. As a result, for much of the game, there were six of us, and twelve of them. Five guys on our side fought an onslaught of ten and eleven opponents at a time. I would run into my base with the flag and immediately get waxed from rockets intended for my teammates. In this version, the flag would hover in one spot for a few seconds and wait for someone -- on the capturing team only -- to pick it up. It was just enough time for me to respawn, move it a few squares, get fragged, and respawn again. Eventually, I'd get a capture.

I would taunt the HWG on the other team, and he'd taunt right back. On the other end of the battlefield, we fought one-on-one, as he alone tried to keep me from getting the flag and getting out. With a 25ms ping time and the scout's extra speed I didn't have too much trouble; I'd lay in a dozen rounds of my nailgun before he even knew I was around the bend, and if I waxed him, the HWG was too slow to get back into position before I was long gone. He had no skills; I knew 2fort4 back and forth.

The game ended with the score 999 to 120. We dominated a team that outnumbered us two to one.

That was fun.

[Squirrel Killer]

Summer of 1988, at a debate camp at the University of Kansas, the dorm had a sped-up Ms Pac-Man. Somehow, I caught zen with the machine, and got to the fourth board on one life...no, not the pretzel level...the fourth board...after the third intermission. I had only gotten to that board a couple of times before that so I went through my lives pretty quick once I got there, but the high score lasted at least through the rest of the camp.

[tronnc]

Check out this screenshot.

I was on fire in BF Vietnam about a month ago. Playing as the name Loser. To those none BF players the gold stars represent top player in the level for an individual round, so that was four rounds in a row as top player. Only in this last round did I not die once.

http://img9.org/p/?~high_score.JPG

[tronnc]

Sorry double post.

[Brian Rubin]

Sometime in 1994, I'm flying an assault gunboat mission in Tie Fighter, tasked with taking out the defenses of a crippled Mon Calmari cruiser so that the bombers could fly in and finish her off. Well, during my dogfight, I lost my shields, and was swarmed upon by no less than six A-Wings. Checking my damage screen showed over two minutes until the shields came back online. These were two of the longest minutes of my life. I banked, swerved, changed speeds, and did whatever I could to avoid being hit.

Dripping with sweat and watching my hull indicator grow a deeper shade of red with every hit, after two minutes of almost ripping the joystick out of its socket, the shields came back on. I diverted all energy from the laser cannons to the shields until I had at least one layer of green. Then, I began picking off the A-Wings one by one until none were left. While this was occurring, the Mon Calmari cruiser was taken down by the Tie Bombers. It was one of the sweetest victories I've ever tasted in ANY game.

[Gourmand]

You know, like the time you got the high score on Pac-Man, or beat Ghosts 'n' Goblins (OK, bullshit alarm goes off if anyone claims they did that without cheating)...


I actually beat Ghouls 'n Ghosts (I assume very much the same as ghosts and goblins?) on the console w/o cheats. I was around age 11 and played it religiously for a few years I think. It's the first game my dad bought me for my sega genesis and it's the game I definitely got the most play out of.

Of course, it might not be so spectacular since Ghosts and Goblins was the arcade machine, I think? That might have been a bit harder. But for an 11 year old - damn Ghouls 'n Ghosts was a challenge.

[GMicek]

Not so much the best single game session, but a series of them. I used to be able to beat Contra and Trojan on the NES in a single life. Maybe that's actually really easy, but I remember it feeling pretty awesome at the time :)

[xahlt]

Playing TFC on dustbowl map maybe a few months or so after the staged-assault gameplay type was added and at the height of my never-that-great TFC prowess, we were the attacking team in the first stage. The attackers had set up two sentry guns on the walls in the initial trench and were spamming grenades and pipe bombs and what have you, and all our flag carriers kept running the flag 2 inches before dying. Eventually most of the team switched because they were sick of getting spam killed so I was left pretty much alone against maybe 7 defenders.

In one life as a scout, I managed to take out the one lvl 3 sentry gun with the nail gun by popping up and down a ladder, took out the other by circling around it rapidly with the nail gun, then jumped down and took the flag from the trench, ran it across to the middle caves, dodged a couple guys in the tunnels there, took the upper left route to avoid a hastily constructed lvl 1 sentry directly across from the cap and jumped down in front of it with enough health that it blew me into the cap point despite my resulting death.

And I didn't even have to resort to cheap conc jumping :)

[Doug Erickson]

I've not only beat Ghosts N Goblins, I've beat it on one credit -- both arcade and NES versions. You want tough? Beat the arranged levels of Super Ghouls N Ghosts R on the GBA -- the remixes of the classic Ghosts N Goblins levels (and one Ghouls N Ghosts level) are BRUTAL SQUARED.

However, my claims to videogaming fame, at least in my youth, are as follows:

- I beat the arcade R-Type (all 8 levels) without dying
- I beat Shadow of the Beast and Blood Money on the Amiga
- I beat Radiant Silvergun on one credit (yes, I rock)
- I had 43 win streak in Vampire Savior at the Crossroads arcade in OKC, alternating between Morrigan and Anakaris as my characters. I can still clean people's clocks pretty consistently with those characters, and I can pull off Morrigan's big linked (i.e. not a glitch) 75-hit combo relatively easily to this day.

- I also used to show off and beat Strider in one life at the arcade, although truth be told that game was just plain easy.

My great shame:

- I consistently lose to EVERYBODY, even newbs, in Soul Calibur 2. I dunno WHY I just don't get the rhythm of this fighting game -- I can guard impact almost perfectly, I know all of Cassandra's moves, but I just can NOT get a good sense of timing in it. It drives me NUTS. I must have some mental block going on, like when I used to rack up massive wins in SF2 back in the days of yore, only to have a newbie Blanka take me out almost every time. I had some weird thing when playing versus Blanka. FREAKY.

[Doug Erickson]

oinkfs:

There are four GnG titles:

1. Ghosts N Goblins -- arcade and NES. Arguably the least polished and cheapest of the four, as well as the oldest. I find it harder than Ghouls and Super Ghouls, but not as tough as SGnG R.

2. Ghouls N Ghosts -- arcade, Genny, Supergrafx. A near-perfect arcade platformer, but also probably the easiest of the them (yet still pretty damn tough).

3. Super Ghouls N Ghosts -- SNES. Had some serious slowdown, but also had some of the hardest actual platforming.

4. Super Ghouls N Ghosts R -- GBA. Has two modes: SGnG, which is just the SNES game all cleaned up, and an Arranged mode, which features remixed ultra-hard SGnG levels as well as complete overhauls of classic levels/bosses from the first two titles. Arranged Mode is INDISPUTABLY the hardest and most polished GnG challenge out there, even with post-level saves.

[shift6]

The first time I beat "Smash TV" in the arcade. <sigh>

[kentdog]

I once played a game of Future VS. Fantasy Quake COOP from about 10PM to 6AM the next morning. I think I played as a Ninja. It was just plain, old-fashioned fun, thanks to the great group of people i was playing with. I think that it would be a hard find nowadays.

-kentdog

[Chris]

Mine was with the first Wing Commander. It was the the mission where the Kilarthi attack you in stolen Rapiers, the best fighter in the game. I don't remember how many I fought, I want to say at least two waves of 4 back to back, all without my guns which had been shot off. I had a few missiles left but I tried to ration them for certain kills. I wound up diving at the enemy, pulling up at the last second and slamming into them. My shields would drop all the way but I always did serious damage to the Cats. By the time I landed on the carrier all alarms had been blasting for 10 minutes. It was a white knuckle affair all the way.

[Andrew Mayer]

Wing Commander for me as well.

I can't remember the mission, but I came into the final jump point with only a my lasers, my shields, and a few missiles.

Dogfighting and dodging I managed to pick off the Kilrathi, but they were working me. By the last enemy I had no guns left, and the guy was halfway down. I fired the afterburners and smashed into him. There was an explosion, and I waited to see the death animation. Instead my shields were gone, but so was he.

I landed on the carrier with absolutely nothing left but my hull.

[Ben]

It was Air Warrior, around 1995-1996. I was the king of tailgunning(had a 6 kill run once), but my squad wanted us to diversify skills, so they made me fly a mission. We were going after the little fuel tanky place in the middle of the map. B-17, we take off, run into a fighter who shoots us up a bit before getting nailed by one of my gunners. We go over the target, and I switch into the bombing mode. Unforunately, I hit the wrong keys because I wasn't used to flying. I finish the bomb run after figuring stuff out, but it was ugly. On the way back, we get hit again by fighters. Again, we fight them off, but I take heavy damage, losing an engine. This is where it gets fun. Unbeknownest to me, I had disabled my landing gear in my button hitting frenzy. Battered, low on fuel, with a full crew and a rookie pilot, I make a unpowered bellyflop on the airfield for a 100,000 point bombing run(100K was an excellent score).

[Greedo]

I was the first person to get to end on Dragon's Lair at my local arcade (Supercade at Randhurst Mall, suburban Chicago).

It was one of those cabinets with the extra monitor mounted on top.

I knew there was a sizable crowd gathered behind me as I neared the end of the game.

I slapped the "Sword" button for the final move . . . the thrust that finished off Singe, and turned around and walked through the crowd without watching the rest of the animation . . . acting like the 11 year old big-shot who "had been there before".

Of course, I hadn't been there before, and so had to come back later and finish the game again to see what the ending was like.

[Timemaster Tim]

In university, my roommates and I were all fanatical players of Impossible Mission. I scored the first no death game. AWESOME!

[russellmz00]

5 cs moments:

i suck at shooting and have the reflexes of a three toed sloth. so i sought other ways to have fun in cs.

one was a spray that was composed of random images/parts of the green shirted, glasses wearing t.

another was using only pistol and a suicide nade as weapons. (after a certain patch if you died while holding a primed nade, it blew up)

1. in de_dust, my team wiped out and me hiding behind the crate next to the left of the tunnel entrance, close to the spawn. i figure there's no way to win so i wait until i hear footsteps approach my position. at the perfect zen moment i run out and ram into a group of cts. the ct in the middle can't run away since his teammates are jamming him in. i die, "counter-terrorists win" is announced, the cts are juust standing, reloading. then BOOM! 6 cts go flying into the air. the names were still being listed by the time the next round comes.

2. the ts are owning us on dust. i am getting pissed because i run all the way over to bombsite a and only a few or no cts are fast enough to get there with me before the ts come and kill us all/plant the bomb.

finally i say fuck it. i make sure to break into a run as soon as i can, i don't buy armor or even a nade, i just haul ass to the bombsite and hide behind the farthest crate at bombsite a. i hear firing, i see the kills showing my teammates being killed off, first at the a bombsite, then eventually everyone else. sometime before the last ct dies they plant the bomb. i stay behind the crate, not moving. i figure if i wait there and time it so only 20 seconds are left on the bomb, i can run out and defuse in time.

the ts are out hunting in the wrong places for me. the ones guarding the bomb don't suspect a cowardly/insane ct is hiding ten feet from them. at 22 seconds left, they run away, not wanting to die needlessly with the bomb. at 20 seconds left i pop out and see their backs as they run out the double door.

i defuse, winning the game, with a few terrorists going "WHAT???".

3. playing a t on dust. playing the coward as usual, i am behind the left crate outside the dust tunnel entrance. my teammates are camping with me but they all get wiped out one by one by vastly superior firepower/coordination/aiming from the cts in the tunnel.

the few cts left eventually pop out and encounter no one. i think one ran right, to the bridge. a couple run to the left towards my hiding place. i get ready for another suicide nade kamikaze stroll. but none of them bother to look in my hiding position behind the crate anyway, they are rushing to the spawn thinking i am spawn camping.

waiting a few moments, i listen for any footsteps coming from the tunnel. hearing none, i break out in a dead run with my knife out (i only had a pistol and a nade). i grab the bomb in the tunnel, i keep going to bombsite a, i plant the bomb and wait in the corner of bombsite a (at the corner formed by that short wall). i have a clear view of the bomb from that spot and have my nade out primed and ready to throw.

i also spray my green shirted t with glases "camo" spray behind me. (i always go as that guy when i join the t team).

the cts arrive. and fail to notice me.

two head to the bomb, one defusing. i wait a few seconds to stall for time. the other is checking out the corner behind the far crate. finally i let loose with my grenade and while it is still in the air fire my glock at the defusing guy. i manage to kill him with the pistol before the nade blows up, killing the second guy.

i then aim at the last guy who is turning around trying to figure out where the shots/nade came from. he is staring right at me and my camo spray, but not firing while i empty my glock into him and kill him. t win!

4. dust: for once i am on an aggressive streak, but my team wants to camp (and get owned by the cts). i got the bomb, spawn near the stairs for once. immediately i run out and at the same time buy two flashbangs.

i head to the bombsite a but go down the side entrance to the double doors. i toss one thorugh the double doors and immediately follow it in. i toss the second flashbang and keep running blind until i get where the bomb icon is blinking and freaking plant, baby. i think only one or two cts managed to notice some crazy ass t had run into the mass of cts.

all my teammates are camping at the tunnel entrance. so i die instantly after the blindness wears off the cts. they defuse the bomb. ct victory, moral victory MINE!

5. same thing only no bomb: i go down the side entrance towards the double doors while tossing two flashbangs. i blindly run past a ct at the ct spawn's exit/entrance, cut to the right and kill two ct snipers by surprising them from behind. while in the game purgatory, a confused ct asked me if i was the one who ran past him at the spawn entrance/exit.

[Gourmand]

oinkfs:

There are four GnG titles:

1. Ghosts N Goblins -- arcade and NES. Arguably the least polished and cheapest of the four, as well as the oldest. I find it harder than Ghouls and Super Ghouls, but not as tough as SGnG R.

2. Ghouls N Ghosts -- arcade, Genny, Supergrafx. A near-perfect arcade platformer, but also probably the easiest of the them (yet still pretty damn tough).

3. Super Ghouls N Ghosts -- SNES. Had some serious slowdown, but also had some of the hardest actual platforming.

4. Super Ghouls N Ghosts R -- GBA. Has two modes: SGnG, which is just the SNES game all cleaned up, and an Arranged mode, which features remixed ultra-hard SGnG levels as well as complete overhauls of classic levels/bosses from the first two titles. Arranged Mode is INDISPUTABLY the hardest and most polished GnG challenge out there, even with post-level saves.

Interesting - the only other variant I played was super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (the kid up the street had an SNES ... lets just say we quickly became friends :) ). I might have to download MAME and virtual boy advance to see how the other two play.

I beat the SNES version as well, but again after a ludicrous amount of time invested at a young age. I think part of my motivation was that my father played the game as well, and I was determined to trounce his score.

[Malderi]

Probably the final mission in Freespace 2.

First time I did it, it was one of the few missions I did in one try. It was like one in the morning and I was in the friggin' Zone with a capital Z. I just owned all those Shivan mofos...

[Jason McCullough]

Greatest ever?

Probably playing Warcraft 2 back in the college dorms. I lived on the same floor as Doug Erickson (and Anaxagoras was only one dorm over), and we'd have these ludicrously elaborate Warcraft 2 games.

There was this guy we were friends with named Greg, and he would get horrendously upset anytime something didn't go exactly his way playing. I got to the point where I didn't try to win, as much as try to make him lose (preferably through a dirty trick) just to hear the shrieks of outrage.

There was this other guy we played with, Kenji (don't ask), who was probably the worst multiplayer gamer I'd ever seen. We'd consistently invade his town only to find like 1 orc and maybe 3 peons.

Anyway, so the best game ever went like this:

1) Greg fights an enormous 3-way war with the other players.
2) Greg vanquishes Doug.
3) Greg fights Anax to a standstill.
4) Greg invades Kenjis town.
4) *Just as he steps in to go after his town hall*, I release my army of, oh, I dunno, something like 20 explosive gnomes into the middle of his town. It bankrupted my entire economy building them and meant I'd lose, but *I destroyed his entire main city in one shot*. There wasn't anything he could do to stop them; I guess he killed one or two, but nowhere near enough.
5) Anax picked up the pieces and won.

I was laughing so hard at the "ARUGHGRAHGHGH YOU FUCKER JESUS FUCK SOUAGHDGKH THAT'S NOT FAIR" noises coming from down the hall my stomach hurt.

I'd do this in pretty much every strategy game - in C&C, I came up with an endless variety of commando tricks. APCs, hiding behidn tanks, multiple APCS, multiple helicopters all full of them - eventually, it got to be too expensive, so I hit on the hilarious combo of 4 helicopters and 2 APCs simultaenously runing into his base, but only *one* of them had the commando!

Good times.

[Rimbo]

2. the ts are owning us on dust. i am getting pissed because i run all the way over to bombsite a and only a few or no cts are fast enough to get there with me before the ts come and kill us all/plant the bomb.

finally i say fuck it. i make sure to break into a run as soon as i can, i don't buy armor or even a nade, i just haul ass to the bombsite and hide behind the farthest crate at bombsite a. i hear firing, i see the kills showing my teammates being killed off, first at the a bombsite, then eventually everyone else. sometime before the last ct dies they plant the bomb. i stay behind the crate, not moving. i figure if i wait there and time it so only 20 seconds are left on the bomb, i can run out and defuse in time.

the ts are out hunting in the wrong places for me. the ones guarding the bomb don't suspect a cowardly/insane ct is hiding ten feet from them. at 22 seconds left, they run away, not wanting to die needlessly with the bomb. at 20 seconds left i pop out and see their backs as they run out the double door.

i defuse, winning the game, with a few terrorists going "WHAT???".



I did that once. Same map, same strategy -- same effect. :)

[Brian Rucker]

My favorite game moments tend to be less about my victories over code or players than when I'm amazed at what the designers did or thought of and how things can just crop up in a game. Jawdroppers. That's what gets me. And greatest game moments make for greatest single game experiences...

I think my top is from a flight sim.

Long and rather scenic twilight patrol. In RB3D night can get so dark you feel the need to turn off the lights in the room just so you can peer into the monitor to make out any little detail. And about that time is when The Hun jumped us. The patrol split apart into a collection of spiraling duels and I quickly lost track of what anyone was doing but myself and the Albatross in my sights. He was an extremely good maneuverer (for AI) and we were both bled out of potential energy, skimming and jerking over no man's land, for what seemed forever. The German couldn't get away and I couldn't get a telling shot in. Then he came up to a rise and had to pull up to get over it, this slowed him close to a stall and put him in my sights, I fired and tore the hell out of a wing but he'd sideslipped just enough that's all I got. And once we crested the hill I realized I was not only on the wrong side of the lines but that there were Hun scouts taking off from a base right in front of us.

Now I was the hunted as they just swarmed around me but they had no better angles or any potential energy to expend. Occasionally I'd get a snapshot off at some target that happened to, somehow, swim in front of my sights as I wildly maneuvered. I was just as worried about hitting the black ground, under the black sky, as getting shot by the enemy. If I sensed a break I'd head back toward the Allied positions more than worry about getting on anyone's tail. Eventually, though, I collided with somebody as he made a pass and that was the end of that. But it was such a long, slow, and intense ballet it made an impression that's with me to this day.

[Dave Long]

I've not only beat Ghosts N Goblins, I've beat it on one credit -- both arcade and NES versions. You want tough? Beat the arranged levels of Super Ghouls N Ghosts R on the GBA -- the remixes of the classic Ghosts N Goblins levels (and one Ghouls N Ghosts level) are BRUTAL SQUARED.

However, my claims to videogaming fame, at least in my youth, are as follows:

- I beat the arcade R-Type (all 8 levels) without dying
- I beat Shadow of the Beast and Blood Money on the Amiga
- I beat Radiant Silvergun on one credit (yes, I rock)
- I had 43 win streak in Vampire Savior at the Crossroads arcade in OKC, alternating between Morrigan and Anakaris as my characters. I can still clean people's clocks pretty consistently with those characters, and I can pull off Morrigan's big linked (i.e. not a glitch) 75-hit combo relatively easily to this day.

- I also used to show off and beat Strider in one life at the arcade, although truth be told that game was just plain easy.

My great shame:

- I consistently lose to EVERYBODY, even newbs, in Soul Calibur 2. I dunno WHY I just don't get the rhythm of this fighting game -- I can guard impact almost perfectly, I know all of Cassandra's moves, but I just can NOT get a good sense of timing in it. It drives me NUTS. I must have some mental block going on, like when I used to rack up massive wins in SF2 back in the days of yore, only to have a newbie Blanka take me out almost every time. I had some weird thing when playing versus Blanka. FREAKY.

This is post of the week IMO. Doug, you rock!

--Dave